Choke cherries doing fine. Without irrigation. And before you think, Oh, a Weed, think again. Okanagan Spirits can’t make their Kirsch Virgiana until someone delivers 2.5 tons of these things to their […]
It’s Not As Hot As You Might Think
Choke Cherry Mystery
The choke cherries, those that remain from July’s crop, are softening, ripening and turning sweet with the cold. That is the work of temperature, bacteria and yeast. Look, more closely, though: Is […]
The Art of Fall Medicine
Choke cherries have long been used to heal respiratory ailments, by drying inflamed tissues. One might as well say that in the fall, choke cherry goes black, with black leaves, black fruit […]
A Teacher of Post Settlement Language
The name’s inadequate: Choke Cherry. Wild cherry. And “cherry”? Etymologically it might be from a lost language in Asia Minor. But, really, come on, it is a vocalization of the movement you […]
Who Can Take the Cold, or Is It Really Climate Change?
Here’s the Vineyard at the Rise, frozen with grapes on the vine. And here is the picking team. And the administration… I’m all for feeding the birds, but it would have been […]
How Wide is a Mule Deer’s Mouth?
A deer has been eating my plums. I didn’t think to get out there with a tape measure to get an exact measurement. I was too busy shooing her away. But it […]
Plants Always Stare Into the Sun
They just don’t see in colour. Darkness, what’s it to them? What’s it to us? Everything? Do we look into the light to see its boundary with darkness? Plants react to […]
The Pleasures of Winter
The pleasures of winter are born in spring and harvested in Autumn. Then comes memory, and then the old year again in a new form. Choke Cherries in September, Big Bar Lake […]
Good Ideas Bear Repeating
Choke cherry. Starry False Solomon’s Seal. Only one is a tree.
Porcupine the Gardener
Some people just can’t help gardening. Take the local porcupines, for instance. They love to chaw down on the pile of cull apples a farmer dumps at the top part of his property, […]
