Top Ten Things You Can Do for the Environment

It's the time of year for top-ten lists.  Here's mine:

1. Grow a garden.  Yes, you.  This has finally started to turn up on a few lists, long overdue, but it's usually way too far down the list.  Don't have a bit of land?  (Are you sure?  Think small, even a planter or a window box.)  Help a friend.  Get a community garden plot, and again, maybe go together with a friend on this.  The most important tip for a beginning gardener: start small.  It might seem insignificant, but you will be surprised at what you can produce.  And transportation of fresh produce is a big part of our ecological footprint, so a successful small beginning at gardening may have just as much impact as any other green project you could do. 
2. Take up hunting or fishing.  Yes, you.  Yes, kill something.  Do it close to home, and you will have to learn about the natural habitats of your own area, where they are, what sustains them, and what threatens them.  They need you.
3. Eat what you kill.
4. Eat smaller portions of meat: a piece about the size of your palm and the thickness of your pinkie finger is plenty, even with all that vigorous gardening and hunting you will be doing.
5. If your hunting and fishing doesn't fill your reduced meat needs, look for domestic meats that are grown locally in harmony with the natural habitats you learned about in #2.  In my area, that means range-fed beef, which uses self-guided cow-power to harvest and fertilize natural grassland instead of plowing it up and using fossil fuels to cultivate and fertilize grain crops.
6. If, after all this new recharge time you are spending in your garden, on the trail of a deer, or on the water with your fishing rod, you still feel the need for a holiday from your life, take it close to home.  Check out nearby parks, festivals, galleries - try your local tourism agency if you need ideas.  Try something different: a bike tour, or paddling lessons; a retreat to learn about the enneagram; a music camp where you can learn to play an instrument.
7. Buy less, but when you do buy, spend more.  Buy quality, to last a lifetime.  Help the economy shrink back so it fits within the biosphere instead of mining the Earth.
8. When giving gifts, show your caring through the time and thought you put in, instead of the dollars.  In my family, for the last couple of years, CHRISTMAS stands for Consumeable (or Cookies), Homemade, Recycled (if you're not using it much but someone else would, why not?)... and I have been trying to extend the acronym to include Indirect (a gift to charity), and then the rest of the letters make an excuse for buying something Specific to that person and Terrifically Magically Awesomely Spectacular... such as the lightweight plastic trombone we found for my Mom to help her continue marching in parades well into her 70s.
9. Don't have time for all this?  Do it anyway, and with the money you save, quit working.  Give up that second income, or the overtime.  Change jobs if you need to.  Take back your life.
10. Tell your local political representatives what you are doing, and why.  Destroy their argument that we can't make changes because the public won't change.  Change, and show them.

Lake Arcola 2011

My not-quite-annual picture of the "lake" in town, close to its peak (I believe) on April 12th, when I just happened to be in town to go with James to the music festival. He thoroughly impressed me at that, with a lively clarinet solo and a lilting duet with a flute player from the next town.

On the way home from the festival, we had to drive through water flowing over the highway between Arcola and Carlyle. I've never seen it flood there before.

The water in Arcola was very high as well, but I think it might have something to do with the new culvert they put in where there used to be a drainage ditch across a vacant lot. Now there is a very long culvert with a house on top, and that culvert just doesn't seem to be doing the same job that the ditch did.

Parsnip - unedited

Remember "Rootabigga"? I think this root is actually bigger. Mom and Dad have a great garden on a spot where they used to feed cattle. That fertile soil combined with the non-stop rain this year produced some sensational parsnips (and carrots, and beets, and lettuce that kept producing all season instead of bolting in July).

The boy is definitely bigger. In about a year he went from shortest in the family to tallest. I don't think there was anything special about growing conditions that year; it was simply time to grow.

I don't find the Olympics hopeful...

What if the athletes had to get to the games under their own power?

What if they played on whatever snowy slope or frozen lake was available?

What if people came to play instead of to watch?

In response to all this Olympic striving:

Life is not about being best.

It is about being you.

