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A Veteran Turns to Raptors

November 10, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Tony Luong.
Robert Vallières brings a raptor when he speaks to veterans about how birds helped his recovery, like here at the Manchester VA Medical Center in New Hampshire. When asked the worth of this Great Horned Owl, he told the vet: “I can’t put a value on it.” 

Tomorrow, November 11, is Veterans Day, one of only two federal holidays that hasn’t been switched to a Monday. The other is July 4. I saw today’s story around this time last year and decided to save it for you.

Purbita Saha and Tony Luong wrote at Audubon magazine in 2017 about a former soldier who found solace in Nature and then used his insights to help other veterans.

“The first bird that saved Robert Vallières,” they report, “was a Black Hawk helicopter. It was October 1990, and the then 28-year-old Army soldier was serving in the Persian Gulf War. While riding in the back of a truck on a mission to fortify a foxhole in the remote Arabian Desert, a heavy beam slammed into him, sending him flying and causing severe head injuries and swelling in the brain. The chopper sped Vallières to a field hospital for emergency care. …

“After being honorably discharged, Vallières returned to Concord, New Hampshire. While he appeared to be on the mend, he continued to grapple with chest spasms and Gulf War Syndrome—the mysterious mix of symptoms, including headaches, exhaustion, and memory problems, that plagued up to a third of returning veterans. On top of that, he had lingering effects from a pre-deployment aneurysm, and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. … The PTSD led to serious depression and horrific anger, he says. He was overwhelmed with trying to readapt to civilian life when he saw a newspaper ad for a birding trip in the White Mountains. Remembering his hikes with his nature-loving father, also a veteran, Vallières signed up immediately. Up on the slopes, as he scanned the leafy ledges for passerines, a Peregrine Falcon hurtled into view, seizing a Northern Flicker mid-air in a puff of feathers. He followed it back to a snag, where it tore the woodpecker apart, yellow shaft after yellow shaft. ‘I was glued,’ Vallières says. …

“Vallières credits that Peregrine with saving him from despair. The encounter sparked a full-fledged birding obsession that ultimately helped shape his philosophy on healing. He quickly signed on to monitor raptor nests with New Hampshire Audubon. The first site he claimed was Joe English Hill, near Concord, where he and his son Andrew would watch American Kestrels speed rodents to their begging chicks’ mouths. As his identification and observational skills deepened, his responsibilities multiplied. He began tracking breeding Peregrine Falcons and Bald Eagles, aiding in the recognition of an uptick in chicks that confirms the birds’ nationwide resurgence since the pesticide DDT was banned.

“Vallières finds strength and hope in their comeback. ‘They keep my defeats in perspective,’ he says. And, he discovered, while painkillers reduced his chronic pain, his ailments often temporarily vanished in the presence of birds. Besides taking his mind off the hurt, tracking wild birds also allowed Vallières to beat back depression and regain much of his physical strength. …

“He began rehabilitating raptors, first with Audubon, then with the local wildlife hospital Wings of Dawn, where he learned to train unreleasable birds as educational ambassadors.

Working with the feathered charges allowed him to pay forward the care and kindness he’d received from doctors, nurses, and therapists, he says. It also made him feel like less of a burden.

“Given the profoundly soothing effect raptors had on Vallières, he was motivated to share the experience. He brought other vets to the New Hampshire Audubon hawkwatch platform to take in thousands of Broad-wingeds during fall migration. He cowrote a memoir, Wounded Warriors, about his experiences in battle and birding. And he started bringing rehab birds to the New Hampshire Veterans Home and Manchester VA Medical Center. (Vallières is a patient at the latter, receiving therapy for his chronic pain, taking drawing lessons to relieve stress, and learning cognitive exercises to combat memory loss from a second aneurysm in 2012.)

“On the Friday before Memorial Day, Vallières made his rounds at both facilities. In the solarium of the medical center that morning he saluted each of the 15 seniors, many in wheelchairs and Vietnam and Korean War caps. Then he introduced a male Great Horned Owl that is permanently grounded due to a wing injury. Vallières walked around with the raptor on his arm, lifting it above the veterans’ heads so they could feel the rush of its beating feathers. The room buzzed with questions and anecdotes of pet cockatoos; placid faces broke into grins. With his audience transfixed, Vallières related his story. He showed them sketches he has drawn of being airlifted out of Kuwait, shared dark reflections of his struggle with PTSD, and explained the important role that birds have played in his recovery.”

We owe so much to veterans, but you know as soon as a war starts that many, if not most, will be physically or mentally wounded or never come home. And the services to help them will be limited. All by itself, that’s a good reason not to go to war. Sometimes it’s necessary, of course, as the Ukrainians who take up arms today already know. Below is art that shows why they do it.

More at Audubon, here. No firewall. A description of the art is at WordPress, here.

Protecting the children: Kathe Kollwitz’s ‘Grieving Parents’ at Vladslo: ‘Seed Corn Must Not Be Ground.’

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Surprising Congo Peatlands

November 9, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Corinne Staley, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.
The Congo basin is home to numerous endemic plant and tree species, but today there are serious threats to the health of the ecosystem.

Peat bogs are the last thing I picture when thinking about the Congo. Shows how ignorant I am. Apparently, I am not alone. As the radio show Living on Earth reports, “Western scientists only learned about the Congo Basin peatlands in 2017. But indigenous communities have avoided disturbing the peatland while sustainably hunting and fishing in the area for generations. Raoul Monsembula grew up in the area and now works with Greenpeace Africa. He spoke with host Bobby Bascomb for a local perspective on the region.

BOBBY BASCOMB: “This area is new to the western world but, of course, local people have known about it for generations. Can you tell me a bit about your relationship with the peatlands and how the communities surrounding it used the area?

“RAOUL MONSEMBULA: The elders said to us it was a productive area for the fish and animals, and we could only do seasonal fishing and hunting, and collect some firewood because it’s a fragile area, where the fish and animals reproduce. We only use it during the dry season. We don’t go there during the wet season when the animals are reproducing.

We were advised by our elders to never start a fire in these areas, because these areas were essential for food. It’s also an area where we practiced traditional ceremonies.

“And you don’t see a lot of hospitals here but you don’t see people dying a lot because they’re using medicinal trees from the peatland and eating forest fruit.

“BASCOMB: So as a scientist from the DRC who grew up there, you spent your life in this region, how surprised were you to learn about the enormous amount of carbon locked up in the soil there?

