No matter what you’re using it for or who you are, British Columbian law states that any water licensed by the government must be put to “beneficial use.” What does that mean? […]
18. Water, Slavery, War and Peace in the Similkameen
Climate Change in the North Okanagan
Human induced climate change is real, and its hurting humans, societies and the Earth. A lot of it is the result of atmospheric carbon. That’s the story that my city, Vernon, is […]
Gardens for the Grand Kids: an Organic Model for Slow Release Fertilizer in a Post-Petroleum World
Compost requires labour and tillage. In other words, it is a renewable input. It is one that mimics natural processes, or interjects materials into them. I guess it is a bit like […]
Maybe Everything’s Not Quite Right with the World, But It’s No Reason to Lie
When I was a boy, back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, Okanagan Lake was as clean as a bottle of Nestlé Water. Not now. Back in the day, you could drink […]
Dramatic Okanagan Weather
Some of it is urban off-gassing. Ouch. You can see thin blue exhaust over the lake in the distance, wafting north from Kelowna, and more of it in Shorts Creek Canyon in […]
What is this Red Stuff in the Lake?
This is the shore of Okanagan Lake in Vernon. I’ve never seen it this colour before. It doesn’t look good, though. Normally, it’s the colour of ground-up granite, which around here is […]
Rebuilding Sustainability 4: The Sagebrush Catalyst
With a few changes in environmental legislation in the current weed desert in which we plant houses in the catastrophically failing Okanagan grasslands, we can live in a land of plenty instead […]
Building the Land With Flowers. Really.
Welcome to the 21st century! In this century, we’ve finally learned that a grassland is nothing without flowers. Here’s why: That’s right, bees, 500 kinds of wild bees and wasps that live […]
New Land Use Regulations for Okanagan Grassland Communities
Communities include grass and flowers, animals, insects, birds, trees, water, gravity, people, sun, rock, dust, soil and wind. Each contributes to maintaining a community balance. ANew communities built in the grasslands need […]
What Comes After the Fire?
Well, deer. Here’s what all that looked like a few days after the fire 9 1/2 years ago. The image below shows that fire retardant stopped the fire. Note the red chemical […]
Okanagan Okanogan 