My first interview on ecological sustainability is with my sister Judy Damery Parrish, Chair of the Biology Department at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. She is a passionate teacher who loves the earth with fierceness, reflected in here. What is your background and how did you come to ecology? I grew up on a farm and spent many… Read more »
Category: General
Fallow and Storms
Fallow and Storms Winter fallow, grey day. Clouds press down, a storm predicted this afternoon, tonight, all day tomorrow. Promises of great quantities. Ramon rushes the rain, pruning vines. He will finish today, four weeks of pruning, no need this month to worry about keeping vine cuts dry. (We spray BD 501 when there is… Read more »
Russian River: All Rivers
The Russian River is a great, lazy serpent in the summer. Her lovely green body curves through redwoods and vineyards, through open meadows and old tourist resorts, on her way to Jenner and the Pacific. I raised my sons well into their elementary years on that river. We learned her many moods: her rushing insistence in the… Read more »
Climate Change and Protecting Valley Oaks
January 31: Valley oak leaves catch dawn's light.
Climate Change and Protecting Valley Oaks We mark the seasonal data in a small notebook that I keep on an altar table in our home: first milkmaid of the year, first Valley oak leaves, the day the upper pond fills, first shooting star wildflower, first blue-eyed grass—and so on. First milkmaid: January 5, 2005; January… Read more »
In Search of a Land Ethic: The Grand Coalition
On Tuesday afternoon, January 20, 2015, The Grand Coalition of Napa County met. Fifty of us sat around a square assemblage of tables representing ten citizen groups who have been addressing land use issues in Napa County over these last years. Some have formed non-profits which hired experts and attorneys to address some of the developing problems… Read more »
Crystallization Time: January 15-February 15
Crystallization Time: January 15-February 15 We have entered the crystallization period, January 15 to February 15, that time the fallowness of the earth allows most receptivity to the cosmic forces. It is also a time I use intention to be receptive to forces within myself as well as spiritual forces without. In our fast moving… Read more »
Comments to the Planning Commission, January 7, 2015
Comments to the Planning Commission, January 7, 2015 To the uneducated eye, it may look like a good place for vines. But in fact, it is a vital part of an oak savanna and watershed. Yesterday a number of our neighbors went before the Napa Valley Planning Commission to voice our concerns about the incursion… Read more »
Epiphany: the Gift of the Three Kings
Casey spraying along the perimeter of our ranch this morning.
Epiphany: the Gift of the Three Kings Today is Epiphany, the day the three kings arrived to visit the Christ child. Each Epiphany we do a gift spray around the perimeter of our property, a distance and ruggedness that we seldom encounter. This involves not only the gift spray, but two before it of an… Read more »
Land Use in the Napa Valley and Consciousness
Solstice Sunrise. May the oak savanna survive.
Land Use in the Napa Valley and Consciousness It is the end of a season and of a year, and we in the Napa Valley are hardly in a sleepy, midwinter’s night space! Land use issues are reaching a boiling point, heated up by the drought and water scarcity, and the decreasing amount of land… Read more »
Rain and the Stories of Water
The old wagon trail over the ridge into Pickle Canyon
Rain and the Stories of Water The rain comes as they predicted: heavy at times and persistent throughout the night and into the morning. Bad night for the driveway! The trails run like waterways, the ditches like creeks, water rushing down, down, gathering in the ravine and rushing on to Dry Creek and Napa River…. Read more »
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