“MONSEMBULA: When the scientists came here and we learned about the peatland, that night it was one of the biggest celebrations I’ve ever had in my life, we danced and we drank with the villagers because even if we didn’t know about the peatlands for a long time we knew that they were special. Even as we now begin to scientifically understand what this area means, the elders knew for a long time that this area would benefit humanity. This discovery made us very happy even if we were unsure if carbon would have any financial significance or not! It’s as though we are helping the world fight against climate change. …

“The problem is in Indonesia they are growing a lot of rice and palm oil crops in the peatlands, so the youth think why not grow them here too because it’s easy money. Most of the young people, the ones who are less than 25 years old, some of whom are unemployed or not well educated, want to do things like that.

“BASCOMB: Well you know the Congo Basin, the rain forest there, is second only to the Amazon of course in terms of being the largest rainforest in the world but unlike Brazil the Congo basin hasn’t really seen a whole lot of development but what are you seeing on the horizon in terms of possible development and threats to the integrity of the peatlands?

“MONSEMBULA: Logging is nearing the peatlands and agribusiness is growing. And the growing population can be problematic because it will encourage the development of more rice crops or palm oil crops in the peatland.

“That can be a problem because with a larger population if people can’t make a living, send their kids to school or go to the hospital they will damage the peatland by logging ecologically valuable trees to sell the wood and once they do that the peatland can dry. …

“BASCOMB: How can the Western world, do you think, support people living in the Congo Basin to preserve this thing that’s so important for all of us but at the same time support the people that need development?

“MONSEMBULA: The problem is that we need donors. We need western countries who are creating a lot of pollution to give some money for peatland protection. But another thing is corruption. You know how bad governance is in Central Africa. Like right now in the DRC we are hearing about millions of dollars going to the Central Africa Forest Initiative, they are giving a lot of money but when you’re in the field you don’t see anything. There is now a very big forest community project which is funded by international NGOs like Greenpeace, not the DRC government. We don’t want people to donate through the government ministry. With the corruption and bad governance that money will not go to the field.”

Reading this story on the day after the US elections, I am struck but something. I may be overgeneralizing, but it seems to me that the elders in the Congo have the wisdom, but in the US, it’s the youth. Whoever shows wisdom, I hope we can give them all the support they need.

More at Living on Earth, here.

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Total Eclipse of the Moon

November 8, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
The total lunar eclipse begins in Massachusetts, November 8, 2022.

It was cold between 4 and 5 a.m., but I had my winter clothes over my bathrobe. Other than my husband, no one else was outside.

Today is special for two reasons. It’s election day, which is the reason that matters most to me. But there was also a total lunar eclipse, an event that can put all human anxieties in perspective.

I am always up early anyway, and I enjoyed watching the earth’s shadow pass gradually over the moon. I watched until the eclipse was total but couldn’t watch the shadow move away because the moon had descended too low.

I loved how you could still see the moon faintly glowing even in the total eclipse. And I thought about how a total lunar eclipse will not occur again for another three years. Where will I be then?

Shannon Hall reported for the New York Times about what to expect when watching the eclipse.

“During the early hours on Tuesday, darkness will slip across the face of the moon before it turns a deep blood red. … Anyone awake in the United States will have a front-row seat as the sun, the Earth and the moon line up, causing the moon to pass through Earth’s shadow in the last total lunar eclipse until 2025.

“ ‘To me, the most significant thing about a lunar eclipse is that it gives you a sense of three-dimensional geometry that you rarely get in space — one orb passing through the shadow of another,’ said Bruce Betts, the chief scientist at the Planetary Society. …

“In North America, observers on the West Coast will get the best view. At 12:02 a.m. Pacific time, the moon will enter the outer part of Earth’s shadow and dim ever so slightly. But the total phase of the eclipse — the true star of the show — won’t begin until 2:16 a.m. That phase is called totality, when the moon enters the darkest part of Earth’s shadow and shines a deep blood-red hue. Totality will last for roughly 90 minutes until 3:41 a.m., and by 5:56 a.m. the moon will have returned to its well-known silvery hue. …

“Viewers on the East Coast, on the other hand, will have to set their alarms early. Although they won’t be able to watch the entire eclipse, they can catch totality, which will run from 5:16 a.m. …

“No matter where you are and which phase of the eclipse is happening, it is safe to watch with your unaided eyes.

“It may come as a surprise that the moon doesn’t simply darken as it enters Earth’s shadow. That’s because moonlight is usually just reflected sunlight. And while most of that sunlight is blocked during a lunar eclipse, some of it wraps around the edges of our planet — the edges that are experiencing sunrise and sunset at that moment. That filters out the shorter, bluer wavelengths and allows only redder, longer wavelengths to hit the moon. …

“ ‘For many cultures, the disappearance of the moon was seen as a time of danger, chaos,’ said Shanil Virani, an astronomer at George Washington University. The Inca, for example, believed that a jaguar attacked the moon during an eclipse. The Mesopotamians saw it as an assault on their king. In ancient Hindu mythology, a demon swallowed the moon.

“But not all lunar eclipses result in the deep red that led to the ‘blood moon’ nickname. Just as the intensity of a sunrise or a sunset can vary from day to day, so can the colors of an eclipse. It’s mostly dependent on particles in our planet’s atmosphere. Wildfire smoke or volcanic dust can deepen the red hues of a sunset, and they can also affect the eclipsed moon’s hue. …

“The color of the moon can therefore reveal signatures from our own atmosphere — a trick that could be used for future observations of planets around distant stars.

“Astronomers don’t typically observe exoplanets directly. Instead, they look for transits, or telltale blips when a planet crosses in front of its parent star. During such a time, starlight is filtered through the exoplanet’s atmosphere in the same way that, during a lunar eclipse, sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere before it hits the moon. …

“Manisha Shrestha, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, has another idea in mind. She plans to observe the lunar eclipse on Tuesday from the Bok Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona with the hope of spotting not only certain chemicals within our atmosphere, but also their distribution.

“This technique has never been performed on exoplanets before and could mean that future detections won’t simply reveal whether an exoplanet has clouds, but whether those clouds smother the world in a thick layer or whether they are slightly uneven, as clouds on Earth are. If those clouds were both uneven and composed of water vapor, that exoplanet just might be Earth 2.0. …

“ ‘From the cosmic perspective, our problems are temporary things — things that are passing fancies of the human species,’ [Andrew Fraknoi, an astronomer at the University of San Francisco] said. ‘The eclipse connects you to cycles and rhythms that are much older.’ ”

Yes. I could feel that.

