Sagebrush and Spuds

"Meat with a Story"

2012-01-08T17:36:00.001-07:00

The Boise Farmers Market is a four-block long party that shuts down streets and reroutes city buses every Saturday from April to Christmas. On the north side of Idaho Street a knot of shoppers gathers each week at the Malheur River Meats booth, where Rob Stokes presides.

Sporting a Marine's haircut and a marathon runner's build, Rob displays the quiet calm of a seasoned school teacher and the helpfulness of an older brother. The label on each package of his beef, pork, chicken, and turkey says, “Natural meat with a story.” He tells that story every Saturday. When he is not pulling packages of frozen meat or cartons of eggs out of ice chests, he is the lone participant in a quiz show where an ever-changing audience asks the questions.

Read more in my my December, 2011 column in Rangelands.

Fine Variations on a Winning Theme

2011-10-24T13:56:00.004-06:00

Sagebrush is arguably the most successful and dominant plant in the Intermountain West, swathing landscapes in gray-green from subalpine peaks to low desert flats between the Columbia Basin and the Colorado Plateau.

Although well known, sagebrush is often unrecognized when it hides in plain view. It provides a subdued backdrop of small, dusky leaves and tiny, green flowers against which buttercups, larkspur,balsamroot, and lupines parade...

Sagebrush is self-sufficient and does not need insects to pollinate its flowers; it simply releases pollen for the wind to carry. Instead of relying on birds or mammals to disperse its seeds, sagebrush just drops them to the ground or skids them across firm snow like tiny curling stones.

Learn more in my most recent column in Rangelands.

Boise State: Unusual Type of Hybrid Origin in a Rare Plant

2011-09-28T07:09:00.006-06:00

This fall, Boise State University enrolled over 19,000 students, including 2,000 graduate students. This makes it the largest university in the state.

In the Biology Department at BSU, professors and students investigate topics including raptor migration, carbon sequestration in soil, new drugs for inflammatory diseases, genetics of invasive plants, bone development, and the genetics of rare plants.

Professor Jim Smith and graduate student Danielle Clay have found that a rare plant, which grows only in an area the size of the BSU campus, has an unusual type of hybrid origin.

I wrote about it for BSU's Division of Research and Economic Development.

How Healthy are your Roots?

2011-08-29T11:12:00.004-06:00

Not the ancestral kind, the kind that anchor plants, protect the soil, and keep invasive plants from invading. And how do you monitor the health of plant roots?

I describe new techniques for monitoring plant roots, vegetation, fuel loads, and ground water in my latest Rangelands column.

Where in the World is Queen Ida(ho)?

2011-08-28T19:28:00.011-06:00

I returned from a summer-long road trip to a long to do list and a pile of mail (the mail that could wait--a friend forwarded the important things). My to dos included a visit to the Boise Public Library for an annual update of my contact information.

As I stood in the checkout line at the downtown library I looked to my right for a comforting welcome home nod from Queen Ida. I expected to see Queen Ida where I left her this spring: sitting regally on the throne of Idaho, cradling a potato in one hand with a hoe as her scepter in the other, attended by a mountain bluebird and adorned by a sprig of flowering syringa. I had missed seeing her warm face, turned toward me so that its edge follows the jagged ridgeline of the Bitterroot Mountains on Idaho's eastern border.

But Queen Ida was gone. I stared at a wall as blank as a bowl of cold oatmeal. Only a forlorn picture hanger remained where the framed poster of the Queen had hung and ruled serenely over library patrons.

I asked after Queen Ida while the woman at the desk updated my information. But she hadn't noticed the abdication. The librarian at the information desk reported that others of Ida's devoted subjects had inquired about her. But she couldn't remember the details of the Queen's whereabouts. I left my business card and hoped for an update.

The next day Kevin Booe, the Boise Public Library director, called me with a full report on the absent sovereign. (Apparently matters of missing royalty go directly to the top at the library.) Kevin assured me that Queen Ida's absence is only temporary. She has gone to visit Terri Schorzman at the Boise Department of Arts and History. This department encourages the public, literary, visual, and performance arts and preserves historic and cultural artifacts. Terri is looking into the details of the Queen's copyright to see if it's possible to make a copy of the poster.

Kevin also shared some of Queen Ida's story with me. She was created by Carl Babcock, an art professor who worked at the library after he retired. The poster was commissioned for Idaho's state centennial in 1990. Other paintings by Carl, of scenes from Alice in Wonderland, hang in the children's section of the Library.

If you also miss the twinkle in Queen Ida's eye next time you're in the main library, don't worry. The queen will return soon to reign over library patrons, librarians, and directors.

Boise State: Rare Plants and Ants

2011-07-25T10:59:00.005-06:00

Boise State University is the largest of Idaho's three universities. More students attend classes on its urban campus in Idaho's largest city than attend the University of Idaho, in Moscow, or Idaho State University, in Pocatello.

