We are all grieving, for people lost, lives damaged, and a beautiful town vanished from Cascadia. The scorching temperatures in Lytton this last week, and the horrible loss of the entire town […]
Global Warming in Lytton, A Long View
Life and Death and Cottonwoods on the Similkameen River
Rivers flood. It’s one of the things they do. They’re pretty good at it. The Similkameen River, with a minimum flow of 65 cubic feet per second at Nighthawk, an average flow […]
Climate Change in the North Okanagan 6: A Tale of Two Orchards
This is an old apple tree. The government has paid for it to be replaced. Best read that again. The government has paid to have almost all of these trees replaced. Up […]
Climate Resilience 3: Self-Fertilizing and Self-Watering Islands
That’s right, islands in the grass. They’re not just sitting there. They are creating nitrogen and releasing minerals from the rock into a form that plants can use. In fact, instead of […]
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 […]
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 […]
What Vineyard Culture Can Teach Canadians about Drugs
The topsoil and subsoil of a stretch of land can be removed by truck and then replaced in a state that mixes subsoil clay and topsoil together, or just clay on top […]
Settler Culture Going for Broke
Landscaping is hard work. The name says it all: land + scoop, the Old Norse word for fate, the shape one makes of a life by work, the scoop that drains a […]
The Six Lessons Of Water and House Building in the Grasslands
Houses in this grassland subdivision are coming in around $1,000,000 dollars these days. I expect this one on the edge of stream bed is little different. Water has some lessons in store […]
Fixer Upper in the Okanagan
With a little love, it could be a home again. The idea is that species like Western Bluebirds … … will maintain their presence in a grassland if bird houses are erected […]