Daylight on the Bus Route

When I was in high school, I played the clarinet in "Division Band," which was a wind ensemble composed of students from schools all across the Arcola School Division. Or was it the Arcola School Unit? I remember something about Unit 10, and the office was actually in Arcola, housed in the old Land Titles Office, a wonderfully solid brick building with a brass elevation marker in the yard. The building has since housed a museum and gift shop, and more recently the offices of a trucking company. The school division has become much larger. Back then, though, we would wait after school on Monday for a bus coming from Stoughton and picking us up on the way through to Carlyle for band rehearsal. To fill the time and tide us over, we always had a bit of allowance money to go downtown to Chan's Cafe for a chocolate bar or a little bag of chips. Chan's Cafe stands vacant now, and my daughter works next door in the new "Michael's Cafe and Bakery." She played in Division Band for a while, but the bus was no more, and my understanding is that the band itself fizzled out a few years ago.

Little snapshots of memory remain, not of the music itself, but of scenes: our instruments in their cases waiting on the sidewalk by the gym; an older student silhouetted oddly in the hallway during a break; my favourite conductor Mr. Patterson's smile. We did get a standing ovation at one concert, for our performance of the William Tell Overture. But what I remember most was that particular Monday each winter when we would come out of rehearsal for the bus trip home and find that it was not yet dark out.

Back then it took a week's change for it to be noticeable, but back then I wasn't the bus driver with the watch. These days on my morning run to the school, I notice the difference in the sky from one day to the next, as I turn south or east toward the sunrise: how much brighter it is than when I passed this spot the day before.

Earthiness

I wonder if the acupuncture addiction treatment that Madcap was talking about could cure whatever keeps drawing me back to the ivory tower. She gave me a belly-laugh today, with a devilish edge to it. Please do go look at her definition of fundament. (Yes, before you read the rest of this.)

I just checked Merriam Webster online, and found her definition under #2, but #1 is intriguing: "an underlying ground, theory, or principle" - and oh, #3 could get me going: "the part of a land surface that has not been altered by human activities."

I am back home on the farm, for now at least, but my perceptual apparatus is tuned to the academic, the literary, the textual.

"Dirt is so 20th century," declares the slogan on the box Mom and Dad brought back from the city yesterday. I declared that I could write a deep analytical essay about all the societal attitudes and assumptions wrapped up in that slogan. Inside the box is Mom's Christmas present, an AeroGarden. I have been teasing her mercilessly, but I can appreciate her desire to have "her own" lettuce in February. And maybe the saving in trips to the grocery store in town would justify the spending on plastic baglet strips of precisely formed nutrient pellets. I just think I would rather use dirt, thanks.

Not that I have ever actually gotten around to it.

I was getting closer, when I (well, we) got those big windows put in. All I had to do was to get the construction debris out from under them and a shelf of pots in its place. Even one little shelf. Or table or stack of boxes or board on sawhorses or whatever. Something to hold the dear little green things (and their pots of dirt) up in the sunlight.

But now the sunny house is sheltering my kids and their father while I wander forth and not quite back, forth to further schooling, and now back to school-bus driving and seeking more lucrative short-term endeavours as a way of hovering nearby to be a little more present for those kids. Most dear, they are, and not nearly so little, but still needing me a bit closer for a while, or so I like to think.

I have been "home" since Christmas, all for the sake of the kids, but so far I have spent very little time with them. When I am not driving the school bus (cancelled for today because of the windchill), or chasing leads on employment and accommodations in town (closer to the kids), or attempting to impose some order on the debris of piles and boxes that one might (mistakenly) represent as my "roots" (though I would sure like to put them securely down somewhere), I am reading and musing and catching myself staring at some little phrase that captures my mind. Or sometimes I am just staring out the window at the sparkling frost on the winter-dried native grasses and wildflowers standing up through the snow. And thinking about something entirely different. I am sure it was a thesis topic, a fine one, but it's gone now.

There will be another. Or the same one disguised in another grand-sounding phrasing.

Yes, I am thinking theses. Further degrees. Yes, I am actually thinking about a PhD.

Of course, I am aware of the clever little wordplay that starts with a barnyard interpretation of the initials B.S. (ignoring the "c" in my B.Sc.), proceeds through M.S. (more, and never mind that mine was an M.A.) and concludes with the initials for "Pile Higher and Deeper."

Manure is good.

Although maybe not so good when too much of it is piled up in one place . . .

Not Forwarded but Shared

...because I refuse to forward such things but the prayer speaks to me deeply right now. It's not so much a prayer as a benediction, I'm thinking...

