Apparently, one farmer believes this will keep the tricksters out. I don’t know whether to weep at his innocence or applaud his sense of determination and hope. This could be why coyotes […]
Coyote Laughs Once More
Communicating With Deer
Here’s the walking trail above the orchards west of my house in late winter. Notice how the path is as wide as a road, is packed down from human traffic, and is […]
Things Are, Well, Things
I’ve been exploring the writing of the 20th Century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who wrote peculiar philosophy that was simple in German and nonsensical in any other language, and even though it […]
Everybody Needs a Friend
This Macintosh apple tree at Splatsin is struggling out of an infection of Horsehair Canker, with her nurses: two currant bushes (you can spot the one behind). It’s harder to spot the […]
One Hundred Years
A hundred years ago, it was the modern fashion in the US Okanogan to train two trunks from every apple root, at a narrow angle to each other. The practice died out […]
Hazelnut-Cherry Hybrid
So, this is what you do. Plant a cherry tree. Leave it or fifty years. Over time, it is fifty feet high, and her daughters have formed a grove, around her. They […]
How People Learned to Stay Still: a Story Old and New
From many, one. From one, many. Just not all at once. Here is Siya? blooming: a cluster of white-petalled flowers catching the eye because so many are close together. Not all bloom […]
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 […]
Of Wine, War and Peace
Wine is largely made in laboratories. What is grown in the field is grapes. The result is a decreased ability for the plant to distribute potassium where needed. The additional remove of […]
A Test to See if You are Indigenous or Not
The Okanagan is an industrialized landscape. Note the cloned apple trees, the herbicide to kill weeds (80% of the available space), the poisonous fence posts, the wire supports to hold the trees […]
Okanagan Okanogan 