More at the Times, here. For eclipse information without a firewall, see National Public Radio, here.

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Digging Ponds, Saving Frogs

November 7, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Christoph Vorburger.
European common frogs were among the beneficiaries of an initiative to dig ponds.

Where I grew up, there was a pond that was good for frogs. We hunted for tadpoles in the spring, and later I learned to catch the big bullfrogs in my hands and immobilize them briefly by running a finger down their spine. I still dream of doing that in front of my grandchildren one day, but the frogs around here have no interest in helping me look cool.

Rowenna Hoskin writes at the BBC about a recent effort in Europe to increase the numbers of vanishing frogs.

“Switzerland has reversed the decline of more than half of endangered frogs, toads and newts in one region, research finds,” she reports. “After conservationists dug hundreds of new ponds in the canton of Aargau, amphibian numbers significantly increased.

“The European tree frog population in particular ‘exploded,’ scientists say. …

“Globally, amphibian populations are in significant decline due to factors including habitat loss, urbanization, road infrastructure, disease and invasive species.

“In 1999 Aargau decided that a mass conservation effort was needed to combat the loss of amphibians. The collapse of the European tree frog was of particular concern.

State authorities, nonprofit organizations, private landowners and hundreds of volunteers worked for 20 years to build 422 ponds in five regions in Aargau.

‘Older ponds had become unsuitable for some amphibians due to lack of space, a high number of predators, and dense vegetation. By creating new ponds, the conservationists gave the species more space to thrive. Of the eight endangered species, 52% increased their regional populations and 32% were stabilized.

“Lead author of the study Dr Helen Moor told BBC News she was excited to see ‘such a clear increase’ in numbers considering the simplicity of the solution.

” ‘Species will come, they will settle and start using the space if you offer it to them,’ she said.

“One of the species that dramatically increased was the tiny European tree frog. This frog likes to jump from shrubs to trees, Dr Moor explains, and is one of the most mobile species, capable of traveling several kilometers.

“It needs a very specific habitat to thrive, preferring shallow ponds created by meandering rivers on floodplains. But this type of habitat has disappeared in many places in Switzerland, leading to the species’ decline. Switzerland, like the UK, has high population density with large road and railway networks, and much of the non-urban land is intensely farmed, Dr Moor explains. …

“Over 20 years the regional population of the European tree frog quadrupled in one area. It could only be found at 16 sites in Reusstal in 1999 but by 2019 the species was living in 77 places. …

‘The key message is that it pays to do something, even if it feels overwhelming,’ Dr Moor said. …

“Some ponds will need to be cleared of vegetation and drained to remove predator larvae that threaten tadpoles. Dr Moor hopes this conservation success will convince other landowners to create ponds and diversify habitats.

“The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.“

This shows what can be accomplished when people identify a problem and make up their minds to do something about it.

More at the BBC, here. No firewall.

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Free Gardens and Orchards

November 6, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Simon Schneider/ Romantischer Rhein Tourismus GmbH via DW.
Residents and visitors alike are encouraged to pick whatever food they like from a public garden in Andernach, Germany.

An idea whose time has come may be growing food on public land and making it free for the picking. I wrote a 2011 post on scavenging, here, and a 2020 post on a homeless teen whose foraging helped her learn to cook, here. In those cases, the taking of food was done on the sly. But what if municipalities actively encouraged people to forage, as landscape director Paul did at my last job did?

Cathy Free writes at the Washington Post, “The city of Andernach, Germany, planted 101 varieties of tomatoes in the town center and told everyone to pluck and take whatever they wanted.

“It was such a hit, the following year the city did the same with beans. The next year, it was onions. After that, the city planted fruit trees, lettuce, zucchini, berries and herbs. All were free to anyone who lived or happened to be in the town of 30,000 people. …

“It’s one of a growing number of places across the globe known as edible cities. In the United States, there are public lands from Seattle to North Carolina where people are welcome to pick and take from fruiting trees and bushes.

“Organizers interviewed for this article said there has never been a problem with people taking more than they need, whether they grab a single pear or a bag full of potatoes and artichokes.

Every year, there is more than enough produce to go around.

“ ‘Many here are very proud when you talk to them about our edible city,’ said Bettina Schneider, 29, city team coordinator for the Edible Cities Network in Andernach.

“When word got out that Andernach’s public gardens and orchards — which started in 2010 — were free for the picking, other cities in Germany and throughout the European Union joined in, she said. Now the Edible Cities Network is funded by the European Commission, the executive body of the E.U.

“The areas that were converted into fruiting gardens and orchards in Andernach were previously overgrown and unkempt, so the gardens were well received, Schneider said, noting that a medieval moat is now covered with peach, almond and pear trees, and vacant spaces near schools have been transformed into community vegetable patches. …

“ ‘Every partner organization in the project receives funding from the E.U. budget to carry out their work,’ [Marisa Pettit, a coordinator for Edible Cities] said. Pettit said that several cities also receive funding for what Edible Cities calls ‘living labs’ — green spaces where residents can hold community events and develop their own plans to help their urban gardens to thrive and produce bountiful harvests.

“Edible Cities is now supporting a community garden in Cuba, while cities in China, Tunisia, Togo and Uruguay are also developing plans for urban food forests, said Ina Säumel, a principal investigator for the Edible Cities Network. …

“Many U.S. cities have similar projects. Detroit has an urban farming movement, Philadelphia has food forests, and there are edible community projects in Atlanta and Los Angeles. All rely on volunteers to do the weeding, pruning and planting.

“Smaller cities such as Bloomington, Ind., and Hyattsville, Md., also have fruit trees and vegetable gardens that can be accessed by anyone.

“At the Dr. George Washington Carver Edible Park in Asheville, N.C., founded more than 20 years ago, residents can harvest whatever they like from 40 varieties of fruit and nut trees, said Lynx Bergdahl, a community organizer at Bountiful Cities, the nonprofit that helps manage the food forest.

“ ‘Anyone can get whatever they want, when they want it,’ said Bergdahl, 33. ‘This is about taking away as many barriers as possible to create public food access, whether somebody wants a single apple or an entire basket.’

“In Seattle, the neighborhood of Beacon Hill turned a steep and empty slope next to a public park into a vibrant edible landscape in 2012 through a partnership with the city. The Beacon Food Forest recently celebrated its 10th anniversary as a diverse community garden that is open to anyone walking by, said Elise Evans, one of the project’s volunteers. …

“ ‘To create something from a blank hillside was a big deal,’ she said. ‘Our harvest truly offers something for everyone and it’s based on trust. People take what they need and are fed for free, and that’s an empowering feeling.’ “

Do you ever nibble from gardens around your town? Please let me know.

