Cry, the Beloved Country

Well, there's that: we're not apartheid South Africa. At least not yet, anyway. Rough week!

An incomplete list of pro-women, pro-immigrant, pro-earth, anti-bigotry organizations that need our support. #vinewinesign

A photo posted by vinewinenyc (@vinewinenyc) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:18am PST

Good suggestions. Here's Part Two:

And remember, local organizations need just as much (or more) help as established national ones. #vinewinesign

A photo posted by vinewinenyc (@vinewinenyc) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:19am PST

These are suggestions from NYC. I expect there are many other worthy organizations, activist groups, artists, journalists — some local, some California-centric — that could use support: the local library is high on my list.

You might consider joining others in support of indigenous rights, our water, and our climate on November 15.

Feeling paranoid? (And perhaps you should be, all things considered...) This link is for you.

And this, from Chris Clarke:

This morning I saw a little blade of big galleta grass coming up a foot from the rest of the plant. It is such a small thing. It has so little effect on anything. But there are millions of clumps of big galleta grass in the desert. Each one sending out one shoot binds a little soil, sequesters a little carbon. Working together, they heal the earth.

A photo posted by Chris Clarke (@yucca.brevifolia) on Nov 11, 2016 at 4:31pm PST

In case his words get lost in the shuffle, I'll repeat them:

"This morning I saw a little blade of big galleta grass coming up a foot from the rest of the plant. It is such a small thing. It has so little effect on anything. But there are millions of clumps of big galleta grass in the desert. Each one sending out one shoot binds a little soil, sequesters a little carbon. Working together, they heal the earth."

Forward together, friends.

We plan, God laughs

Calliandra 'Sierra Starr.' 

Summer vacation got off to an odd start. There was/is a massive wildfire in the mountains. My tiresome cough became more tiresome. Plumbers turned the water off and spent two days on the roof of my house, looking for a faulty pipe. The Cactus and Succulent Society of America held its biennial conference a stone's throw away, and I missed the whole thing. 

On the other hand, IT IS RAINING on the fire right now. Rain! Last weekend I went to Reuben's Open Garden and had a terrific time. I have new meds for the cough. The plumbing issue is fixed (crosses fingers), and I have a garden to tend and nurseries to visit all summer long, and the Inter-City Show and Sale is only six weeks away. The dogs are happy to have me around. The cabin is still there. There are books to read and hikes to take and plants to repot and a Leap Second to celebrate this week, and over a month of summer vacation left. Life is fine.

Some shots from the last, thoroughly disorganized month or so: 

Calliandra 'Sierra Starr' again. Lovely pale branches, and wonderful flowers. A hummingbird magnet.

I hit the sale at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden — should have been there earlier in the day, but still found plants and pots to bring home.

Made a run up to the cabin to get things ready for my sister's summer visit. Stopped at the dam to take a photo before heading down the hill.

Waiting to be potted up: Trichocereus grandiflorus, top left; barberry hybrid from RSABG in the middle; Baja Pitcher Sage (Lepechinia hastata) on the right; my favorite salvia, S. pachyphylla, in the middle; and Echeveria 'Roundleaf' at the bottom.

Wish this were my place, but no... it's the Armstrong Garden Center down the street from Rancho Santa Ana. Succulents looking much better this year, and a better selection. All with neonicotinoid labels, unfortunately. That's an Agave ovatifolia north of center. I was tempted! Should really experiment with the 'cram-it' approach at home...

My Palo Verde (Parkinsonia aculeata) bloomed! Love the flowers. The smaller Palo Verde is also growing, um, fast (I hate to say "like a weed," but they are crazy common in these parts). In a year or two they should provide some nice filtered shade for my frying pan of a patio.

Blooming Yucca rostrata at Cherry Valley Nursery, a fave stop.

Epic fail :~(  I raised three little parryi pups from tiny nubs and they were doing so well... Damp May, hazy June, and then the Death Star (™Pam Penick) returned with heat and light at full blaze,  and after half a day of that, all three pups were fried. I might be able to save one, but I'm afraid the others are goners. Must build some arbors and create some shade.

And then, a little miracle! This Fouquieria splendens was leafless and dying: waterlogged roots, a pot with the wrong kind of soil, awful drainage. Last month I uprooted it, discovered the damage, and called Rob Roy MacGregor to see what, if anything, could be done. As you can see, the ocotillo bounced back (and is fully leafed out now, and sending out new shoots). Thanks, Rob! (Now I need a really big pot.)

Echeveria subsessilis (possibly 'Lime').

Clouds over the hills west of home. This country is green in winter, hot and dry and burned brown in summer, and I love it.

Not clouds. Took this photo near Sand Canyon Road, looking east at smoke from the Lake Fire. That pyramid-shaped mountain on the left is Mt. San Bernardino. Nearly 50 square miles of forest have burned. Hope it rains the rest of the week.

I love this NOID agave Agave 'Mateo' (hybrid, possibly between A. bracteosa and A. lophantha) from the Granite Hill Nursery. Big thanks to Hoov B in comments for the ID! Seeing what it might look like in a clay pot...

Goldflame Honeysuckle (Lonicera x heckrottii 'Goldflame'). Aw, I just love this one. Hope it isn't in too sunny a spot. Another hummingbird magnet.

Grevillea 'Long John' just keeps blooming away. The hummingbirds love this one, too.

And now to attack that pile of magazines next to the armchair. Spitting rain outside now — chance of thunderstorms the rest of the week. Hope a gentle rain falls on the Lake Fire area all week long. 

Lake Fire

Flammulated Owl, by Marissa on Flickr.

