In the November sun, the mullein’s hairs soften its outline in the light. They hold the plant’s water and keep it from the sun. They keep it. In the December fog, the […]
Keeping Water
How to Deal with Climate Change
When winter approaches, you can just leave. Or, you can leave your old stalks up in the sky to gather the snow. Or to spread seed. Of course, you can also hide […]
The Tides Wash Over Turtle Mountain
When plants left the sea for the air… … they didn’t. We live in an intertidal zone. Ah, here comes the first breaker of the tide now… Here’s the surf rolling East […]
Hair is Great Stuff: A Coiffure Guide for a Day in the Grass
Look at this stag horn sumac, hairy as all get out… hairy through the winter to reflect the winter sun and prevent scald and drying out … …and hairy in the […]
Self-Planting Regime, No Shovel Required!
Where water collects, so does the wind. That means, that elm seeds can collect in the dry season where water will collect later, without using water to do so. Footprints are also […]
When Rainforest Trees Wander Over the Mountains
West of the mountains, Western Red Cedar bends with the wind and grows tall in the rain forests. East of the mountains, she bends with the snow and takes her sweet time. […]
Every Mound of Grass is a Greenhouse
I live in an exotic landscape on a planet whirling through solar space, in which every greenhouse has a heating system pointed straight at the sun, to melt water and get things […]
Fall Rain in the Grasslands
So, it rains, right. 35 centimetres of snow have already melted. Now the rain. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. And the sun. Melting stuff, even through the clouds of rain. So, […]
A New Twist on Playing Dead
Last year’s stalks are pretty, but what life is left in them beyond that? Well… just look at their calyxes, all shrivelled and black, like perching spiders. Spiders who will bring death […]
Big Ears for Big Sagebrush
The Big Sage blossoms with its scrubby flower stalks in the fall. There’s not great colour in them, but they do stick way up high. I’ve wondered about that often, with thoughts […]