More at the Post, here.

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Mastering the Toy Piano

November 5, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Crispian Chan.
Margaret Leng Tan performing Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep on a toy piano. 

There is just no end to the variety of jobs people work at — or create for themselves — and no end to the variety of tools they use. Today’s story is about a toy-piano virtuoso called Margaret Leng Tan and the unusual career she built.

Sian Cain writes at the Guardian, “At her last count, Margaret Leng Tan owned 18 toy pianos – but these days she just settles for ‘lots and lots.’ The 76-year-old musician, once labelled ‘the world’s first toy piano virtuoso’ by the New York Times and ‘the formidable doyenne of the avant-garde’ by the Washington Post, finds her pianos everywhere from garage sales to garbage cans. ‘I picked up a beautiful one from the garbage – the legs were missing but it was vintage and had a beautiful sound,’ she says. Last year, a complete stranger even left a red one for her on her Brooklyn doorstep:

‘I have become a foundling hospital for orphan pianos.’

“Her personal favorite in her collection is a vintage Schoenhut, which she deems ‘the Steinway of the toy piano world.’

” ‘That one has been everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Beethoven’s house in Bonn. I played Beethoven in Beethoven’s house! Can you imagine? Eat that, Schroeder!’ she laughs. …

“Tan exudes a light playfulness that complements her chosen instrument: ‘I’ve always had aspirations to be a sit-down comic – not a stand-up one!’ she says. ‘The toy piano gives me that golden opportunity.’ She is not limited to the piano either: in one arrangement titled Old MacDonald’s Yellow Submarine, written for her by the composer Erik Griswold, she simultaneously plays toy piano, bicycle horn, bicycle bell and train whistle. ‘It was incredibly difficult,’ she says.

“In her latest show, Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep, she plays a simpler version involving a toy piano, a Fisher Price plastic phone and a toy mobile. …

“Have her audiences always understood what she’s doing? ‘They’ve come along for the ride. They’ve often been very enthusiastic and willing to go with me down that rabbit hole. I mean, the toy piano. [But] because I take it seriously, they take it seriously. And the toy piano is so seductive. How can you resist a toy piano? It is a marvelous way to introduce avant-garde music to audiences, who would never go to such a concert – they’ll go to a toy piano concert out of curiosity.’

“Dragon Ladies is a step away from her usual concerts: it is a one-woman biographical theatre show in which Tan tells the story of her life through significant moments. ‘It started because I intended to sit down and write my memoir but I never could find the uninterrupted time to do that,’ she says. ‘I thought it’d be easier to make a sonic memoir than a written one. And I had the title – I read somewhere that if you have a good title, you must deliver.’

“A significant part of the show explores Tan’s lifelong struggle to manage her obsessive compulsive disorder. … Music and rhythm became outlets for her impulse to count everything. ‘Music is all about counting. OCD is all about counting. It is a marriage made in heaven,’ she says. “But I wouldn’t wish OCD on my worst enemy. It’s not fun.’ …

“Tan began playing piano when she was six. Her father was a famed lawyer and politician in Singapore, and her mother was a piano teacher – ‘though she had the good sense never to try to teach me,’ Tan says. When she was 16, Tan left Singapore to study at Juilliard; she became the first woman to graduate with a doctorate from the prestigious New York school. …

“At first, she was strictly a classical pianist. … ‘It was only after I met John Cage that I knew what I wanted to do,’ she says.

“Cage was arguably the world’s most influential avant-garde composer; his 1952 piece 4’33 is famously performed by musicians doing nothing, embodying his belief that any auditory experience, including silence, could be music. …

“Cage was her close friend and mentor until his death in 1992. ‘He believed, and I agree with him, that you can make music with essentially anything. Whether it is a tin can or a bucket, that is music,’ Tan says. ‘He was a genius. There won’t be anyone else like him for a very long time, if ever.’ “

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall.

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Leonard Cohen

November 4, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Gorupdebesanez.
The singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.  

I never knew much about poet/composer Leonard Cohen, but after hearing a radio interview with the producer of a new tribute album — and buying the album — I wanted to learn more.

First let me say a few words about an album in which an Iggy Pop version of a Leonard Cohen song is featured alongside songs sung by the likes of Norah Jones, James Taylor, and Mavis Staples. The way Sarah McLachlan’s voice cracks on “It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah” — oh, wow — gets me every time. There’s an uncharacteristically deep register for James Taylor on “Coming Back to You.” And who wouldn’t love the passionate, aging voice of Mavis Staples on “If it Be Your Will”?

“If it be your will
“That I speak no more
“And my voice be still
“As it was before
“I shall speak no more
“I shall abide until
“I am spoken for
“If it be your will”

I just can’t sing enough praise for this album. The instrumental accompaniments, usually led by guitarist Bill Frisell, are themselves worth the price of admission. I would love to know what instrument is making a sound like Bolivian panpipes. Haunting.

Longtime fans of Leonard Cohen may be as in the dark about the meaning of his lyrics as I am, but I’m sure they all know phrases that stun them without their knowing why. The album was produced by Larry Klein for Blue Note. I am still retro enough to have bought a CD, but if you stream any of the songs, please let me know your reactions.

Now for a bit of Wikipedia background on the artist. There’s even a Warhol connection. Who knew?

“Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. …

“Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not begin a music career until 1967. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His 1977 record Death of a Ladies’ Man, co-written and produced by Phil Spector, was a move away from Cohen’s previous minimalist sound. …

“Leonard Norman Cohen was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Westmount, Quebec, on September 21, 1934. His Lithuanian mother, Marsha (‘Masha’) Klonitsky (1905–1978), emigrated to Canada in 1927 and was the daughter of Talmudic writer and rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline. His paternal grandfather, whose family had moved from Poland to Canada, was Canadian Jewish Congress founding president Lyon Cohen. His parents gave him the Jewish name Eliezer, which means ‘God helps.’ His father, clothing store owner Nathan Bernard Cohen (1891–1944), died when Cohen was nine years old. The family attended Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, to which Cohen retained connections for the rest of his life. On the topic of being a kohen, he said in 1967, ‘I had a very Messianic childhood. I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest.’ …

“In 1967, disappointed with his lack of success as a writer, Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer–songwriter. During the 1960s, he was a fringe figure in Andy Warhol‘s ‘Factory’ crowd. Warhol speculated that Cohen had spent time listening to Nico in clubs and that this had influenced his musical style.

