Ponderosa pines are not a species that likes to mingle with other tree species and communicate root to root. They prefer to stand out in the grass and wait for fire. Still, […]
Ponderosa Pine: Almost a Loner
The Artwork that is the Similkameen Valley
The cliff above Keremeos, which burned 2 years ago, is showing faces, long-hidden, watching over the valley. K-Mountain in Mid-Afternoon Light Not to mention a mysterious rock fall among the burn patterns. […]
Hunger: Climate Change in the Okanagan, 7
Here’s one of last year’s fawns looking thin as all get out. Well, yeah. Mule deer browse on willows and Douglas fir in the winter, out of the snow. Here, that means […]
Savannahs and Fire
The forests of the Basalt Sea are savannahs… … where grass and wood meet at the boundary between wet and dry. They are not forests. Forests are the Earth’s adaptation to a lack […]
Reading Trees
Every piece of the bark of a ponderosa pine fits together… and comes apart. It is a kind of hieroglyphic language — a special one, in which each word is unique and […]
Come to My Cascadia Show at the Kelowna Library, January 30th at 5:30 pm.
Cascadia: The Once and Future Utopia I’ve been hard at work, putting ten years of explorations of Cascadia into a beautiful presentation. It is an honour to be asked by Okanagan Express […]
Burn Baby Burn
The flicker perches in the flame. The damselfly survives the cold of September, extending summer, by perching on a rock that absorbs the flame. Humans hold the flame (of burning flicker trees) […]
Grassland Tours for the Okanagan?
Grass evolved to thrive in hot fire landscapes. Given that human activity has increased heat and fire … … across the planet … … shouldn’t we stop mowing grass and … … […]
Mountains Are a Form of Weather
I was formed by the water, soil and air of a mountain valley. One of the consequences is that, to me, the mountains are not “in” the sky, do not “block” the […]
When Trees are Weeds: Truth and Reconciliation from the Ground Up
Yesterday I started a meditation on classicism, and how the cultures within Canada have some choices, given German experience with the power, failure and abuse of classical models as a means of […]
