When harvest season starts in the snow in late February, with crops planted in mid-August the year before, the valley’s true seasons reveal themselves quite simply. Spring, for instance, took place in […]
Summer Draws to a Close in the Okanagan
Wild Currants are Ready
What I love about Pacific wild currants is that they taste as dry as the land on a hot day. Their sweetness is pale and their juice minimal, and yet if you […]
Evolution in Action
Not all invasive species are trouble. When the land is stripped of life and turned into dust, cheatgrass and sagebrush, the swallowtails seek out alfalfa that has escaped from nearby farms. Western […]
Fate, Race and Populism in the Third Reich and Cascadia, Part 5 of 5
For a week now, I’ve been presenting a view of how time and land have a social dimension. Sometimes Being Social Means Backing Away That was my yesterday. Today, I will conclude […]
Fate Race and Populism in the Third Reich and Cascadia – Part 3 of 5
Two days ago, I took you to the Nimiipu’u and Yakama homelands, to show you the oldest inhabited region in the Americas, as an introduction to a discussion of fate and time […]
Okanagan Native Orach
Here’s some native orach growing wild on the hill. Later in the year, it will be weed-whacked, as usual. I’m going to collect some seeds. Enjoying those June rains! Here’s some red […]
The Universe Underfoot
The mysteries of the universe are not mysterious. They tell their stories far and wide. Look at the infertile serviceberry fruits dropped for the mice on the deer and coyote trail up […]
Big Black Bee
It’s a safe bet that this grassland bee didn’t evolve to harvest dandelion nectar. I’d say it’s improvising because its host is absent. A sitting duck for birds, too. Perhaps, though, it […]
Erosion and Johnny Appleseed
One more time with the positive effects of erosion, just for fun. Back in October 2015, I walked up the hill to see what I could see, with an apple in my […]
Erosion Can be a Healing Force
The abandoned gravel pit. Note the erosion. Note how the rock is sorted down slope around a nascent stream channel. The clays have settled out of the water below where the land […]
Okanagan Okanogan 