“His song ‘Suzanne‘ became a hit for Judy Collins (who subsequently recorded a number of Cohen’s other songs), and was for many years his most recorded song. Collins recalls that when she first met him, he said he could not sing or play the guitar, nor did he think ‘Suzanne’ was even a song:

‘And then he played me “Suzanne”  … I said, “Leonard, you must come with me to this big fundraiser I’m doing” … Jimi Hendrix was on it. He’d never sung [in front of a large audience] before then. He got out on stage and started singing. Everybody was going crazy—they loved it. And he stopped about halfway through and walked off the stage. Everybody went nuts. … They demanded that he come back. And I demanded; I said, “I’ll go out with you.” So we went out, and we sang it. And of course, that was the beginning.’

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School of Kindness

November 3, 2022 by suzannesmom

I wanted to share something from the Christian Science Monitor editor about about a reporter who died recently.

“David Clark Scott traveled the world: He roamed throughout Latin America as the Mexico City bureau chief and reached into Southeast Asia as Australia bureau chief. He supported and counseled dozens of Monitor reporters as international editor.

“When he wrote columns, his favorite stories were of people taking the time to help one another. He even produced an entire podcast.

In these times, when everyone is fixated on what went wrong, it’s important to look for what is going right, and sometimes, frankly, it needs to be at the top of the page.

“Dave passed on this week. On his last day of work, he pitched three stories, any one of which would have made a lovely column. But, he told me, he’d already ‘put a call in to the principal at the Nansemond Parkway Elementary School cuz, well, that’s the intro that tugs at my heart.’

“It did mine, too, so I wanted to share it with you.

“The Nansemond students in Suffolk, Virginia, have been learning a new language: sign language, so they can communicate with food nutrition service associate Leisa Duckwall, who is deaf. It started with a fourth grade teacher, Kari Maskelony, who has deaf family members and started teaching her class. This month it spread when Principal Janet Wright-Davis decided the whole school would learn a new sign every week in honor of Disabilities Awareness Month.

” ‘I don’t think [the students] saw it as a disability,’ Dr. Wright-Davis told me over the phone. It was just a new way to communicate. Her biggest surprise? ‘How much they want to learn it.’ Their favorite sign: pizza.

“The difference in the cafeteria is palpable, she says. Instead of pointing, as they used to, the students sign their requests. ‘She’s smiling and they’re smiling, and it’s just a different environment,’ says Dr. Wright-Davis.

“Ms. Duckwall has come to morning announcements to teach everyone new signs and has signed that day’s menu. Dr. Wright-Davis gets stopped in the hall by students signing good morning and wanting to show her what they’ve learned. Instead of stopping at the end of this month, the students are going to keep learning all year.

“The school had its Trunk or Treat event Thursday evening, and the children were signing as they celebrated Halloween. ‘One gentleman came out, and he was signing,’ Dr. Wright-Davis says. It made her realize the lessons wouldn’t be confined to the lunchroom or even the school. ‘They’re going to encounter someone, even if it’s just to say good morning, or please, or thank you. … Now they know a little bit more to show some gratitude.’

“There’s plenty to learn from Nansemond: Show some gratitude, look for ways to make people feel welcome, and seek out kindness and celebrate it when you find it. Dave always did.”

See the Monitor, here, and more at WAVY television, here. No firewalls.

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New Life for Chopsticks

November 2, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Carlin Stiehl/Boston Globe.
The Boston Globe reports that at ChopValue, bags of used chopsticks get “sorted — and made into everything from coasters to furniture.” ChopValue is a Canadian company that franchises factories.

Do you find yourself noticing more often just how many items we use and throw out? Many of us now seek out products that are reusable. We do this on our own because anytime a law is made, companies find a way to get around it.

Our town bans plastic take-home bags and plastic bottled water. Guess what? CVS merely made a heavier plastic bag and called it reusable. Bottled-water companies added a hint of flavoring, a loophole that allows them to sell plastic bottles here. So let’s do what we can on our own for sustainability.

Diti Kohli writes at the Boston Globe, “Elaine Chow believes your chopsticks can be more than utensils. In fact, she knows they can.

“The Savin Hill resident is giving ‘a mountain of chopsticks’ a second life at a new micro-factory that was launched in Charlestown in early September. … There, Chow melds the breakable wooden staples of Asian food into something more: cellphone stands ($11), charcuterie boards ($67), and even tables ($960).

“It’s all possible through ChopValue, a Canadian company that franchises factories that create chopstick-based homewares to people like Chow. … She leads the charge locally by collecting used utensils from more than 100 Greater Boston restaurants and running the machines that turn them into their final form. Chow eventually packs and delivers online orders of cribbage boards and workstation desks — all once used to eat sushi or stir-fry — all over New England.

“The draw for her is sustainability, and the ChopValue micro-factory already reigns as one of the only entirely cyclical businesses in Eastern Massachusetts, Chow said. …

‘People are realizing more and more that we can’t just continue to consume and build up piles of trash. We can do better.’

“Here’s how it works. Four days a week, a ChopValue truck visits restaurants around the region, picking up bags of used chopsticks. That itself is a win-win: Businesses are left with less waste to dispose of, and Chow has raw materials to work with. In six months, she has amassed 2.5 million chopsticks, weighing 15,000 pounds, and that number keeps growing.

“Back at the factory, Chow and three employees sort the sticks by color and separate them into mesh baskets. Then the utensils are dipped into resin and baked for 12 hours at 200 degrees, a process that allows them to harden and the resin to crystalize. Staffers then press a 3,000-pound machine on the sticks to flatten them, and what comes out on the other side is a durable tile — one of three sizes — that can be connected, sanded, and cut into the finished product.

“The process has proved to be labor-intensive, and Chow is on the hunt for two more employees, which is tough in the tight labor market. … After years of working in human relations, she has fallen in love with the factory’s green mission — and the chance to build on a love for woodworking that she picked up during the pandemic. Chow built a picnic table and shed to cover her trash bins during early COVID, before quitting her job and buying the franchise in September 2021.

“ ‘I have forever and ever been obsessive [with] recycling,’ she said. But she found ChopValue while scrolling through social media one day. ‘I actually have the computer algorithm to thank. It finally did a good thing.’ ”

More at the Globe, here.

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Catalonia’s Human Towers

November 1, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Reuters/Albert Gea.
Reuters shows Colla Jove Xiquets de Tarragona starting “to form a human tower called ‘castell’ during a biannual human tower competition in Tarragona, Spain, October 2, 2022.“

You don’t have to be a kid to play. Here’s a story on grown-ups having fun like kids. Of course, there are a few kids along with them, setting the proper tone for playtime.