Ian Robertson is an entomologist at BSU, studying the behavior and evolutionary ecology of insects. He has investigated insect pollination, crab spider predation, and parental care in insects.

I wrote about his work with ant predation of slickspot peppergrass, an endemic plant in southwest Idaho, for BSU's Division of Research. Ian provided all of the excellent photos.

The Cheatgrass that Wasn't There

2011-06-30T15:04:00.006-06:00

My first Land Lines column is in the June issue of Rangelands, a journal of the Society for Range Management.

“It looked like the ground was moving; there must have been millions of them. And they were eating every green shoot. It was dark, but I saw some on a light-colored rock. Then I saw 'em everywhere!”

I shivered in the chilly June evening as I listened to the rancher.

“It was warm in January, warmer than it is right now, and I saw the larvae in February,” he continued. “I collected some and took them in. The guy said they were army cutworms.”

You can read more on my website.

Datil Well and the Wallow Fire

2011-06-28T11:23:00.023-06:00

I added a third campground to my All Time Favorite list: Datil Well National Recreation Area, in western New Mexico, joins Natural Bridges and Lava Beds as the places I'd most like to spend the night.

All three campgrounds are located in arid PJ (pinon-juniper) vegetation and are small enough that large motor homes have difficulty navigating the roads between the trees. I rarely hear generators running in my favorite campgrounds and after the sun sets...it gets dark! I'm reminded how extravagant the Milky Way is when it's the only source of light. Natural Bridges National Monument, in southern Utah, is the first International Dark-Sky Park and is believed to be graced by the darkest night time skies in the National Park system.

Natural Bridges is also home to my All Time Favorite Day Hike: Drive to the far end of the loop drive and park at the Owachomo Bridge overlook. Walk back north, across the mesa, to Sipapu Bridge near the beginning of the loop. Follow the trail from the parking area at Sipapu Bridge down into White Canyon and then walk downstream to Owachomo Bridge. It's a relaxing hike in a canyon that shades you from the desert sun with trees and rock.

The campground at Lava Beds National Monument looks north to the wetlands of Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge on the California-Oregon border and the nearby the Tule Lake Japanese Internment camp. To the south of Lava Beds, the Modoc National Forest provides high elevation relief from the desert heat.

The water in Datil Well Campground still comes from the historic well. It was one of 15, spaced every 10 miles, that provided water for livestock on the Magdalena Stock Driveway. Cattle and sheep trailed along the driveway from Springerville, AZ to the railroad at Magdalena, NM during the 1800s. The Recreation Area is on BLM land and nestles against the eastern flank of the Datil Mountains and the Cibola National Forest.

I left Datil Well on June 6th and soon saw the smoke layer from the Wallow Fire burning in eastern Arizona. A few cumulus clouds peeked over the top of the smoke.

When I rolled into Aragon, NM, I realized that the puffy white formations weren't clouds; it was a convection column building above the fire, which was being fanned by unusually hot, dry weather and gusty winds.

By the time I stopped for an afternoon snack in Reserve, NM the convection column dominated the view to the west.

The Wallow Fire is the largest fire ever in Arizona. It started May 29th, southwest of Alpine, AZ and has burned 538,049 acres. It is now reported to be 89% contained. Although the news is encouraging, the fire still has a high potential for growth in difficult terrain.

Sleeping Ute

2011-05-28T21:08:00.005-06:00

Miles from Boise to Hovenweep: 729
Cost of two nights in the campground: $20
Number of suppurating cedar gnat bites: 10,000 (estimate)
Being the first to look out of your tent each morning to make sure that the Great Warrior God is still sleeping and hasn't risen to help fight the Ute's enemies: priceless

Something Warm, Dry, and Tingley

2011-05-19T15:42:00.039-06:00

If I'd known they were going to stop making them I'd have bought a lifetime supply: that special type of men's Texas Steer work boots from Kmart. No other boots fit me like they did. I loved my last pair into wads of crumpled leather and lopsided soles.

I wore Texas Steers while milking cows, driving tractors, collecting insects in cotton fields, riding a motorcycle in West Africa, backpacking, and trying (unsuccessfully) to learn to rope cattle from the back of a horse. My Texas Steers could handle a pair of spurs as well as a pair of White's Farmer-Ranchers can--at a fraction the cost.

The spurs in the photo belonged to Tim, the cook at the Everett Ranch in Salida, CO 15 years ago. Tim didn't do much riding the week I spent at the Everett's cow camp. He didn't do much walking, either, until that Thursday when he'd had enough of being laid up and sawed the cast off his right foot.

