Doug and I each attended different lectures on mycorrhizae by Jeff Lowenfels at the MOSES Midwest Organic Farming Conference a few weeks ago, and we both felt Lowenfels’ talks on mycrorrhizal fungi were some of the best info we got at the conference. It’s sent me on a quest to […]
What would it feel like to be a tiny crab scuttling about at the bottom of a very shallow pond that is being filled with toxins? We should know. We are looking up through a very thin and increasing polluted layer of air — air that is getting rapidly hotter. […]
I listened to Dr. Don Waller, UW-Madison professor of botany and environmental studies and editor of “The Vanishing Present: Wisconsin’s Changing Lands, Waters, and Wildlife” give a presentation on long-term changes in Wisconsin forests last week as part of the UW-Arboretum Winter Lecture Series. He shifted my forest focus from […]
I have just read The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet by Heidi Cullen, and I want everyone to read it. I’ve been following climate change closely and writing about its local impact for a while now. (see my posts: 6 […]
The most e-mailed article in the NYT yesterday wasPaul Krugman’s “Who Cooked the Planet?” He calls 2010 the year in which all hope of action to limit climate change died, and notes that ironically the first half of this year has been the “hottest such stretch on record.” He blames […]
You can beat it, but don’t eat it You may have read that the root of wild parsnip is edible – and even sweet, after being exposed to cold. But don’t risk it. We are at war with this plant. It is armed and dangerous, and blatantly defies the Geneva […]
There is a low mist in the wood – It is a good day to study lichens Henry D. Thoreau January is Bark Appreciation Month. It’s the time when the earthy gray blue and ochre patches of lichen become vivid accent colors. Snowshoeing in Governor Dodge Park last Sunday, I […]
When we see the video of polar bears pacing on a shrinking ice flow, we feel both empathy for the poor brutes and relief that the warming poles and their grisly realities are a long way from us. I have been guilty of the smug feeling that, here in Wisconsin, […]
We raced to finish our greenhouse project before the ground froze and the snow fell. By last week the ground was frozen, and Wednesday the snow not only fell, it dumped. Wednesday the city of Madison was stopped in it’s tracks. With about 17 inches of snow and gusting wind, […]
Michael Pollan’s breakout book (and PBS special) Botany of Desire starts with the saga of the apple. He calls the apple as important as the axe and the plow to the pioneers. They were not valued as a sweet, crunchy snack but as liquid refreshment. Apples were the easiest source […]
Digging in the Driftless 