Saint Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be confident knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

Over to the Dark Side

Confession time. Oh all you homeschooling hard working real living friends of mine, please forgive me. I have applied to go back to school (again) and study (still more) to be a high school science teacher.

I figure it this way: I dabbled in growing my own food and making my home less dependent on gas and electricity and so on, but I didn't go far enough, and I didn't succeed in bringing my family along with me. Our kids seem to want fairly conventional careers - although Ruth is fascinated with "tiny homes" and may study architectural technology - so it doesn't matter how many vegetables I can grow in the back yard, when they will be needing money for tuition and accommodations. The marriage breakdown adds another layer of formal obligation, too, since the legal people will be looking at whatever agreements we come up with to see whether the children are provided for adequately (and I am sure they will be looking at dollar signs, not bushels of food). This teaching program is the fastest way I can see to get back onto a fairly lucrative career track while still making use of my science background, being able to work in my home area, and being able to cultivate a little more ecological awareness. I know, walk the walk. Well, at least I will have late afternoons and July and August for gardening.

Bring It On

Nobody ever told me that divorce is hell
until I made up my mind
and then I heard it twice in a week.

Well thanks for the advice but
how the hell do you know?

I have a saying for you too.

A change is as good as a rest.

The Path Leads On

I'm trying another little step here, to see if this blogging path is still right for me.  I have been keeping my head down for a while, wanting to sort things out for myself away from the din of other voices, other labels.  That and being very busy with a bunch of business that is nobody else's business, thank you.  Sure, I've still been up to lots of interesting remodeling and such, but that's not the stuff that rattles around my mind and demands to be written.

One thing that did get written was a song (surprise!), and in a circumspect way, it says something about where I've been.

The Path Leads On
© 2009 Laura Herman

Here's a hand
to help you back onto your feet.
Take my arm for awhile;
take my shoulder if you need it;
but once you're steady,
once you're ready,
the next step is yours...

The path leads on
from wherever you have fallen.
The path leads on;
it's a winding, narrow way.
There is no place
too far, too wrong:
starting just where you are,
the path leads on.

Here you are.
I know you think you should be there,
high above all of this,
and you're sinking in despair, oh,
but while you're hurting,
while you're searching,
you are on the way...

The path leads on
from wherever you have fallen.
The path leads on;
it's a winding, narrow way.
There is no place
too far, too wrong:
starting just where you are,
the path leads on.

Being "on the straight and narrow" -
what a sad, mistaken notion!
He said "strait is the gate" -
like Gibraltar to the ocean:
a narrow way that leads
to life
where your heart
and your horizons
open wide... open wide...

The path leads on
from wherever you have fallen.
The path leads on;
it's a winding, narrow way.
There is no place
too far, too wrong, too gone:
starting just where you are,
the path leads on.

Cultivating Our Roots

My Mom has published a beautiful book:



She wrote it from the perspective of a retiring seed grower, which means it can give the impression of a technical manual for a very narrow audience, but don't be fooled. I say, if you live in my ecoregion, you need to see this book.

Even if you will never grow anything, you might want to get acquainted with these plants. Consider this: they're your neighbours. They were here before you were, and likely will be long after. They might all look like "just grass" to you, but once you take a closer look, you may be astounded at the diversity in a tiny patch of unbroken prairie.

But here's the tricky part. Have you ever looked at a grassland in early June or late August and tried to find pictures in a field guide to match what you are seeing on the ground? Good luck. If you or anyone you know wants to learn to recognize some of the most common grasses and wildflowers of the mixed-grass prairies in the northern plains of North America, I say: start with this book. There are excellent photographs of multiple life stages of each plant, so you stand a good chance of recognizing your leafy new friend throughout the growing season - even when it's not so leafy. You won't have to wade through pages of obscure plants that you will never see, because there are only 62 wildflowers and 22 grasses included - only the most common species plus a few uniquely interesting species like buffalograss (rare in our region but common farther south in the short-grass prairie). As you learn the plants, you can also learn to recognize similarities among species in the same plant family, since the book is organized by families and includes identifying characteristics for each. That way, when you meet a plant that isn't introduced in the book, you may well be able to say, "You look familiar - aren't you related to..." and all of a sudden you will have a nodding acquaintance with hundreds of species.

And of course, if you want to actually grow these plants, whether as a seed business or just as a minimal-input alternative to a thirsty hungry lawn, you could benefit from the tips on planning and preparing a site, the illustrations to show you how your plants will look (even as seedlings so you can tell what not to weed out of your plot), the germination information, and tips and pictures to help you collect your own seed to get started.