Alan Ruiz Terol reports at Public Radio International’s The World, “A human tower rising higher than 26 feet swung perilously as 7-year-old Mar Mollà reached its top amid cheers from the crowd. 

“ ‘The views were great,’ she said later. ‘I could see all the colors and the arena vibrating.’

“[Recently] the town of Tarragona, in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, hosted a massive tournament featuring the finest teams of human tower builders, or castellers. …

“One of the teams competing on Saturday was the Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia. Mar Mollà was one its youngest members. She also had one of the most difficult tasks. As she made her way up to the top of the castell on Saturday, her father, Daniel Mollà, watched nervously.

“ ‘I was worried,’ he explained, minutes later. ‘But it’s up to her; she’s the one who knows if [the castell] will fall or not.’

“To build a castell, dozens of people must stand at the base pressed against each other to provide stability, and, if things go wrong, a safety net. Others venture upward, climbing and being climbed over; forming one tier, and then another, and another. Finally, a kid crowns the human tower by raising a hand.

“Human towers are graded according to their height and difficulty. To get the full score, crowning the castell is not enough — it must be dismantled without collapsing. While falls are rare, they do occur, and kids wear helmets to avoid severe injuries. …

“Human towers are a centuries-old tradition in Catalonia, and are widely seen as a symbol of its own distinct culture and nationalist aspirations. …

“ ‘The oldest reference to castells dates back to 1791, to a local festival in the town of Valls,’ historian Àlex Cervelló said. 

“Human towers are thought to be a spin-off of a religious dance that featured acrobatic constructions known as Ball de Valencians. According to Cervelló, participants might have competed against each other, building higher and more complex structures, until castells became a separate tradition. …

“Following the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the Francisco Franco dictatorship tried to deprive castells of any hint of Catalan nationalism, Cervelló said, as part of its persecution of political dissidence.

“In the 1980s, shortly after Franco’s death, teams of castellers began incorporating women, making it possible to build towers of unprecedented height, and kickstarting a golden era.

“In 2010, the UNESCO recognized castells as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. …

“Júlia Pozo, who looks after the youngest members of the Castellers de la Vila de Gràcia, praised the bravery of Mollà and other kids climbing to the top of castells. Ultimately, she said, they’re the ones who decide whether a castell is crowned.

“ ‘If they are afraid and don’t want to climb, they let us know, and we either try to find someone else, or we dismantle it,’ Pozo said. 

“But some, she said, will venture upward even if they are afraid, pulled by their ‘casteller spirit.’ ” 

Be sure to click at the World, here, and enjoy the happy grins on faces old and young.

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Autumn and Halloween

October 31, 2022 by suzannesmom

Honk Parade, Somerville, Massachusetts.

For the first time in years, I’m at home for Halloween. I’ve been alternating between Suzanne and John’s homes, which has been a lot of fun. Besides, all the children in my neighborhood grew up and moved away, so there have been no trick-or-treaters on my street for a long time.

Now some young families have moved in. I want to see the little ones in their costumes — and avoid driving on such a night. I’ll let you know if I get any takers for the candy, Goldfish cracker bags, or juice boxes.

Meanwhile, I want to share a few photos of the season and hope you like some even if you don’t like Halloween.

I’m starting with the Honk Parade in Somerville. It is on the Columbus/ Indigenous People’s Weekend every non-Covid year.

The band playing at a local church’s fall festival is the wonderful bluegrass group Southern Rail. I can’t resist putting one of their videos at the end of this post.

The boaters are enjoying the Sudbury River in Massachusetts. The meditative bench is on the Seekonk River in Rhode Island.

I love the idea of six-word novels. The creative woman on Sudbury Road had numerous “novels” on pumpkins this year.

Across the street from her yard, the public library featured children’s story books. I’m sure you recognize Curious George.

Don’t know who the banjo players are, given they lack any features, but one seems to be a Union soldier.

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Chestnut Trees for Coal Country

October 30, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: The American Chestnut Foundation via Living on Earth.
Towering American Chestnuts were once a staple of life for people across Appalachia and elsewhere in the Eastern United States. An initiative in mining country aims to bring them back.

Growing up, I heard from my father about how sad he was as a kid when American Chestnuts began to die off. Children really do not like loss. Thomas Brannon in today’s article was a kid who loved chestnuts, too. He is one of the people working to restore the trees that covered his grandparents’ land before they sold the mining rights.

Elena Shao starts the New York Times story with the director of operations at a tree-planting nonprofit.

“Michael French trudged through a thicket of prickly bramble, unfazed by the branches he had to swat away on occasion in order to arrive at a quiet spot of hilly land that was once mined for coal. Now, however, it is patched with flowering goldenrods and long yellow-green grasses and dotted with tree saplings.

“The sight, he acknowledged, would seem unimpressive to most. Yet it might be Mr. French’s most prized accomplishment. To him, the young trees symbolize what could be a critical comeback for some of the country’s vanishing forests, and for one tree in particular, the American chestnut.

‘I don’t see it how most people see it,’ he said. ‘I look at this and I see how it’s going to be in 80 to 100 years.’

“By then, Mr. French envisions that the chestnut, a beloved tree nearly wiped out a century ago by a blight-causing fungus, will be among those that make up an expansive forest of native trees and plants.

“Billions of chestnuts once dominated Appalachia, with Americans over many generations relying on their hardy trunks for log cabins, floor panels and telephone poles. Families would store the trees’ small, brown nuts in attics to eat during the holiday season.

“Now, Mr. French and his colleagues at Green Forests Work, a nonprofit group, hope to aid the decades-long effort to revive the American chestnut by bringing the trees back onto Appalachia’s former coal mines. Decades of mining, which have contributed to global warming, also left behind dry, acidic and hardened earth that made it difficult to grow much beyond nonnative herbaceous plants and grasses.

“As coal continues to decline and many of the remaining mines shut down for good, foresters say that restoring mining sites is an opportunity to prove that something productive can be made of lands that have been degraded by decades of extractive activity, particularly at a moment when trees are increasingly valued for their climate benefits. Forests can capture planet-warming emissions, create safe harbor for endangered wildlife species and make ecosystems more resilient to extreme weather events like flooding.

