Two years ago, a mama bear taught her cub how to find grubs at Big Bar Lake, by knocking the cap off this old tree carcass. This year, as a two-year-old kicked […]
Bear Going Nowhere
The Thing About Abstract Art
It isn’t abstract. Concrete Forms of Water, Mass, Gravity and Light Nice work by the raindrops, eh! “Abstraction” is just a cultural term, signifying a preference to live within a certain group of […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 18: Truth and Reconciliation Through Indigenous Selfhood
Five days ago, I found a psychological diagram attached to a dropped hand-out for the truth and reconciliation process for creating healthy selves in adults who had suffered personal or cultural violence during Canada’s residential […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 16: Let’s Get Syrian
This is one of a series of posts on creating sustainability in the Okanagan/Okanogan, a valley between the Monashee, Okanagan and Pasayten Ranges in north western North America. This valley, and the […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 15: Time for Thyme!
We don’t need lawn. Or gravel. But what about thyme? No mowing. No watering. The thyme below is just growing at the side of the road. Flowers for the bees! Something for the […]
The Hamlet Syndrome
Private land is not land. To illustrate that, here’s some private property, degraded from a grassland supporting a few hundred people to a weed land for about three cows, for about three […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 13: Public Hardwood Lumber Woodlots
Plant a maple tree. Plant it beside a road. Roads collect water. Roads shed water. Ditches, which line roads, collect water. Or maybe they’re just barren spaces, and just for show and […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 11: Weaving Water to Combat Desertification
I know, I know, Chinese elms are a weed. They grow well here, though. Their flowers feed spring birds. In turn, those flowers have a zillion seeds … … and pop up […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 9: 1 Hour, 42 Jars
Keep your eyes open. Oregon Grape, Okanagan Lake Shore Ripe when the stems turn red. Spend an hour. Go to the kitchen. Soon you will have 30 Jars of jelly and 12 […]
Giving the Children Water: The Bigger Educational Picture
Last night, I wrote about the benefits of environmental transformation that could come through the simple mechanism of attaching a wetland to every school in the Okanagan. It’s worth elaborating on, because […]
Okanagan Okanogan 