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
Green Water: Long Term Water Storage
Ah, the blue leaves of Autumn! Yellow Pond Trail, Big Bar Lake The powdery mildew taking over these stalks, could be called an instance of disease, but since it’s species specific it’s […]
Sagebrush Shares Her Water and Builds a World
Have a look at this sage brush: Like all plants, she gathers most of her water from the top surface of the soil, where it is most quickly lost to the dry […]
Dryland Wetland: Holding Water in Plain Sight
Every year 383 millimetres of water fall on this stretch of the Thompson River. Every year 383 millimetres of water fall on this land above it. That’s a third of a metre. That’s […]
Nitrogen Dispersal Protocols for Environmentally Friendly Farming
The farm below solves the problem of nitrogen run-off cleverly. It grows plants that are so nitrogen hungry that they deplete the soil, while any remaining nitrogen is trucked away, to be […]
An Agricultural Run-off Solution That Doesn’t Foul Wetlands and Beaches
Wetlands are used in 21st century Canadian society to absorb nitrogen run-off from agriculture, to purify run-off from roads and sidewalks, to strip winter street snow of its road salt (my city […]
Green Water Doing its Green Thing
Blue water pours freely under the sun, white water rushes with gravity, grey water is polluted by human use, black water is water that could be there, according to the capacity of […]
Vertical Lakes, Subsoil Dams and the Bear’s Cold Storage
There was forty centimetres of snow on this draw a couple weeks ago. Don’t think it’s all gone. The shade on the south western slope is keeping it damp in the soil, […]
The Cost of Nature
This is tourism. The image below shows the price of tourism. Hey, the water had to come from somewhere, eh. The myth of Canada is that we can have it all, that […]
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 […]