“The chestnut is a good fit for this effort, researchers say, because the tree’s historical range overlaps ‘almost perfectly’ with the terrain covered by former coal mines that stretched across parts of eastern Kentucky and Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

“Another advantage of restoring mining sites this way is that chestnut trees prefer slightly acidic growth material, and they grow best in sandy and well-drained soil that isn’t too wet, conditions that are mostly consistent with previously mined land, said Carolyn Keiffer, a plant ecologist at Miami University in Ohio. …

“ ‘We humans brought in the nonnative fungus that killed the tree,’ Dr. Keiffer said, referring to the parasitic fungus that was accidentally introduced to North America in the late 1800s on imported Japanese chestnuts. … ‘Maybe we can be the ones to bring the trees back.’

“That calling has always motivated Thomas Brannon, even as a third grader in the 1940s planting trees with his siblings on his family’s land in eastern Ohio, the property that Mr. French visited in August.

“ ‘If I can make that 230 acres look better, then that’s enough for me,’ Mr. Brannon said.

“His grandparents sold mining rights to parts of the property in 1952, and nearly four decades of coal mining followed. In 1977, the federal government passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, requiring mining companies to return land to the general shape it had before the mining activity.

“As a result, mining companies would backfill excavated land, packing rock material tightly against the hillside so it wouldn’t cause landslides, said Scott Eggerud, a forester with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the agency that enforces the mining law. To prevent erosion, mining companies would plant aggressive, mostly nonnative grasses that could tolerate the heavily compacted soil. …

“In theory, compacting land and greening it up quickly was a good idea, in terms of preventing erosion and water contamination, said Sara Fitzsimmons, chief conservation officer at The American Chestnut Foundation. But it made re-establishing forests difficult. …

“When Green Forests Work arrived on the Brannon property in 2013, they focused on undoing some of the damage done to the land, bringing in bulldozers with giant ripping shanks that dig three to four feet deep into the soil, loosening up the dirt and pulling up rocks.

“By springtime, the group had planted upward of 20,000 seedlings, a mix of 20 different native tree species including the American chestnut, the Virginia pine and a variety of oaks.

“They also planted 625 chestnuts in a one-acre space they called a progeny test to evaluate the health of hybridized chestnut trees — fifteen-sixteenths American chestnut and one-sixteenth Chinese chestnut — that were crossbred by scientists at the American Chestnut Foundation, a nonprofit group formed in the 1980s.”

More at the Times, here. Still more at the environmental radio show Living on Earth. No firewall.

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Murals by Rhode Island Youth

October 29, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Matthew Healey/Boston Globe.
Jeremy Garcia, 22, of Providence takes a break from working on a mural at “The Avenue Concept” in Providence, Rhode Island.

Kids love contributing to community murals. I know because Suzanne and John helped paint one in our town years ago. But that mural — about local history — was bland compared with the passionate work of self-expression and healing by urban youth in Providence.

Alexa Gagosz writes at the Boston Globe, “After setting down her paint brush, Deborah Ndayisaba gazed up at the purple-colored protestors who spread across a section of a new large-scale mural on the exterior of The Avenue Concept’s headquarters.

“A senior at La Salle Academy in Providence, Ndayisaba, 17, said she had her own ‘advocacy awakening’ when the Black Lives Matter movement took off in 2020. She joined the diversity club at school, became involved in PVD World Music, which looks to celebrate and enrich traditional African music and arts, and researched how many of the racial injustices of the Civil Rights era are now still relevant today.

“The protestors, for her, are symbolic. ‘It’s unfair how racial discrimination can touch everything. And activism isn’t just marching on the streets,’ said Ndayisaba, who is applying to colleges to eventually go into the medical field where she hopes to help women of color.

“It’s those kind of personal elements that scatter this newly finished collage mural by local youth who are involved with the Nonviolence Institute, Rhode Island Latino Arts, Haus of Codec, and PVD World Music — all Providence-based organizations. The effort was led by The Avenue Concept, a public arts organization, and international community-based public art organization Artolution. …

“The Avenue Concept, which is the state’s leading public art program, was founded in Providence in 2012. Since then, artists from around the world have been commissioned to paint mammoth-sized murals across downtown that are part of the city’s skyline today. …

“A few of the Concept’s most notable works address longstanding community issues, such as ‘Still Here‘ by muralist Gaia, which depicts Lynsea Montanari, a member of the Narragansett tribe and an educator at the Tomaquag Museum, as they hold a picture of Princess Red Wing, a Narragansett elder who founded the museum. In September, Boston-based artists Josie Morway painted a new mural in Warren that addresses sea level rise.

“This new project, which was completed after 10 painting days on Sept. 30, is a pilot for a larger community participation program that was identified in The Avenue Concept’s latest strategic plan. The goal of the program, Thorne explained, was to address representation, neighborhood voice, unique cultural perspectives, and community needs in their upcoming projects.

“ ‘Over the last year, we’ve really tried to listen and better understand the stories that are intersecting in our own neighborhood,’ [Yarrow Thorne, executive director and founder of The Avenue Concept] said. ‘We are looking to do more than just the giant pieces of beautiful art in downtown, but to serve the community that surrounds us.’

“Thorne said the Concept, which is based in the Upper South neighborhood of Providence, selected the four local organizations because of how their work makes an impact across a diverse set of communities. Each organization brought four to five members of their youth communities to learn, connect, co-create themes, and eventually execute the mural with the help of Artolution’s co-founder Dr. Max Frieder.

“Frieder, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate and former classmate of Thorne’s, brings public art projects around the world — including in refugee camps. Frieder said he trains refugee-artists on how they can work with kids who have been through trauma and teach them to express what’s most important to them through art.

“ ‘With this project, we brought four very different community groups together and it has been remarkable to see them come together and reflect on their similarities,’ said Frieder, who has participated in public art installations on all seven continents. …

“Each participant painted a scene in a ‘memory ball,’ which looked like a golden orb with a scene of their choice inside. Some painted themselves playing basketball, another read ‘stop drug abuse,’ and one painted themselves playing a trumpet.

“One memory ball said, ‘You only get one life. It’s your duty to live it as fully as possible.’ It’s a quote inspired by Jojo Moyes, an English journalist and novelist.

“Each participant talked about the issues they and their families face in South Providence today: their communities getting priced out as the cost of living increases. Others have faced racism and homophobia in school. Some say their family’s generational trauma has prevented their own parents from healing.

“For example, Jeremy Garcia, 22, a self-described ‘proud, Black-Latino,’ described the stereotypes of South Providence being considered an ‘urban hood’ where residents are predominantly people of color. Garcia said many of their neighbors have watched cases of police brutality, such as the killing of George Floyd, and are afraid to call the police.