Four years ago at about this time (almost midnight) I was driving back to Big Bear Lake after a night spent owling near Fish Creek, in the San Gorgonio Wilderness area of the San Bernardino National Forest. My fellow birders and I were hoping to see (or hear, more likely) a Flammulated Owl. That's a grown one in the photo above. So small! After prowling the forest roads for a while, we finally heard our owl calling in the old-growth conifers at Mission Springs. It was pitch dark — a wonderful night.

This owling trip has been on my mind the last couple days, because the whole area — the meadow I photographed on the drive in; the forest we traveled through; Aspen Grove trailhead (Violet-green Swallows, Dusky Flycatcher, Green-tailed Towhee...); Fish Creek (Western Tanager, White-headed Woodpecker, Mountain Chickadees, Common Poorwill...); Mission Springs, where we finally heard the little Flamm — all of it is on fire, burned, burning, gone up in smoke, gone up in flames. The Lake Fire ("Incident Description: Moderate Rate Of Spread With Active Torching And Crown Fire Runs") was 16,000 acres in size at last count, and just 15% contained. 

I have a cabin in the San Bernardino National Forest, and fires like this scare the crap out of me. I hope firefighters will stay safe. I hope cabins don't burn. My heart aches for the nestlings too young to fly, the mule deer fawns, the bear cubs. There is no good time for a forest fire, but a big fire at this time of year seems especially cruel. I hope as many of the forest dwellers as possible make it through safely.  

Wildhorse Creek and Wildhorse Meadows to the north, Hell For Sure Canyon to the south. We are not in New England. Aspen Grove, Fish Creek, and Mission Springs, where we heard the little owl, have all burned. Here's the InciWeb link again, and #LakeFire on Twitter.

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Peter Houser of Living with Birddogs visited China earlier this month and caught a glimpse of the future:

[N]early all of the enviroment that I saw was horribly damaged. During the entire time in country I saw only a handful of songbirds, a few magpies, no rodents, no hawks. Certainly no game birds. Anything that looks green is under mono-species cultivation. Most of the country is covered by a cloud of smog from the coal-burning electric plants. 5,000 years of human occupation have left a mark on the land and the animals that will not disappear until the next ice age. So, get out your checkbook and send some money to your favorite environmental advocate group. This trip really brought home to me how much we stand to lose if we do not learn to live in a balanced relationship with our environment.

Peter is just one of a number of fine hook-and-bullet bloggers to sound an alarm. Check out Chad Love here and here and here [and, heck, just nab Chad's RSS feed. He's good].

And don't miss Hal Herring's great editorial in Field & Stream, and Bob Marshall's special report, here.

Maybe you saw the April 15 NY Times article: G.O.P. Push in States to Deregulate Environment. [Alternate link via Google.] Quote:

In the past month, the nation’s focus has been on the budget battle in Washington, where Republicans in Congress aligned with the Tea Party have fought hard for rollbacks to the Environmental Protection Agency, clean air and water regulations, renewable energy and other conservation programs.

But similar efforts to make historically large cuts to environmental programs are also in play at the state level as legislatures and governors take aim at conservation and regulations they see as too burdensome to business interests.

If we hope to save our country from the big oil billionaires business interests that control so many of our politicians, we better get busy. Don't wait until the next Ice Age. Get busy now.

That fresh hell in the photo at the top of this post? Not China. It's Canada. And it kills me to think of it, but that toxic landscape used to be boreal forest. Did I mention that Canada is the #1 supplier of oil to the US? Countless wildfowl die in those tailing ponds. The air, the rivers and the people — the men, women and children — who live nearby are being poisoned. But we mustn't burden the business interests! Oh, no, mustn't do that.

See also:
Boreal Songbird Initiative
Contact Elected Officials Seriously: they are public servants. They work for us.
iLoveMountains.org Because mountaintop removal mining is in a horror category of its own.

Missed

Mike San Miguel on a pelagic trip out of Bodega Bay, California, September 9, 2009. Photo by Kristen Olson on Flickr.

There were many reasons to admire ardent conservationist Mike San Miguel, who died last year while conducting owl surveys for SoCal Edison in the San Gabriel Mountains. For one thing, Mike "offered his time and energy as a volunteer data reviewer for San Bernardino County, California," to quote eBird's tribute, and that was a big deal for me, because I happen to live and bird in San Bernardino County. For another thing, Mike led field trips for L.A. Audubon, offering his time and his considerable birding expertise to bring people closer to the life of the skies.

Mike's generosity of spirit meant that run-of-the-mill, garden-variety birders like me had the opportunity to go birding with one of the best field ornithologists in North America — except that I never did get the chance to go birding with him, because birding with Mike San Miguel was a Special Thing that I was saving for the future, when my birding skills would be better. And now it's too late.

"He was one of those guys that made you feel better when he was around. Because he was so full of the right stuff."*

Kimball Garrett reported Mike's death to the online community of California birders the day after the tragedy occurred, and handled the somber task with skill and eloquence. If I were ever faced with such a heartbreaking responsibility, it would be a miracle if I managed to write a message half as fine and heartfelt as Garrett's post about Mike. The folks at eBird weighed in with tributes of their own, and Mike's son and daughter added beautiful posts that speak volumes about their dad. All are very worth reading. His daughter writes:

I ask one favor of Dad's dear birding friends; next time you chase a great bird, get it in your sights and get a good look, take a moment to think of Dad. That way I'll know he's still out there birding with you.

Mike San Miguel was a beloved family man, a citizen scientist of the highest rank and an inspiration to more people than he could ever have imagined. My eBird-list-per-day resolution this year is in memory of Mike. "Birding with a purpose," Kimball Garrett called it — all our small lists and Mike's vastly more extensive ones helping people learn more about birds and the environment, now and a hundred years from now. A friend calls it "birding in the spirit of Mike San Miguel."