It would be nice to think of water soaking into the soil, and all that ground below us being recharged with rain and draining down to the lake and cycling around. The […]
The Dry Dry Earth of Home
Happy New Year to You As We Surf Among the Blue Herons
There are a series of giant stone heads laid along the east coast of Vancouver Island just north of the Salish Sea. As the new year comes in, they are great for […]
Qanats for the Okanagan
Late afternoon in the grasslands. November. Light’s almost gone. Cloud everywhere. Nothing much to look at here. Zzzz. Or, maybe there is. Have a look just down the trail. The guys building […]
The Power of Names and Stories
Take this (no name, please)… See that rock in back there? That’s this (below, centre of image, again no name, please.): Now, look at the name it is unofficially known by (Sorry. […]
Practical Ways to Re-Indigenize the Grasslands. Really.
Two days ago, I suggested that the former grassland hillsides of the Okanagan Valley (now large, private expanses of unproductive and water-wasting weeds), an area at least equal to the 100s of […]
The Salt-Loving Bees of the Okanagan’s Glacial Rivers
When glaciers lay in the valley, rivers ran along the side of the ice, high up, 170 metres above today’s shore. They tell a tale still of eddies, currents, and washed-out and […]
How The Sun Makes Rich Soil
It’s simply beautiful how it is done. First, water sorts out the finest grains of silt, and deposits them on the surface of low points in the earth, filling them in. Then […]
The Centre of the Earth
The cinder cone is gone, but the bones of the land remain. This is my city, Vernon, viewed from its northeast rim. In the center left of the image is the old […]
The Beautiful Angles of the Grassland, or Baby, We Love You for More than Your Curves
Those of us who talk about grasslands, talk about their rounded curves a lot. Hey, Glaciers, thanks for that. This is a land held in tension against wind and light, using opposition […]
The Troll’s Toad
I was writing a week ago how the stone in the Basalt Sea where I live breaks apart along fracture lines that reveal, over and over again, faces. For some reason, stone […]
Okanagan Okanogan 