Tim made the first biscuits and gravy I'd ever eaten. They warmed me on the frosty summer mountain mornings when the hummingbirds were too cold to fly and sat on the perch at the feeder between sips. And I'd guess that Tim made 95% of the Velveeta and white bread sandwiches I've ever eaten. The four other guests and I tucked them into our saddle bags before we left for a day of bouncing on our horses and trying to stay out of the cowboys' way while they worked.

The horse I bounced around on that week was named Shavano after the nearby fourteener peak and a historic Ute chief. My Shavano was an equine bon vivant and indefatigable optimist. Every morning he thought that this just might be the day that I forgot to tighten his cinch again after he let his breath out. Any sighting of the horse trailer raised his hopes that he could get in and catch a ride back home to his pasture.

Two decades before I strapped spurs on my Texas Steers, I tucked them into Tingely barn rubbers and milked cows in them. After milking, I peeled the rubbers off and hopped on a tractor with my clean, dry boots.

Now I live in the Sagebrush Sea, where spring means mud. All our rain falls in the winter and the soil doesn't dry out until late May. It was time for another pair of Tingleys: I ordered a pair of Women's large rubbers, as I'm now wearing women's boots from the thrift store.

Sadly, my lovely new rubbers were too small--no amount to pulling could get them past my toes. When I called Tingley to exchange them for a "queen-sized" pair, the woman I spoke with said, "Oh, no need to send them back; we'll just send you another pair."

I promised her I'd find a good home for the Tingleys. If you'd like a pair of Ladies large rubbers (8-9½--although they seem to run small, as my boots are 9½s), POST A COMMENT BELOW and tell me why you'd like them.

Last fall/winter/spring in Boise was eight months of rain interrupted by a month of snow between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The weather warmed just enough after each snow to turn it into ice before cooling again to hide the ice with a dusting of ball-bearing snow. I found that my Tingleys were just the ticket for dealing with the treacherous stuff.

This year, after our record La Niña winter, I may need my Tingleys until July.

Happy Bacon Chicken Day

2011-04-09T22:14:00.009-06:00

Francis Bacon, scientist and essayist, died April 9, 1626 of pneumonia. He caught his death while testing his hypothesis that a chicken could be preserved with ice. The chicken was already dead; a recent snowfall provided the ice.

Although April snowstorms are now rare in southern England, Bacon paved the way for the lonely Maytag repairman during the Little Ice Age. Winters were colder in northern Europe during this period, which lasted from the 16th to the mid 19th century.

I'm a huge Francis Bacon fan because he developed the scientific method. I learned in a writing class that he was also an essayist. The instructor was surprised that Bacon had street cred as a scientist. I admire him even more now and aspire to combine science and writing as well as he did.

If you're either a scientist or a writer, join me next year on April 9, 2012 for Bacon Chicken Day. I've put it on my calendar so that I'll remember in time to plan something next time.

Growlers and Crushers

2011-03-20T12:47:00.035-06:00

A big brown growler followed me home on a wet December evening. His tag said his name was Winter Cheer. I kept him, although he didn't last long.

I came of beer drinking age in Minnesota in the era of brown, returnable 12 oz glass bottles. A case of Fox Deluxe or Cold Spring beer (the same beer with different labels, according to one rumor) could be had for about 20 cents a bottle. You only bought the beer, not the bottles: those you returned, in their heavy cardboard case, the next time you bought beer.

Graduate school in Arizona found me swilling beer from blue aluminum cans. "High school beer," friends called it when I brought some on a New Year's Eve camping trip. After I moved to the Northwest I gave in to pressure from less understanding friends. I quaffed microbrews from brown glass bottles and then tossed the bottles. Tossed them into the recycling bucket, that is, then schlepped them to the recycling facility. I tiptoed across the landing and down the stairs so the recycling bucket didn't clink: I believe my neighbors are LDS.

While road-tripping last summer I found canned microbrews from Oskar Blues brewery: Imperial IPA, Pale Ale, Imperial Red...Imperial Stout. Stout in aluminum cans! It helped me brave the rain and the frightening trees at Mt. Rainier National Park that evening.

Cans are lighter, more compact, and safer on road trips than bottles. I understand that, overall, aluminum cans use less energy than glass bottles, as they require less material to make and much less energy to ship. In addition, although the numbers are still shockingly high, fewer cans are thrown away ("only" 55% of them nationwide) than bottles (a horrifying 77% nationwide). I tried to console myself with the fact that my bottles were among the 23% that were recycled. I assumed they were made into bottles again, as my aluminum cans are.

Last summer at Flat Top Ranch, John Peavey got me thinking about glass bottles one evening; we wondered where our recycled glass goes. I've since learned that the Ada County Highway District (ACHD) has been collecting glass bottles from Boise for the past seven years. They were grinding the bottles up and using the material as aggregate in road bases. That is, until four years ago when the glass crusher broke down, according to an article in the Boise Weekly. It wasn't repaired because ACHD now contracts out most of their aggregate needs, as they're building fewer roads.

