Ducking the Duckweed!

“The amount of contamination that plants can remove from aquatic environments depends on the amount and type of pollution, the plant species used, and the size of the floating wetlands.”                                 ~ Susan Cosier When I was a kid in Texas, we used to go out to farms and ranches owned by our dad’s clients. My […]

Am I Blue?

“Blue spaces are outdoor environments, either natural or manmade, that feature water prominently and are easily accessible to people. They can be anything from an ocean coastline, river, or lake, to a town pond, a harbor, or even a fountain. They are the aquatic equivalent of green spaces, a subset of the broader concept of […]

Ditching Grass

“The rejection of grass is also an ideological shift, towards an acceptance that ‘nature is its own decision-maker’ and that ‘we had better learn to live a little differently with finite resources of water’.” ~ William Francis Deverell, environmental historian A friend sent photos today of Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado […]

To Pee or Not to Pee

“By reusing something once flushed away, they say, they are taking a revolutionary step toward tackling the biodiversity and climate crises: Moving away from a system that constantly extracts and discards, toward a more circular economy that reuses and recycles in a continuous loop.”                                                 ~ Catrin Einhorn At some point in their lives, […]

Mud Slinging

With sea levels expected to rise 3 to 6 feet by the end of the century, coastal communities are moving fast to construct major shoreline projects to protect themselves. As the size of these projects expands, the primary building materials — dirt and mud — are getting scarce.                                                                                 ~ Lauren Sommer Mud puddles, muddy […]

Runoff

“A little water clears us of this deed.” ~ Lady Macbeth With the current loosening of restrictions on water quality and pollution discharges to streams and rivers, it’s worth thinking about what clean water actually means. We should all be familiar with the hydrologic cycle, where water evaporates into the atmosphere, condenses and falls to […]

Harmony of Nature

“In forty years of medical practice … I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.” ~ Dr. Oliver Sacks in Jones   We deal with stress and the hardships of everyday living in different ways. Some take a long walk in […]

How High’s the Water, Mama?

How high’s the water, Mama? Five feet high and risin’. How high’s the water, Papa? She said it’s five feet high and risin’. Well, the rails are washed out north of town. We gotta head for higher ground. We can’t come back till the water goes down, Five feet high and risin’ ~ Johnny Cash, […]

Not a Drop to Drink

“Government-backed research on watersheds in the U.S. provide a dire outlook for the future: population growth and climate change are likely to cause “serious water shortages” within the next 55 years, says the study.” ~ Renae Reints George Tsosie pulled up and nodded to me as he got out of his pickup at the watering […]

Water on the Brain

The creek that runs a block from my house is bordered by open space, parks and trails. It makes for a nice transition into our old neighborhood with its large trees and established landscaping. It also makes the neighborhood feel more relaxed — casual and friendly. We’ve known that the presence of vegetation in nearly […]