Plant a maple tree. Plant it beside a road. Roads collect water. Roads shed water. Ditches, which line roads, collect water. Or maybe they’re just barren spaces, and just for show and […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 13: Public Hardwood Lumber Woodlots
It’s Chamomile Time in the Okanagan
Time for tea. Mmmm! Mysteriously, the limestone solidifying in the quarry spring is the same colour. Fantastic!
Living in the Air
These are clouds. Just a bit of Okanagan bedrock, yes, but, yes, clods , or clouds. Here are some more clouds, or clods, clots and thickenings. Just a few clouds torn by […]
The Okanagan Meets Its Salad and Lemons Go Away to Cry
Remember my green grapes? That tasted, I promised, like lemons? Because until they turn colour, grapes are little suns made out of citric acid —so, like lemons, right? Well, I picked some. Those […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 10: 24 Apple Pies
We know who makes the best summer apple pies. Here she is, the summer pie maker. She was born in Russia 220 years ago. Look how young she looks in my garden. Here […]
Light and Shadow Weaving the Land
Isn’t it fine to climb out of the sedges of the wetlands … … and the bunchgrasses of the drylands just above them… … into the pine grass high up …. … […]
Camouflage is the Wrong Word
Camouflage is the military art of concealment. As a word it has been back-engineered to apply to the actions of animals, like the toad below. The toad is not concealing itself, though. […]
Sustaining the Okanagan 9: 1 Hour, 42 Jars
Keep your eyes open. Oregon Grape, Okanagan Lake Shore Ripe when the stems turn red. Spend an hour. Go to the kitchen. Soon you will have 30 Jars of jelly and 12 […]
The Great Divide and the Great Gift
Here’s where the grasslands divide in two. The river in the foreground is the Shuswap. That water flows into the Thompson, which flows into the Fraser, which flows into the Salish Sea […]
Giving the Children Water: The Bigger Educational Picture
Last night, I wrote about the benefits of environmental transformation that could come through the simple mechanism of attaching a wetland to every school in the Okanagan. It’s worth elaborating on, because […]
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