Bureau Proposes Opening Up Utah Wilderness to Drilling

last weekend i spent a bright and sunny and beautiful weekend with a dear friend exploring petroglyphs in nine mile canyon in central eastern utah. the cultural heritage located is incredible and i wish more people coudl appreciate the canyon. then, today i read the following in the washington post. the canyon (a designated scenic byway and historical site), and adjacent desolation canyon will be up for drilling leases, to be sold by BLM. this makes me very sad. tuesday the list of leases will be posted and i plan on commenting! if you would like to see some of our american history and heritage preserved, i encourage you to comment too!

Bureau Proposes Opening Up Utah Wilderness to Drilling

desert sunrise

this song feels like it was written for a time in my life. it is sweet and beautiful and heartfelt. it was a wonderful time.

Desert Sunrise by Brett Dennen

A desert sunrise, you warm my soul
Painting me in shades of clay
Covering me whole
and I'm a lizard
Sunbathing in
Your radiance
So I crawl out of hiding
So sweet so sweet you are
If i could only have a taste
Wrap my lips around your flavor
Just because you are you
Just because you are
So beautiful

I've been waiting all this life in the company of one
And I know I am young, but I don't want to be alone
If you could only just consider the two of us
And I know darling I could be so good to you

I See you rising on the horizon
Bringing light into the day
And I'm coasting on your rays
When I awoke you spoke through the midst of a mystic bliss
Casting shadows on all my dismal yesterdays
Do you remember that you told me darling that I was so real
I tell you all my tears for you are real
We'll cross that bridge again someday
I know we will
I hope we will

Desert sunset a lullaby
If I could give it all to you
If you'd only let me try
Sing so sweetly
It's my only wish
Music drips from your lips like sweet sips of a summers kiss
Summer raindrops precious tongues twist

I've been waiting all this life in the company of one
And I know I am young, but I don't want to be alone
If you could only just consider the two of us
And I know darlin I could be so good to you

I See you risin' on the horizon
Bringin' light into the day
And I'm coastin' on your rays
When I awoke you spoke through the midst of a mystic bliss
Casting shadows on all my dismal yesterdays
Do you remember that you told me darlin that I was so real
I tell you all my tears for you are real
We'll cross that bridge again someday
I know we will
I hope we will

Desert moonrise into the night
Before we lay our heads I wish to walk under the splendorous starlight
Sing so sweetly
It's the sweetest sound
And I become weak in the knees
And I drop down and kiss the ground
And all my cares lie far below
In this earth I wish to die
In this heart my fire grows

Will Allen - MacArthur Foundation

Will Allen - MacArthur Foundation

peaches!

here we are, in the middle of september, the first day of fall come and gone. and, we are up to our necks in peaches. they are late this year and there was a bumper crop. i talked to a farmer yesterday adn he said they are doing all they can to sell or even give them away. they are going to rot on in the fields. to me this is a food tragedy. where can they go? why can't the school system buy these and feed fresh peaches to kids? why can't they be frozen for desserts later in the year? is there somethign i can do? ...as i try to brainstorm, and eat the peach on my desk, i'll listen to peaches for inspiration... this song reminds me of high school, driving around singing "millions of peaches, peaches for me, millions of peaches, peaches for free" and thinking about how wonderful that'd be. oh, how all dreams come true!



ps. and what's with a.) the peaches on the bamboo type tree and b.) the peach ninjas?

Xcel ditching 2 coal plants, going to solar : Energy

this is good news for those in colorado, and near the coal fired power plants previously operated by Xcel.

Xcel ditching 2 coal plants, going to solar : Energy : The Rocky Mountain News

back from the wet and lush NE

...i had a wonderful trip to the NE last week. and i can't wait to write about visiting friends living in intentional communities, exploring burlington, best friends in quebc city, discussing farm policies and local agriculture in french with old time family friends, and the rain, OH the RAIN. it felt all so good. but until i've got the chance to really sit down...i just wanted to post this picture i took in an IGA (big grocery store chain in quebec) parking lot. it loosley translates to "did you foget your eco-sack in your car." as in don't forget to bring your own bag into the store. quebec loves fads, the people there embrace them (everything from mahogany hair to painting kitchens grey and pink to making colorful plywood butterflies to attach to the exterior of the house...we've seen all these and many more fully embraced over the time we've spent there.) and it's inspiring to see all these people embracing the go-green movement so wholeheartedly!

time for large scale conservation

woot-woot...there have been some wonderful examples of large scale land conservation happening in the past month. in florida the state has made a bid to buy property from big sugar to work on protecting the everglades, a group of conservation organizations have made agreements to buy and conserve property in montana over the next few years, and in in ontario a huge swath of borel forest will be protected. i appreciate land conservation on any scale, a few acres can make a big difference to a community in the right place, but there is something so impressive about the large scale projects. partially because the large parcels of private land are becoming fewer and farther in between, and partially because, once in a while, conservationists can actually apply some of the theories behind landscape scale ecology...looking at ecosystem level projects. these opportunities come up rarely, and will get rarer as time goes on, so i am excited to see large scale conservation happening, right now, and those further down the line will hopefully get to appreciate and benefit from the foresight of those making these landscape scale projects happen.