“ ‘These are the people who are supposed to save us and who we should be able to turn to when we are in danger,’ Garcia said. ‘If you can’t turn to the police, where do you turn?’

“Expressing themselves ‘and letting go of their past is the only way we can can heal and move forward,’ said Cedric Huntley, the executive director of the Nonviolence Institute. ‘We need more of this — in Providence and around the world. We all focus so much on the negative, which certainly impacts all of us, but there’s more to it in these young people’s lives.’ ”

More at the Globe, here. Nice photos. For a no-firewall article on the mural “Still Here,” check the Brown University newspaper.

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Olbrich Garden’s Gleam 2022

October 28, 2022 by suzannesmom

Here’s a bonus post from Rebecca Cunningham’s blog. Aren’t these photos awesome?

Fake Flamenco

Lights in the night that bring delight. Going to the glimmering evening garden show has become a tradition for us. This year, we started in the mushroom grove. Delicate mushrooms that look like morels are made from beeswax and glow.

Mushroom Grove Artists: James Ream & Benjamin Smith

Next we went through an astral entrance. It felt like a rite of passage to a new world.

Astral Entrance Artist: Ash Armenta

In Firefly Forest, we felt the presence of fairies and wood spirits.

We were drawn into a part of the galaxy with a black hole. We watched as it pulled a star into itself.

Tidal Disruption Artist: Mark-David Hosale
Collaborators: Jim Madsen & Faisal Abdu’Allah

Neon butterflies greeted us from the next curve of the path.

Never Alone in the Garden Artist: Tyler Kutz

Warmth and delight, despite the ups and downs in life, guided our way through the…

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Water Ranching in Mexico

October 28, 2022 by suzannesmom

Photo: Bobby Bascomb.
Gabions are baskets of rocks that Valer Clark places in stream beds to hold onto infrequent and precious rainfall at her ranch in Agua Prieta, Mexico.

Today I’m passing along some ideas for conserving water in dry areas. They come from a rancher in Mexico but could work elsewhere.

At the environmental radio show Living on Earth, “Bobby Bascomb visits acclaimed land preservationist Valer Clark at her ranch, Cahone Bonito, in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Valer has been a steward of dried-up lands in Mexico and the southwestern US since she purchased this property in the 1970’s, and she’s dedicated herself to finding ways to restore and maintain it. …

“BOBBY BASCOMB: For a couple months each year the region is awash with water from the seasonal monsoons. The normally dry river beds fill with flood water and swell to create habitat for all manner of water birds and amphibians. The watery paradise is short-lived though, and most of those streams dry up in a matter of weeks. But that wasn’t always the case. A network of streams, rivers and wetlands once crisscrossed the landscape. In fact, more than 150 years ago, around the time of the Civil War, people in the region struggled with malaria, a mosquito-born illness typically associated with tropical wet climates. Last year, I went to Mexico and I found a ranch owner that’s working on ways to keep some of that water on the land longer.

“My journey starts at the Gadsden Hotel in Douglas, Arizona. … The opulence of the hotel hints at an earlier time of prosperity and wealth. Valer says the whole region, north and south of the border, was made rich more than 100 years ago by the same things.

“VALER CLARK: This was copper, cotton, and cattle. The three Cs, you know, all in the early 1900s.

“BASCOMB: Those three Cs made a lot of money but heavily degraded the land. Before the arrival of settlers the region didn’t have much water but there were some dense grasslands. Forests grew alongside rivers that meandered across the open landscape. And wetlands popped up every 20 or 30 miles along those rivers. But when Valer first visited back in the 70s, decades of mining and agriculture left the arid soil dry and cracked, few trees remained and the river beds were deeply eroded.

“Valer [and] her husband at the time were traveling in Mexico and fell in love with the austere land. The wildness of the open parched landscape drew them in.

“CLARK: We just came across this ranch, by accident. And he said, Well, why don’t we bid on it, and I bid so low, I didn’t think we’d ever get it. … When I got here and started seeing the lack of water and seeing the situation, what it looked like, and the hills were bare, and there was no grass. And I thought I wonder if you could make a change. …

“BASCOMB: Valer eventually bought and rehabilitated some 150,000 acres of land in northern Mexico and the Southwest US. [Her] work here has been transformative, says Ron Pulliam.

“RON PULLIUM: There are four great geological forces: there’s volcanism, plate tectonics, there’s erosion. And there’s Valer. …

“BASCOMB: Ron is an ecologist, formerly with the US Department of Interior, and founder of the nonprofit Borderlands Restoration Network. … I pile into a pickup truck with Ron. Valer, in her own truck, leads the way out of Douglas, Arizona and across the border to Agua Prieta, … We leave behind the maquiladora factories in the duty-free trade zone of Agua Prieta and drive an hour southeast to Valer’s ranch. Pavement and two-story buildings give way to dusty soil and brittle pale green grass. To me, as a New Englander, the landscape looks rather inhospitable, but Ron says this is prime cattle grazing territory.

“PULLIAM: Generally speaking now, the stocking ratios are on the order of one cow to one hundred or two hundred acres in this area. And then think of around the turn of the century, 100 times that number of cows. … If you put hundreds of cows out on a small area here you basically reduce all the ground cover. So, when the rain comes it just runs off the land rather than being caught up in the vegetation.

“BASCOMB: And keeping that rainwater on the land is the fundamental key to what Valer is doing to rehabilitate her property. More water will mean more grass and trees, habitat for the wildlife that was once common here. … She takes me on a walk around her property. …

“CLARK: This is what we call a gabion, which is a wire basket that is filled with rocks. …

“BASCOMB: They’re about 3 feet tall, some just 5 or 6 feet wide, others more than a hundred feet across. Valer and her crew have built more than 20,000 of them on her property. They all sit in riverbeds which are dry most of the year until the monsoon rains come. That’s when the gabions get to work. They slow down the water rushing through the river bed so silt can accumulate behind them, like a sponge.

“CLARK: And that sponge holds the water. And so the water, instead of just whipping through fast, when it rains, 30% of it’s held back and goes into the ground. And so it filters down very slowly. …

“BASCOMB: Those pools of water are home to insects, birds, rare frogs, and endangered fish species.

“CLARK: And trees, all these trees coming up, they’re a result of having water here. … Some of them grow 10 feet a year. … We’ve seen ocelot, we’ve seen bobcats and lions and bears and coatimundis and javelinas, ring tailed cats.”

More at Living on Earth, here.

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