Category Archives: the land

Forget Me Not PCT (from section M)

Back to the PCT, after seven months absence. These from section L, still very much in the Sierras, north of Donner Pass. Area is lower and less spectacular than Yosemite or the Minarets or comparable high mountain ranges, around 8,000 feet, but still has the beauty particular to these mountains, of granite, clear water, pines and snowContinue reading “Forget Me Not PCT (from section M)”

Stay on Trail: Jordan Fisher Smith on our Nat’l Parks Bday

Jordan Fisher Smith, who has an excellent new book out called Engineering Eden, (on the challenge of managing wild bears in places like Yellowstone and Yosemite), brings his experience as a naturalist, a ranger, and a writer to bear on the meaning of our parks in an essay in the author’s on-line magazine Signature Reads.Continue reading “Stay on Trail: Jordan Fisher Smith on our Nat’l Parks Bday”

Trump denies drought exists in California

The Donald, as he is known in tabloid reporting in New York, told Californians that their drought doesn’t exist. It’s not a problem, it’s just a government snafu. From USA Today: California suffered one of its driest years in 2015. And last year the state hit its driest four-year period on record. But Donald TrumpContinue reading “Trump denies drought exists in California”

Ventura County opposes backyard bee-keeping: Ojai fights back

Sorry I’ve been quiet: too many deadlines. Good news is that I have a number of stories to post, big and small, and so let me catch up please. Here’s a story about a surprising fact. Ventura County, which annually grosses two billion dollars in agricultural revenue, discourages backyard bee-keeping. Even though nationally bees andContinue reading “Ventura County opposes backyard bee-keeping: Ojai fights back”

What I Wanted (was winter)

That’s my interpretation of the basic meaning in a poem from Tracy Herd via Poetry Daily: What I Wanted was such a plump, bountiful landscape of snow, more than I’d ever dared wish for. That was back when we had proper winters, long ago, when lawns and driveways vanished: there were no boundaries. Fences, walls,Continue reading “What I Wanted (was winter)”

When will we start to see ice sheet disintegration?

James Hansen has published hundreds of scientific papers in his long and distinguished career as “the father of climate change awareness,” as described in The Guardian. With a team he published another one this morning, but this one is different. For one, although Hansen organized the effort, he is one of a team of 18 expertsContinue reading “When will we start to see ice sheet disintegration?”

Here comes the super-hot summer of 2016

This year has been off the charts hot. Lots of graphics to that point: The February heat anomaly this year [as charted by NOAA] is scary to me. Already we are in the fifth year of drought, which has only slightly lessened, and not at all in central SoCal. And now models pointed are callingContinue reading “Here comes the super-hot summer of 2016”

Thinking about wildness in CA: Daniel Duane

Daniel Duane first came across my media screen last summer with a spectacular essay in the NYTimes Sunday Review — My Dark California Dream — in which he thought through some of the problems that have hit California lately, from wildfire to drought to traffic to the devastation of sea life off our shores. ButContinue reading “Thinking about wildness in CA: Daniel Duane”

Bee-loving in Ojai — for good reason

To report now and again for a small town newspaper means documenting something that happened or is happening in a small town, but sometimes what at first seems purely local turns out to be much bigger — even international in scope. From the Ojai Valley News: A move is under way in Ojai to loosen restrictionsContinue reading “Bee-loving in Ojai — for good reason”