There is a beautiful, simple understanding of plants: they have roots, stems, branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, in various combinations, but grape vines, like all the rest, are understood to grow from […]
Reversing the Water Flow in Vineyards
Race and Apples 10: A Positive Future
This is the tenth of a series on race and apples in Northern Cascadia and the stresses this racial past places on food security and affordability, land access and environmental resilience. I […]
If We Went to the Water?
I mean, instead of bringing it to town? What if every house, or community, had to care for water. Currently, water is removed from almost all its streams and wetlands in the […]
Reducing Climate Risk in the Okanagan 5: Collect Water in Place
The practice of collecting water in the mountains, delivering it to cities and farms in the valley bottom, and then emptying recycled water into the lakes is placing us at climate risk, […]
If You Lose the Water, You Lose the Land
Lichen is a colonizer. It eats rock and releases minerals that other plants can use. Most of the lichen on the stone below has died. It’s a good chance to see the […]
Roman Gardens in the Suburban Okanagan
Do you see a storm sewer This wild lettuce sees a future. Welcome to the qanat, the underground river drawing itself from stone, that the Romans spread across the Sahara and the […]
Catching the Rain
Imagine, catching the rain. I’ve spent a year getting ready to do just that. Over the last month, my system of downpipes, pipes, siphons (to go uphill, yay, very important) and barrels […]
Keeping Water
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 […]
Our Children Have the Right to Be Raised by a Living Environment
Abstraction can be our enemy. Even concrete is better for the planet… … than this stuff. Nothing Growing in this Abandoned Pile of “Composted” mulch Every dandelion knows that. Conservation of water […]
The Role of Poetry in Industrial Development
I showed you some beautiful patterns that poetry was able to read from natural processes. Here are some further patterns, that extend them into useful manipulations. Notice that these, too, are not […]
Okanagan Okanogan 