I used to do inventories of the plant life on proposed oil and gas well sites. I worked with numerous floras and field guides, and through struggle and persistence, reached a point where I can look at most common prairie plants and just know them, no matter how small or shrivelled. But when I first started, and even in recent years when I was working very early in the growing season, I wish I had had this book.

Oh and did I mention that it's beautiful? People here were buying copies as Mother's Day gifts, just for the pictures of the their mothers' favourite flowers.

Yes, I'm proud of my Mom.

The Solar Thaw

I have been watching the south-facing snow banks along the street, wondering when the snow would begin to melt back wherever dust and dirt catches the sun. Today was the first sign of it this year. I think it takes a certain combination of sun angle, sunny days, and air temperature, so the date varies.  I have a picture of an advanced stage of the thaw from March 15th, three years ago,  here.

Winter Severe Weather

I tap the digits of the long-distance number and wait, half listening, for the point in the menu where I can press 4 for our region and 3 for our forecast. My mind tunes out the random clip advertising other services, but the echo of that voice returns at moments through the day: "Winter Severe Weather..."

In this land, this week,
severe weather is a violent stillness
creeping inward to the places where life
huddles
curling protectively around its own spark
waiting, hoping to last
until rescue.

Lasting until rescue, and knowing some will not, is a grim reality of life in this land. Small wonder that Connie Kaldor sings, "I come from a land that is harsh and unforgiving..." and tells the story of one who "tried to walk and froze to death, fifty feet from town." Sometimes summer too drains life away: again Connie sings of those still standing, stony faced with survivor guilt, "hoping to hold on so you don't end up like the neighbours: him and her, they're weeping as the auctioneer yells."

In a gentler song of springtime, Ian Tyson recalls the names of his neighbours and their ranches, where each in turn is pictured "pulling calves," helping with the birthing and rejoicing that they "made it through another on the northern range." In the last line of the song, though, he brings to mind the name of one more rancher, one who has pulled calves for the last time: "Gid's in the country where the tall grass grows..."

Annie Gardenbed's Song

Your world is good for me
and so I give you thanks
for soil and seasons, seeds and sun,
for water and wisdom and work to be done.
Your world is good for me
(Annie Gardenbed) -
Amen!

This work by Laura Herman is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Sorry about the Noncommercial break, but I wanted Disney's
legal hordes to know that I'm not trying to profit by this.

Your world.
I don't say who "you" is, but there is no need. I am singing to one who is present, listening; why use a name? It would only drag us off into arguments about the connotations of the name, and then about which gender of pronoun we should use when the name is too burdensome to speak in its entirety.

Isn't it rude to argue about someone when they are present?

Your world is good for me.
It is a whole world, and it is larger than my doubts and fears about what may be done to me specifically. It is a good place in which to choose my way.

I give you thanks . . .
and in so doing, I open my own eyes, and my whole being, to the wonder, blessings, and possibilities that are all around me, always, whether I remember to give thanks or not.

Soil.
Do I own it? Because I can surround it with survey stakes, do I really own the soil? If I turn and tear it with the movement of steel, driven by combustion commanded by cash, do I forget? It is much more ancient than I and my title. It is more fluid and changing than the lines on the deed. It anchors the roots of life, records the traces of centuries, and yet whole decades of its building can be swept away, to a new place and people, in a few windstorms or a single flood.

Is soil, all too often, taken as a given instead of as a gift?

Seasons.
Dave Sauchyn of Regina, trying to create the few bullet points asked of him to somehow sum up a 448-page report on the impacts of climate change in Canada, said this:

Canada is losing the competitive advantage of a cold winter.

Seeds, sun, and water . . .
the things we often remember in our thanks.

There is so much more.

Wisdom.
If you find a little here, I am thankful.

Work to be done!

In our modern world we only deem something a success if we can stand back idle and watch it work. If any physical effort is required, it is an outright failure. . . . The very first thing we do when seeing something so elegantly simple and useful as this pump is scheme to make it work while we just stand by and stare at it.

