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 […]
The Pheasants are Messing With You (and the Coyotes, Too)
The Seasons of Fire and Water
Where water is, there is the absence of water. There is always water, hidden in life. There is never water hidden from life. Even in the absence of water, there is water. […]
Summer Poppies in the Okanagan
The rattles of summer! Westron Wind, when wilt thou blow, the small rain down can rain.
The Palette of Saskatoons Through the Year
Isn’t it very fine. There are the saskatoons of winter, with bark in a palette of rose and plum. Then there are the saskatoons of springtime. Look at their palette now! (This […]
If This is Not Autumn What Is It?
Spring. Autumn isn’t a season. It’s a mood within a cultural tradition, that views life as a flow out of the earth during certain degrees of tilt of its northern shoulder towards […]
In Praise of Great Basin Giant Rye Grass
It would be beautiful if we taught the children of the Okanagan and the Okanogan that in our country grass doesn’t compost and make food for worms. Actually, this is a story […]
Four Seasons at Once in the Valley
While the Okanogan and the Okanagan celebrate spring … … for some, really, the petals are withering away and it is early summer. For others it is fall. For yet others, it’s […]
Space: the Human Habitat
Snow looks white and cold. It looks like a cold carpet over the earth. That’s the way a mammal thinks. A mammal has built itself around its own stove. To the creatures […]
The Black Cherries of Winter
It is the time of year when colour leaves the valley. The red choke cherries of summer are black. The skies are grey. The sun we knew in summer is gone. This […]
The Ripest of Roses
Nootka roses are pink when they bloom and red when they ripen.The leaves ripen into orange and yellow. The canes ripen to purple. Even the yellow which we, as humans, see at this time of […]
