Monday, 17 December 2007
Reaching back several years into the archives, I took this photo in the Northland on this day of the year. RM pointed out the face to me, and I thought the old maple might not survive too much longer, so I committed a digital version to iPhoto’s storage, although the light was rather un-helpful.
You do see the face, right?
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
I have just passing contact with various aspects of Southeastern historic archaeology, but it seems to me if I were to brush up on domestic residential complexes, I would learn more about cisterns. Yet, I’ve never seen a modern house with a cistern in these parts (although I’m sure there must be at least a few out there). Despite the current precipitation record, it hasn’t stopped raining around here, so we must instead have undergone a revolution in how we obtain water—and switched to deep, drilled wells, and community water systems (also relying on drilled wells).
I listen mostly to NPR streaming on WUNC, and I am now hearing a friendly voice in the station’s cut-in telling me how to catch in a bucket the water that flows out of my showerhead while I’m waiting for it to get hot, so I can use that water productively.
The last time I did that consistently was when I visited rural Alaska years and years ago, where the tundra meant a water truck brought water (no buried pipes) and the honey wagon came by for the other “product.”
Even in Oaxaca, where the water truck is called the pipa, we didn’t catch the shower water, although I always wondered why. Maybe ’cause that water was pretty cheap (from our standard of living, but not, of course, for all), relatively speaking? After all, we purchased drinking water separately from the pipa water….
The other piece of our typical household water system that bypasses conservation measures, of course, is the ignored greywater, but I’ve already ranted a bit about that….
Air quality is of concern, without a doubt, but water is the show-stopper. Remember all those Roman aqueducts? The oases here and there across the globe? The explorers’ stories that recorded where the springs and “sweetwater” were to be found? The terraces and irrigation and flood control structures? Water is where it’s at in human survival. I’ve examined environmental concerns from every angle, and I come back to this….
So, although Google announced they’re investing in developing renewable energy sources (they started their philanthropy aimed at improving peoples’ health, and then saw that affordable, renewable energy underlies that problem), I keep thinking potable water, and water for living and food, is a poorly addressed limited non-renewable commodity. Or something….
cistern
—tank for storing water: also, reservoir, container, butt (in the sense of a cask, a container for wine, ale, or water, possibly etymologically related to “bottle”)
…from Latin cisterna, from cista ‘box.’
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Left: ginko. Middle: some kind of maple (probably ornamental). Right: some kind of oak (I think).
Just a gorgeous, gorgeous fall day….
Monday, 5 November 2007
As a kid I visited Indiana Dunes (and similar areas along the southeast Lake Michigan coastline), and I have only the vaguest memories of piles of sand. Recently, I read Gary Paul Nabhan’s Cultures of Habitat—definitely recommended reading. Among other things, he discusses growing up in this area and wandering the dune ecosystem. This, he thinks, is part of why he became an ethnobotanist….
Even overcast and windy, I found the place enchanting.
PS Also recommended: Nabhan’s The Desert Smells Like Rain, about the Tohono O’odham people of the Sonoran desert. The lovely, evocative title is from a comment made by a youngster.
Monday, 29 October 2007
A long time ago I noticed this circular pattern to fungi adhering to rocks, but this is the first time I’ve realized that they desiccate (age? die?) from the inside outward.
Sunday, 28 October 2007
I usually forget to tuck ID books into the car when we take off on an outdoor exploration, yet it bothers me to see a plant, flower, or whatever strikes my curiosity and be unable to identify it. Instead of contemplating collecting a leaf or sample, the technique The Botanist taught me, these days I take a picture.
Of course, more often than not, I neglect to find the time to actually do the ID later.
This, from a dry ridgecrest in eastern piedmont Georgia, however, is I think a red maple, Acer rubrum.
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Late yesterday I heard from Cousin M, who had been up at the Farm, that the lower right window in this view of the porch from last summer had been broken. By a raptor. Dead on the bed, left.
Thanks, M & D, for fixing the window for the winter!
Monday, 22 October 2007
…in which life returns to its normal patterns, with the addition on my desk of a new oversized (for me) screen.
Wait. Not normal. It’s raining here in ATL!
And way not normal: relatives (by marriage) are evacuated and even closer relatives are awaiting possible evacuation orders in the San Diego area. Too bad the LA-oriented national news is covering Malibu over SD—where something like 300,000 people (yes, well over a quarter of a million) are staying in the homes of relatives, friends or strangers, bunking at hotels, and even Qualcomm Stadium.
Saturday, 13 October 2007
It’s not often that a recovering clearcut can provide lovely eye-candy. We found this wee lakelet along the PCT (yes, again!) not far from Snoqualmie Pass on National Forest Lands (your tax dollars at work).
We hiked up (very slowly, thankfully, paced by a trooper 3 1/2 year old with his own backpack) and got views of snow-dusted peaks in the distance, well above the treeline. We found lots of ’shrooms, many past their peak, and even a few blue- and huckleberries, also not quite at their best.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Overnight, we kept our window open to temper the heat of our room. [Old hotels; you know the drill.]
5 am: Through the cracked window all I could hear was night-silence.
5:45 am: Rain sounds begin. Drip drip.
7:00 am: Rain has turned to snow.
7:45 am: Slow-drifting snow flakes are huge (shown above).
8:30 am: We descend below the snowline, about 10 minutes below the Lodge parking lot.