When the bank falls away, big sage shows her roots. Look at that: no great fussiness, just a few roots sinking down deep in a narrow column. These roots are easily twice […]
Sagebrush’s Generosity
The Gift Culture of the Grasslands
Flax is beautiful. The seeds grow heavy and lower the seed to the ground. Mice eat the seed there. And then it lifts up again, through the snow! These aren’t seeds that […]
Gravity Engines
Rocks aren’t all born alike. Here’s one from an old glacial river running along the ice that once filled this valley. Note what a light snowfall has done here. The stone has […]
A Bold Young One
A young buck strolls along the canal trail in the fog. Then down to some human fruit trees and tasty shrubberies. There’s a gathering of does a kilometre away and the older […]
Grassland Bycatch
Bycatch is all that stuff in the sea that deserves its own life, is caught when fishers are trying to snag something or other, and is thrown back overboard dead. It’s a […]
Irrigation the Other Way
Rather than pumps and pipes and all those expensive systems, why not just lay out the land in flats and catch the snow? Because the effects are short-lived? Well, then amplify them. […]
Rototilling 101
First, plant some flowers. Watch them grow. Nice, eh! Bees will burrow into the soil and lay their eggs. Nicer yet! Voles will come and root around, as voles will do. By […]
If You Lose the Water, You Lose the Land
Lichen is a colonizer. It eats rock and releases minerals that other plants can use. Most of the lichen on the stone below has died. It’s a good chance to see the […]
Spring Begins for the Saskatoons
Sure, there’s snow, and some Saskatoon buds are closed tightly… … but others are not. The one below is on the same bush, but out in the sun, and hormonally a little […]
Bunch Grass Doesn’t Stabilize Slopes
Blue bunch wheatgrass has been used to stabilize slopes in The Rise subdivision here in Vernon. The goal was to do so in an environmentally-friendly manner, to compensate for irreplaceable habitat lost […]
Okanagan Okanogan 