(of course, i also recognize that some of these projects, especially those with the various logging companies are only happening because of the recent economic downturn-lowered real estate values-decreased housing market-decreased new construction...thus a hurting logging industry... but it's a great opportunity for conservation, we've got to take advantage of these situations as they come up!)

The Canadian Press: Ont. premier pledges to preserve giant swath of northern boreal forest

Florida to Buy Sugar Maker in Bid to Restore Everglades - NYTimes.com

Rocky Mountain land deal tops $500 million - Environment- msnbc.com

what we all deserve

a woman on our board came in and told us she had the best story for us. her in-laws just passed away, within 5 days of eachother. in their mid 90's they had been married for 72 years. when the wife passed, her husband gave up and passed on a few short days later. i realized that, there is probably nothing else as wonderful in the world as knowing for 72 years that you are with a person you love, so real, so true, so honestly. we all deserve to be loved that way.

local forages

a few weeks ago i wandered around my neighborhood picking mulberries. tons of mulberries. i came home and put them in the fridge and ate a few here and there and then was too busy to do anything with them before they molded BUT, i felt that at least i had given the little free fruits a chance at a second life, rather than them lying on sidewalks, getting trampled and sworn at by people who's yards they came from. it makes me feel terrible to see fruit go to waste, uneaten by it's owners or the neighborhood birds and squirrels.

i wonder if this comes from a childhood of foraging. i remember picking pomelos and avacados and mangos from neighbors' trees and gathering coconuts on the beach in hawaii as a kid. and of course the summers were filled with picking fresh fiddle heads from ditches and forested streams, wild strawberries in roadside fields, raspberries from abandonded rockpiles, blueberries in the forest company owned bogs (which had a kind of guerrilla feeling to it like "hey-big logging company that tried to rape this area of all the trees and vegetation, look at all these magnificent blueberries you left. you missed out, big time!"), and tagging along with my parents as my dad collected hundreds of cutting and suckers from abandonded heritage apple trees while my mom dug up chunks of the perennial flower beds remaining from farm houses long gone.

so, i was so excited to find these two links, and find that i am not alone. both of these talk are groups that have attempted to map out fruit trees in public spaces that others can pick. the first one, fallenfruit, is based in LA (i cna just imagine the wonderful fruits there!) and has done some maps in other parts of the country. the second one, a group based in portland, actually maps the trees and schedules group harvests where 1/2 the fruit goes home with the volunteers and the other half goes to community food banks. what a wonderful use of this naturally occuring food! (the only thing is to be cautious of sprays that the owners or the city applies to the fruit...other than that, gather away!)

http://www.fallenfruit.org

http://portlandfruit.org/WebPages/About.html

dare

over two years ago, i was eating a dove promise. the exta dark kind, with the smooth foil wrapper. the quote inside read, simply "Dare to love completely." and it resonated. and i cut it out and taped it on my monitor. and i tried to love as completely as i could. and i did. and i do. and i will again.

and today i looked up and consciously saw that quote for the first time in months. and it resonated. again.

summertime

it's been a long, long, cold winter. not to say it wasn't filled with fun snow filled sports, and lots of time spent with family and friends and newfound love. but it was long and cold. and somewhere in there i became too distracted and too uninspired to post anything. but summer is here, (or will be in 3 days) and i'm feeling the rush of energy that comes with all this daylight. and i am feeling grounded and steady and at the same time the energy of the sun is pulling me up towards the sky, leafing, branching, stretching.

and yay, do i love summertime!!! eventhough we no longer get summer vacations, it's still feels different. maybe it's because the days are longer, maybe because i don't have to stress about not-speeding through school zones on my way to work, maybe it's because i can hear kids playing at the pool from my house, maybe it's because the festivals start up in the mountains, maybe it's because it's so hot out, maybe it's because farmers' markets pop up. whatever the reason, i love it.

and i am reaching up and out and fully embracing this season. this world. this life.