What if farmers started working with ants the way they do with bees? Would not farming become both herding and the development of the greatest possible ecological diversity? Would that not reverse a great […]
Microfarming
Spring is Way Too Early
The choke cherries are waiting for the bear to come. Not all of them, though. The tent caterpillars had their way with many of them in July. Ate all the leaves away, […]
Little Bear in the Kinnikinnick
This spring cub is about to meet its first winter. First, berries. There are a couple of species of “bear berries” in our mountains in the Northwest, but these sparse ones are the […]
Just Like Feeding Grain to Chickens!
Lichen: 400,000,000 years of two-species partnership and counting. Fir needles: 280,000,000 years and counting. That’s a gap of 120,000,000 years, when lichens got their acids from rocks, rather than from trees, which […]
Wild Crafting 101
To find currants in the crowded foliage of midsummer, just be there in the fall, long after the berries have gone to the birds. You’ll know where they are. Wild crafters know […]
Good Ideas Bear Repeating
Choke cherry. Starry False Solomon’s Seal. Only one is a tree.
Dig a Hole to Save the World
That’s it. That’s all you have to do. This hole was left here unintentionally eight years ago. It’s a nice wetland now, in the midst of a sterile gravel pit. See the smoke […]
What Exactly IS Global Warming Anyway
The earth is warming, globally. There are many factors for this warming, including carbon emissions, methane emissions and urbanization (which changes light absorption patterns), among others, likely even including long-term non-human cycles, but […]
Weeds at Work
Say hi to Queen Anne’s Lace. It is listed as a noxious weed. I mean, try grazing a cow in this pasture. Still, who defines these things? Not the lettuce […]
Native and Settler Apples on the North West Pacific Shore
Welcome to the fuscas! Malus Fusca: Pacific Crab 110% of life size. Here’s a domestic apple, descended from Caucasian stock, for comparison. Liberty (Macoun X Purdue 54-12; Geneva, New York, 1955) 40% […]
Okanagan Okanogan 