--Eleutheros

There is a pitfall in being thankful for things given to us. The story of Johnny Appleseed is inspiring, but the popular version, as summed up in the merry little verse, drifts toward a "big-rock-candy-mountain" vision of idyllic idleness achieved at last, as a result of someone else's generous hard work. That vision entices, seduces, and robs us of the wonderful gifts of our own work: tending; bringing forth; growing strong; growing wise; being present; finding meaning.

Through work we receive the ability to give.

Your world is good for me!

Amen.

Annie Gardenbed

I aspire to be known as Annie Gardenbed someday - but I aspire to be and do many things, and I can work on only a few at a time, so if someone else earns the name first, I won't be disappointed. I hope this blog post might help that happen.

Why Annie Gardenbed? Well, it's a little play on the name Johnny Appleseed. I'd like to be like Johnny, except that instead of planting apples, I'd be digging new garden plots and getting new gardeners started.

The popular legend is that Johnny wandered all over planting apple seeds almost anywhere, so that whoever came along later could gather apples. As with any legend, the reality is similar but different: John Chapman was a wandering planter of apples, but he planted nurseries in areas where settlers would soon be arriving, and had the seedlings ready to sell to the settlers for their homestead orchards. Still, the legend captures some of the spirit of his life and legacy, in that he lived extremely simply; he was generous in his dealings; and his undertaking was remarkable enough to earn him the nickname "Johnny Appleseed" by about halfway through his long life. The real story, or what we think we know of it, is richer and stranger than the legend, and definitely worth a look.

When I came up with the idea of "Annie Gardenbed," I knew only the popular legend of Johnny, and a related little song that we often use as a mealtime grace:

Oh, the Lord is good to me,
and so I thank the Lord
for giving me the things I need:
the sun and the rain and the apple seed.
The Lord is good to me.
Alleluia, Amen!

Many people sing "Johnny Appleseed" instead of Alleluia in the last line. The song appears in many places unattributed, as if it were a folk tune going back to the days of Johnny himself, but thanks to Cathy's Grace Notes, and some further sleuthing, I learned that it is a verse from a song written by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent for the Walt Disney Music Company in 1946, and sung by Dennis Day in the animated short "Johnny Appleseed" (part of Disney's 1948 release "Melody Time"). The sheet music is still available.

I'm disappointed. Today while washing dishes I came up with a little verse for Annie Gardenbed, but I don't dare tell you what the tune is, or Disney might come after me. I'm not afraid of ordinary mice, but . . .

I think I'll see about a public domain license for my verse, before I post it. That way at least I'll have evidence that I'm not trying to profit from Disney's tune in any way.

Or should I just go ahead an post it anyway?

Healing

I can sleep on my left side.

I hadn't been able to do that in years - so many years that I can't remember when the first year was, or how long it took to realize that I might never sleep on that side again. All I know is that I used to try to ignore the clicking in my sternum, or near it; and I used to shift around and try to find a position where I could breathe without that soft click-click, shift-release, on and off with each and every breath; and it didn't hurt, exactly, but it felt very wrong, like it would certainly be hurting later if I let it carry on.

My theory was that some cartilage had been damaged somehow, so my rib cage wasn't quite as solid as it should be. And I didn't think cartilage could heal. So I slept on my right side.

I have never been able to sleep on my belly. On my back, yes, long ago, and still sometimes when I let down my guard. You see, a long time ago I woke suddenly, frantically, sitting straight up in bed from a dream of falling backwards, backwards, into blackness. I think it happened more than once, and then I just didn't sleep on my back unless I rolled there in my sleep without noticing. These days it's not that dreadful dream that wakes me, but the sound of my snoring.

It troubled me a little, having only one position to sleep in, especially when a limb would sleep longer, numb and prickling. Still, I lived with it.

And then I made a change in my life, a change that had nothing to do with the clicking in my chest - at least not as far as I was aware.

And some months later (a year, maybe?) I noticed that I was lying on my left, and my chest wasn't clicking. The click came back sometimes, gently, and I was patient, just trying that side for a little while each evening, turning back if the click returned. Finally it stayed away.

What a sweet moment that was, when I woke and realized that I was lying on my left side.

