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Life and Death on Route 395: Water Wars, Baby Birds and a Crashed Harley

July 1, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Storm over the White Mountains, 6/6/15

I awoke the morning of my 46th birthday on top of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Not immediately on top of it – it was buried at a depth of at least 25 feet in this spot – but just a few steps from our parked van it was exposed by a service shaft: an open concrete box lidded with a thick grate. Standing over it, I could hear the roar of water being sucked southwards by the thirsty urban monster 100 miles away. Down the hill from my vantage point, the giant metal drinking straw of the aqueduct’s pipe emerged from the soil, spanned the dry creek below, and thrust itself back into the ground of the opposite slope. Another service shaft stuck up out of the hilltop above it, just like the one in front of me.

The Romans made far more elegant structures for the same purpose, but I marveled at the feat of engineering laid before (and underneath and behind) me. I wondered about the degree of angle it employed in order to run slightly downhill over such a long distance. I looked in vain for any sign of the tremendous excavation that must of taken place. Or did they bore a tunnel? If so, that must have been a big powerful machine. The engineering feats of the 20th Century are a wonder to behold for their sheer scale and complexity. The long-term costs of these projects, though, have not been so wonderful.

Breakfasts with the White-Tailed Sand & Seed Lovers

June 21, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Mrs. Stubbs (Ammospermophilus leucurus), eating sunflower seeds

Mrs. Stubbs, eating sunflower seeds

While in Joshua Tree, California, this Spring, we met a delightful animal whose scientific name, Ammospermophilus leucurus, literally translates as “white-tailed sand and seed lover”. Commonly known as the White-Tailed Antelope Ground Squirrel, this creature is native to the southwestern U.S.A. and Baja California, Mexico. Although they are technically squirrels, because of their small size we couldn’t help but to think of them as “chipmunks” and to call them “chippees.”

The first one who started showing up by the door when we went outside had a shorter-than-usual tail from a past injury and a plump-ish matronly shape, so we named her “Mrs. Stubbs.”
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Ecosystems At Risk, #1: The Belly Plants of the Pebble Plains

April 18, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

A tiny geological treasure can be found in the San Bernadino Mountains of southern California: the “Pebble Plains.” Located near the famous ski town of Big Bear Lake, this 92 square-mile area exhibits a soil type found nowhere else in the world, a combination of clay and quartz fragments left behind by a glacier lake that existed during the Pleistocene Era. Over the last 10,000 years, these ingredients have been subject to repeated swelling and shrinking from the freezes at that altitude (6000-7500 feet) and the sun’s heat at that latitude (34° North), resulting in a unique composition.

Tiny botanical treasures are also found there, collectively called, “Belly Plants” because they are so small you have to get down on your belly to see them. About a dozen of these plant species are found nowhere else in the world, having evolved there in isolation, adapting to the unique soil.

Like many other ecosystems worldwide, this one is at risk from the effects of Climate Change.
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Refugees Without Legs: How Climate Change Leaves No Room for “Invasive Species” Theory

March 14, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Common Holly (Ilex species)

In the Summer of 2012, I met a Shoshone-trained elder named Finisia Medrano. (The story of that meeting is told in “Postcard from Eastern Oregon: When Planting Food is Illegal”). She has spent decades following the routes and practices of the ancient migratory “Hoop” of the Great Basin Native Americans, harvesting and cultivating wild food seasonally. In so doing, she has safeguarded vanishing knowledge and made invaluable observations of the ecosystems in an area spanning several states. Over that time she has witnessed the undeniable effects of Climate Change.

“Refugees without legs:” this is the phrase Finisia uses to describe the status of many species of native plants which were traditional staple foods for indigenous Americans that are now threatened in their current ecosystems by the effects of Climate Change. Temperature extremes, atypical rainfall patterns, and disturbances in seasonal patterns are all taking a tangible toll, disrupting cycles of sprout, flower, seed and root growth which had been stable for millenia. And at a rate that is fast and getting faster. Finisia insists that if these plants are going to survive – as viable species and as food sources – that they will need to be relocated to different areas, further north and/or to higher elevations, and that people will need to do the relocating. We, humans, have made them refugees, and we, humans, must be their legs so they can flee. The speed of Climate Change has already outpaced the ability of plants to migrate on their own as they might have in response to previous, more gradual shifts.

“Refugees without Legs”: This phrase, and its implicit call to action, has been rattling around in my head since I first heard Finisia use it. Indeed, humans have induced Climate Change, and I agree that with that culpability comes responsibility. Creatures are suffering who had no role in the destruction we are wreaking. If we are going to attempt to mitigate the change that has already occurred and try to prevent further change – as daunting as these tasks are – then what we must change first is our own minds; we need to adopt new ideas and practices, and discard those that have become irrelevant and counter-productive. One such idea and practice that we must now reject is that of so-called “Invasive Species.”

Postcard From Eastern Oregon: When planting food is illegal

March 14, 2015 by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

[Originally published on Energy Bulletin, September 2012]
This Spring my farming partners and I found ourselves landless. For the past eight years, we had been actively exploring a variety of forms and practices of small-scale agriculture and restoration, including bicycle-based urban farming, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), plant-breeding and seed-saving, staple crops (grains, legumes and oilseeds) and the cultivation and processing of medicinal herbs (no, not pot). Last year I wrote an article, “Who Will Feed The People?”, discussing the challenges to small-scale agriculture in the United States, such as lack of equipment, knowledge, financial resources, and markets; the polluted wasteland left behind by conventional farming; increasingly volatile and unpredictable weather patterns brought by Climate Change; and, last but not least, the social barriers: people of the U.S. are by and large uninterested in significant changes to the socio-economic status quo, and resist cutting edge projects. It was the social factor — which can and did embody a profound hostility to Truth — that brought down our own farming efforts, at least for now.

With sadness and anger, we put our tools and seeds in storage, found foster homes for our perennial medicinals, and raised traveling cash by selling our home (a school bus) and an old but reliable Volvo. After tearfully parting with our beloved farm cat, two of us hit the road in an old pickup to see what we could see.

This journey took us to Eastern Oregon to seek out Finisia Medrano, a.k.a. “Tranny Granny”, a Shoshone-trained elder who knows the ways of “The Hoop”, an ancient tradition of food gathering and cultivation that sustained the Native Americans and the land in good health for thousands of years until being violently disrupted by the European Invasion. The Hoop is not dead but, as we were to see, is severely threatened.
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