The hen walks in the open, keeping her eye on you. Her chick passes through the grass, within her burbling call of warning. Without boundaries that manipulate the hidden and revealed and […]
Outliers in a Web of Interwoven Worlds
The arrow-leafed balsam root is a great world for crab spiders, wasps, flies and bees, and blooms across the hills in the spring, one of the few native plants that can resist […]
How to Ask a Question of the Earth (and how to hear the answer)
Let’s be practical. Things are what they are. If you ask a question of the earth, you need to place something in the earth. It will answer, according to what you have […]
Thinking With the Balsam Roots as they Flower
The way to merge with the Earth for improved thinking is both obvious and hidden, and that depends on who you are. A standard way in contemporary Western culture is to make […]
Who Is the Smart One Now?
Balance, that’s the thing. The deer eat the buds of Siya? in the winter, as they hang down nice and low. This nibbling stiffens the branch and forces it up and out […]
Cascadia, Illahie, and La langue de nos mères
Here is the Similkameen Valley in The British Columbia. This is the land that holds me, and which made me, just below the foreground slope (Mount Kobau). Just behind it is the […]
When the Snow is the Sky
Ah, so beautiful. Warming and cooling and sun shining through the ice, melting it from below under its icy skin, have made a beautiful thing, neither winter nor spring but both. Pretty […]
The Pheasants are Messing With You (and the Coyotes, Too)
Check out this ring-necked pheasant sneaking away from me through the sagebrush and wild roses. What a guy. But what an environment! We know pheasants mostly by their habit of bolting at […]
A Practical Experiment in Applied Grassland Meandering
We had an inspiring discussion in Kelowna the other night. https://okanaganokanogan.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=35870&action=edit One of the things that came out of it was a conversation on the work being done to bring back the […]
Qanats for the Okanagan
Late afternoon in the grasslands. November. Light’s almost gone. Cloud everywhere. Nothing much to look at here. Zzzz. Or, maybe there is. Have a look just down the trail. The guys building […]