Harvest Home

Picture this (because I don't know where to find a camera with batteries charged up):

• onions and beets spread to dry on newsprint
• cardboard boxes brimming with carrots, potatoes, and squashes
• bags of dry beans, with the sides rolled down to let the beans dry a little more

This week I'll be storing things away a little better: tucking the onions into old nylons and hanging them on nails on the floor joists in the basement; cleaning up some of the carrots and beets and finding some room for them in the fridge, freezing some others, and maybe drying some for soups, too; and clearing some room in a not-too-cool spot for the squashes to sit with some air spaces between them. The dry beans are experiments. I have been growing Windsor broad (or fava) beans for several years, but never understood what they should look like when mature. Finally I read somewhere that they can be picked when the pods start to turn black, and realized that this was not a sign of disease! I let them dry on the vines, and today we gathered them. Also, as a sort of accidental experiment, we gathered the dry wax beans that we didn't get eaten as fresh beans in the summer. We eat a lot of kidney beans and some chickpeas, lentils, and pinto beans, but all of these are tricky to grow in our short summers, so I want to experiment with some other dry legumes. We'll see!

I am very tired, and very happy. I let myself be led away from the garden path for most of the summer and early fall, and when I heard the word "snow" in the forecast I feared I had left it too long, but the rain and snow held off and we got it all in.

Happy thanksgiving!

Square Wave Days

The world sunlight map often shows a sort of sinuous curve along the boundary between light and darkness, but these days it has more of a binary look to it.

100 Species

I got this idea from CG. How many people can list 100 species that are growing in the area where they live?

I'm sure I could, but I often get paid to list species, so I'm not typical. Mind you, I do remember a field trip when I was a new biology student in university, and my prof was wondering how I knew so many of the plants we were seeing. Well, I just always wanted to know, so I learned!

Anyway, I am curious now to see how many plants I can name just by picturing my surroundings and what is there - how far from home would I have to wander in my mind to reach 100?

