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
What is Thinking?
Is contemplation, preparation, memory and readiness thinking, like this: or is it something that comes before muscular action, which it holds in readiness, like this: Note that the muscles are visibly sculpted. […]
The Tree Whisperer: My New Book on the Poetry of Tree Pruning
This is a beautiful book, that holds 51 years of my personal tree pruning experience, and a few thousand years of ancestral experience behind it. This hand-made book is just out from […]
Whose Land is This, Then?
Here’s the shore of Okanagan Lake in Vernon. Everything between the creek in the middle of the image and the green lawn in the foreground is part of Priest Valley Indian Reserve […]
Fail and Fail Again: Okanagan Architectural Blooper, Part 3
This is not good! In January, I knocked on the door of this house and suggested they had a problem. Here’s the problem from around this time last year, before it got […]
The Human Bias in Narratives About Climate Change
We are a curious bunch. We create groups through social interaction, but otherwise run around independently of each other and of the stuff we run around on, and when that running is […]
When is Climate Change Not?
So, here’s a change that’s been ongoing for some twenty years now: aspen leaves getting hollowed out by leaf miners, which aren’t getting killed off by cold winters. One sees a lot […]
Want an Apple? The State of Orcharding in the Okanagan Valley, Part 2
Here’s one. This is an orchard sprayer filling station in Okanagan Falls. The plywood appears to be so you can get off the tractor without stepping in the guck while going back […]
Beyond Truth and Reconciliation
Let’s put this simply. It’s about land and water. And about the life force interwoven with them. And how people interweave with that. Interweaving is not just about commercial potential. Here’s my […]
Truth and Reconciliation and Humility
Three years ago, I sat with a Secwepemc elder and a couple young Secwepemc men near Yellow Pond below, in Stswecem’c Xgat’tem territory. We talked about a lot of things, including traditional land […]
Okanagan Okanogan 