We exceeded the valley’s population carrying capacity 25 years ago. Our issue is water. You’d think it would limit human population expansion, but humans are socially clever and limit social access to […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 14: Plant Tech
The Mystery of Surfaces
Do surfaces have edges? Or do edges have surfaces? Is an edge the limit to a surface? Is a surface the space between two edges, that is given substance because the edges […]
Unexplored Technology
The earth is a rotary engine. Pinegrass and Interior Douglas Fir Its electrodes are alive. Great Basin Giant Rye Here are the batteries. Siya? Let’s live. Cat Mint Let’s risk that.
The Okanagan Meets Its Salad and Lemons Go Away to Cry
Remember my green grapes? That tasted, I promised, like lemons? Because until they turn colour, grapes are little suns made out of citric acid —so, like lemons, right? Well, I picked some. Those […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 12: Beauty and the Bees
When the big (failed) subdivision was put in on the slope above my house, the road fill was seeded with blue bunch wheatgrass, the signature grass of this grassland. Slowly some big […]
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 10: 24 Apple Pies
We know who makes the best summer apple pies. Here she is, the summer pie maker. She was born in Russia 220 years ago. Look how young she looks in my garden. Here […]
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 […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 8: Give the Children Water
Schools aren’t classrooms. Classrooms are courses within schools. Putting children in classrooms teaches them about classification and abstraction, how to think in groups and how to put their words into sentences. It is […]
Okanagan Okanogan 