1) quack grass (I'm starting in our yard)
2) dandelions
3) Kentucky bluegrass
4) clover - which one? It's a Trifolium species, a white one, but I'd have to look up the exact name
5) common plantain
6) annual sow thistle
7) perennial sow thistle
8) chickweed
9) wild buckwheat
10) lamb's-quarters
11) brome grass
12) red-root pigweed (and there's another kind of pigweed whose name I have forgotten)
13) garden atriplex
14) doorweed (sorry, I don't know which one it is)
15) purslane or wild portulaca
16) there's another grass that I pull out of the garden before it matures enough to positively identify without a great deal of unnecessary fuss - I think it's probably foxtail barley
17) green foxtail
18) creeping bellflower (this is one of the plants in the flowerbeds that came with the house, and I just learned its name because it's on the invasive plant species lists I'm working with - there are also some kind of lily, an iris, a daisy, and something with variegated foliage, and a very pretty thing that I did know the name of once but it escapes me now - maybe a columbine? I've just never taken much interest in the ornamentals)
19) lily-of-the-valley (I did know this ornamental somehow - maybe because it's poisonous)
20) Maltese cross (another ornamental that I know, because I came across the name and it intrigued me)
21) desert saltgrass
22) caragana
23) chokecherry
24) gooseberry
25) saskatoon
26) American elm
27) Manitoba maple
28) green ash
29) lilac
30) honeysuckle (though I'm not sure which one - those ornamentals again!)
31) peppers
32) tomatoes
33) onions, chives, and garlic - are some of these so closely related that they are counted as a single species? I don't remember
34) swiss chard, beets, and spinach - if I recall correctly, these are all close relatives too
35) parsley, parsnips, and carrots - another set of close relatives
36) lettuce
37) beans (wax and fava)
38) peas
39) lots of cucurbits - cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkins, and spaghetti, acorn, and butternut squashes
40) potatoes (I'm out of my own yard now, across the street at Garth's brother's place, where we keep the other half of our garden)
41) dill
42) sweet corn
43) rutabagas
44) broccoli
45) raspberries
46) strawberries
47) spruce trees - I wonder exactly what kind?
48) ox-eye daisy
49) dame's-rocket - these last two are more ornamentals that I just learned because they are on the invasive species lists
50) Hmm - one more to hit 50 before I leave the two yards that we live in - there must be one more. Have I seen goat's-beard here? Or - yes! There is a cotoneaster bush, or there was, but they may have killed it when they ground the stump of the big elm in front of the house last month, but I'm going to count it.
51) blue grama grass (no, I haven't gone way out in the prairie yet; this is between the sidewalk and the street, just next door)
52) bastard toadflax (I hope I got that name right - it's another one I learned from the invasive species lists - this is growing wild at the edge of the pavement)
53) butterfly-weed or scarlet gaura - a farmer friend of mine found the scientific name titillating, but maybe I pronounced it wrong - go look it up if you're curious. (The PLANTS database is handy for that, and if I used it I could get all these names right, but I'm testing my mind here.)
54) weeping birch
55) poplars and/or cottonwoods - I don't know the horticultural species, but I know there are a bunch of them in various nearby yards, and I'll get to our native species later (if I don't hit 100 before I get out of town)
56) crabapple
57) rose (I do admire the white shrub roses in some yards nearby, so much so that I tried to root some cuttings last year, and just today I picked some of the dry hips to see if I would have more success with the seeds)
58) seaside arrowgrass (I'm away from the street now, wandering in my mind along the drainage ditch behind our yard)
59) cord grass (and I know there are two species here, and I know that one has awns and the other doesn't, and one of them is called alkali cord grass so maybe it's the one that grows in the saline ground along that ditch)
60) cattails (in the old brick ponds behind our yard)
61) wild licorice (just beyond the brick ponds)
62) kochia - I just remembered that one, it's in our yard too - and I thought I might like to work as a weed inspector! Ha! I'd have to clean up our own yard a bit first! But seriously, if I could work from the angle of helping people learn more about what's growing on their land, not just as the enforcer with the right to enter onto private property, I could enjoy that, and in some places I think the inspectors do work from that angle
63) oh, and I'm sure we must have some black medick in the garden too
64) and probably some yellow sweet-clover
65) alfalfa - now I'm beyond the railway, or I should say beyond the old railway grade, out looking over the hayfield towards the airstrip that some locals call the airport
66) willows - that's down beyond the airstrip, but there are some ornamental willows in town too - and don't ask me what kind of willows they are!
67) sedge - I'm sure I could find a sedge somewhere along the roadside where I walk south of town; for sure there must be some down by those willows - and again, don't ask me which sedge!
68) northern wheatgrass (okay, I gave up and went home in my mind to the farm five miles from town, where this challenge gets so much easier)
69) western wheatgrass
70) needle-and-thread grass
71) western porcupine grass
72) awned wheatgrass
73) western red lilies
74) smooth camas
75) wild blue flax
76) gaillardia or blanket-flower
77) black-eyed susan
78) prairie crocus
79) June grass
80) prairie cinquefoil
81) white cinquefoil
82) three-flowered avens
83) ground-plum
84) snowberry
85) silverberry or wolf willow
86) narrow-leaved meadowsweet
87) fringed loosestrife
88) pincherry
89) beaked hazelnut
90) high-bush cranberry (I want some hazelnut and high-bush cranberry bushes for the yard here)
91) paper birch
92) white poplar (told you I'd get to them) or trembling aspen
93) black or balsam poplar
94) Western Canada violet
95) poison ivy
96) stinging nettle
97) yellow avens
98) heart-leaved alexanders
99) alum root
100) Indian-pipe (a non-photosynthetic plant - I had to think of a distinctive one for my 100th)

And there are many more. But CG's list is much more impressive, because you can tell that she knows a lot more than just the names - she knows which ones to eat and which ones to use for healing and more.

And if you find all this overwhelming, there is a book I want you to meet. (I wish I had known about this book back when I knew mostly just the showy wildflowers that I had taught myself from the pictures in our field guides at home, and I was sent out with a few floras - floras are plant books with detailed botanical descriptions and sometimes no pictures at all - to see what I could find growing on proposed oil well sites, in case something rare was there.) Thomas J. Elpel's Botany in a Day gives you patterns to look for, just a few patterns to learn so that you will know the major plant families of the North American interior plains. That means you can jump to the right part of the flora or field guide right away, instead of struggling through a botanical key or flipping through the pictures. And you will have hooks to hang your knowledge on as you meet new plants, instead of just an endless parade of names and images to remember. And most importantly of all, if you learn from Mr. Elpel's book, you will be learning plant uses as you go, because he includes information about the properties shared by plants in each family.

And CG - thanks for getting me blogging again, if only for today. Tomorrow I will be back out in the farmland of southeast Saskatchewan, listing plants for pay, and reinforcing my conviction that I'd rather grow plants to eat and not need the pay so much . . .

From one cold corner of the Earth to another

This is quite a find for an undergraduate student from North Dakota . . .