I had an unusual start in life. When the sky got like this at this time of year (and even darker at solstice), I was out pruning fruit trees, like this apple […]
The Best Hours of the Year
Dandelion Swan Song
Aren’t the orchards pretty in the springtime, with their quaint tractor wobble reminiscent of human fragility and everything? You, too, can achieve this effect on your own yard. These babies will […]
Apple Trees Wasting Water
It is said all the time how water efficient orchards have become with trickle irrigation. Maybe not. If these trees were fruiting in the low winter sun, they would only have apples […]
Respect Your Tools
You know, that ladder, made of aluminum, costs a couple hundred bucks, and represents rivers diverted to produce electricity, salmon extirpated, and native peoples stripped of identities and futures. One could, at […]
Porcupine’s Night Journey
High up on the hill… …Porcupine leaves his hideaway… … with a trudge trudge trudge… … in the middle of the night … … on both sides of the gully … … […]
Abuse of Government Funds in Okanagan Orchards
The price of industrialization is often hidden, but sometimes it’s out in the open. Here is a nursery within a new apple orchard. These trees would have been grafted under a government […]
How Caroling Became Line Dancing … and Beyond
Here’s a modern orchard, an enclosed space, a guard or garden, all full of fruit, from the late latin ortus, or, you got it, all together now, an orchard. The beauty of […]
Smoke on the Orchards Reveals Some Structural Weaknesses in Canadian Apple Growing
Smoke is filtering out the sun. The hot August days are as cool as a warm day in March. Orchards, already struggling with a world glut of fruit, as the empty land […]
Wooden People in the Similkameen
After forty-five years, a change of flavour! It was the only sunny day forecast for a week, so today was the day. Up at dawn, and a two hour drive, to be […]
Reality and Illusion in the Okanagan Valley
Here is a slideshow of some images from the web about orchards in my country. Here’s the reality. They’re not orchards. They are thickets. What do people actually want, though? Why, to camp […]
