Arrow-Leafed balsam root (smúkwaʔxn) has her private moments. Here, she is bringing a crop of suns out of the earth. Smúkwaʔxn has her public moments, too. The suns are mature a couple days […]
The Many Faces of Smúkwaʔxn, or The Birth of the Sun
Climate, Wild Harvest and Human Life as Environments
More important as a food crop than the pretty yellow bell lily … …is desert parsley. She’s cream-coloured… … with short flower stalks, or tall ones… … or purple, when still half-closed… […]
The First Petal of the First Blossom of the Sun
It’s a good day for arrow-leafed balsam roots. They have come fast (in two days). If you hurry, there’s still time for some fine steamed sprouts. Their menthol flavour is not yet […]
Rising With the Trees
On the grasslands of the Similkameen, where the mountains are the sky, one forgets, at times, to pay attention to distance, but here is a reminder. Notice the remnants of a lakebed […]
Invasive Weeds Are Beautiful
I think weeds get a bad rap. I’ve never seen native plants pull this off. Beautiful, really. Enough to inspire for an entire year. Even invasive weeds, like knapweed. Maybe it’s not […]
Big Sagebrush is Soooooo Bossy
See the deer trails to the left of the bluff in the middle of the image? Here’s some more, 500 metres to the right. They look like slumping patterns on the hill, […]
Magpie and Porcupine and the Moon in the Grassland
Here’s a lovely correspondence. First, the magpie nest. Well, two nests. Lovely wooden moons in the trees. And then the porcupine in a mountain ash in a dry creaked high on the […]
The Three Bodies of Song Sparrow Singing Away
The whole idea of separating life into a taxonomy of species misses connection. A little water, some sage brush hills, a lone siya? and some Douglas firs peaking over from the Head […]
A Simple Thing We Can All Do to Start Repairing the Earth in 2019
Let’s say you want a device that will quickly catch snow, turn it to water and catch it, without power. Let’s say you don’t have a big roof you can use. Something […]
Slow Glaciers, Cows, Deer, Lichen and Poetry Making a New Hydrology Together
A mysterious rock near the top of the hill. Here’s the hill in the smoke last fall. Looks dry, huh. We’re going up to the top of the bare patch at the […]
Okanagan Okanogan 