Well, this is a first. Oregano that has decided to go feral. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t look as burnable, in the short term, as this bunchgrass… … and about the same as […]
Fighting Fire With Weeds
Cattle are Burning Down British Columbia
Yes, they are. There’s a strange, elite idea that cattle grazing in forests and on grasslands is an efficient use of the land, and then we turn around and spend hundreds of […]
A Walk in Nature
In the Okanagan, trails are wide. That way, people can use them as exercise routes. The idea is to get out into nature. More practically, the invasive weeds thrive so well that […]
What We Need More Than Fences
Fence posts. Sincerely, your friend, California Quail.
The Strange Little Man of the North Okanagan
A small white explorer discovering a vast, unknown land. And staying in that moment forever, while below him, people camp out in the remains of a wetland squeezed now between two highways. […]
Settler Culture = Terroir
Here’s the grape terroir in the Similkameen Valley. That’s right. There are no grape plants. They would die here. Should one plant them (and someone has across the road behind us), one […]
Let’s Cancel Christmas
I mean, really. A holiday that sees people putting spiritual wreathes on their doors, made out of the woven limbs of bushes in a prayer for coming spring, that sees them tossed […]
It’s Either Wine or Sunflowers, Eh
The expanding social competition among vintners to be super-elite seems to be at blame. This will be one of the few balsam roots you’ll see this year above Okanagan Landing, some 5,000 […]
The Lesson of the Starlings: How to Be a Good Member of a Flock
As the starlings show, it’s not necessary that everybody do the same thing at the same time. You’re still a member of the flock. Even distance from each other is negotiable. There […]
Whole Worlds Hidden from the Settler Gaze
Under the snow, it’s spring. Under stone, it’s the same. Where the sun intensifies and molten water collects, it’s spring. This is when the rock is mined for nutrients that feed the […]
Okanagan Okanogan 