Ah, so green, right? So full of life! Not so great in the grasslands, really. The green is a sign of nitrogen uptake, and this is the season of lichens… They draw […]
Starvation in the Okanagan
Is This a Hermit Thrush?
News Flash: this is a rock wren, two readers have told me. Very cool. Well, my birding friends, what do you think? It was a little shy, a little friendly, and has […]
Naked Wasp Nest
Now, haven’t the yellow jackets been busy under the protective sagebrush. No need for a protective paper shell, well, until the earth trickles away. Sagebrush is such a great host, drawing up […]
A Little Dictionary of Water
Here’s a little experiment to explore what we talk about when we talk about water and how connected to the Earth and Water English really is. The root of “water”, “wet”, is […]
After the Fire, A Little Global Cooling
Far from the fires of summer and fed by the torrential rains of November, the lichens are in their full glory right now. Worldwide, lichens take as much carbon out of the […]
Can We Even See Water?
In a way, yes. It’s a camera that sees as precisely as this, concentrating on light. It picks up patterns. Intriguingly, we do have to look at the patterns and see what […]
Move Over Mount Fuji
Terrace Mountain has a new lagoon on the lake, to reflect in. If this were a mature culture, there would be pilgrimages.
Talking Water
Isn’t this the turtle of the world, carrying a pearl? Isn’t this a drop of rain speaking a drop of rain? Here’s a turtle without a pearl. Sometimes drops flock. Saskatoons are […]
Hiding in Plain Sight
Garter snakes know how to do it. Mariposa Lily seeds do it. Water knows how to do it, too. In each case, appearances are deceiving, as an obvious thing is revealed (a […]
A Crop Unpicked, A Chance Missed, An Opportunity Awaiting
At first, at Antlers’ Beach this afternoon, that old salmon, deer and berry camp midway up the western shore of Okanagan Lake, I thought, where are the birds? The birds that could […]
Okanagan Okanogan 