But the bottles kept arriving at the grinding site south of town. Two glass mountain sprouted, then grew.

The Weekly recently reported a plan: curbside glass recycling in Boise, with higher charges to cover it. The glass will be crushed into fiberglass by a local company. Hopefully, more glass will be recycled with the city picking it up.

When I drink microbrew out of glass bottles what I'm really buying is the bottles, the energy to make them, the energy to ship them, and then to dispose of them. People who throw the bottles away are also buying space in landfills. The beer comes along with the bottles to make me feel better about my use of the world's energy and resources.

That is, until the big brown growler followed me home. Growlers are refillable half gallon glass jugs that breweries refill and resell. And I can now get Fat Tire in cans at WinCo, for those times when I can't get through an entire growler while it still tastes like beer.

Although I'll still have to visit to the recycling facility, as Boise will not pick up recycling at apartment buildings, between the growler and the Fat Tire cans there's less clinking on my way down the stairs.

Maricopa Memories

2011-02-18T15:23:00.033-07:00

The Airstream trailer I lived in is gone but Headquarters is still there. The low tan building used to look out on the pickup trucks of cotton farmers and feed lot managers and the sagging cars of their employees. Now, a parade of SUVs heading to and from jobs in Phoenix shakes the building.

I can see where the trailer sat as I drive through the parking lot on the north side of Headquarters to park on the other side. The north side is the bar. From my trailer I had seen people lurch out the bar, fumble with their car keys, struggle to find the ignition, and drive away. More sedate drinkers parked on the other side, near the restaurant.

Inside the restaurant the tongue and groove paneling is preserved by a patina of refried bean, enchilada, and hamburger vapors. The wood is exposed where tables bump against it as patrons heave themselves out of the booths after the day's special. The day I visit it's a taco and a ground beef enchilada with rice and beans.

Framed Rotary Club presidents jostle each other on the back wall. Early presidents are black and white; later ones are in color and wear heavy rimmed-glasses. Decades of dust drape across the crowns of three velvet dress sombreros hanging nearby.

The housing boom of the early 2000s is preserved in the amber of polyurethaned ads in the table: realtors, excavators, and yard care services. The ads surround photos of four generations of the Ferrel and Mitchell families: the 1987 Maid of Cotton smiles, the first appointed mayor of Maricopa looks capable, and family members resemble each other.

After lunch my waitress gives me a ziplock bag of ice for the cooler in my trunk and tells me that the library, with its free WiFi, is on Porter Rd. and Smith-Enke. She names the roads as if she were saying, "Between Indian School and Camelback" in the middle of Phoenix. The last time I visited the Maricopa Library it was in a temporary building with a volunteer staff of one. I donated my Ms. Magazines after I read them.

I lived in Maricopa in the mid 1980s, before Phoenix commuters drove across the Gila River Akimel O'odham Reservation to find homes the realtors, banks, and cable TV shows convinced them they could afford. My Maricopa was a flat farmland where the only relief was the rectangles of pecan orchards and cotton fields. One evening I watched a dust storm move in and clocked its progress by counting the rows of trees disappearing in the Smith's orchard.

The pecan orchards were shady in the summer, but the cotton fields were steaming chest-high jungles that left my head and shoulders exposed to the sun as I scooped up insects in my sweep net and collected cotton bolls. I cracked the bolls open to look for pink bollworms later in the day, with beer, on my front porch.

The house I lived in the summer I looked for bollworms was nestled against the channelized Santa Cruz River. Each evening I sat on the berm that kept the river running in straight lines along field borders to watch the sun set behind the Sierra Estrellas, the Star Mountains. I watched the sun's slow waltz north to the summer solstice, where it paused before sliding back toward the south for its date with the winter solstice. The moon danced to a quicker beat, jitterbugging from southwest to northwest over the course of each month I lived next to the Santa Cruz.

Ripe cotton bolls and the Sierra Estrellas, 1984.

I leave the restaurant and drive toward the library. Maricopans no longer navigate by pecan orchards, cotton fields, and farm shops. Instead, signs direct drivers to developments by Centex, KB Homes, and DR Horton. You are your developer.

Tan houses covered with spray-on stucco loom over imitation adobe walls that strain to keep the metastasizing houses inside. Many of the second story windows peering over the walls are blank, emptied by foreclosures. Young, spindly desert trees and dusty shrubs try to make the barren roadways look welcoming. The desert sun is no longer captured by pecan trees, cotton, or alfalfa; it is reflected off of tile roofs, asphalt driveways, and paved roads that were graded soil the last time I drove them. Mary Poppins would have no trouble dancing across Maricopa from one roof to the next.

An over-55 development seems to have collected all the water from the rooftops and pavement in town. Water tumbles across artificial rocks in an artificial waterway and fills concrete block-lined pools between lush green lawns. I enter up the brick drive but am turned back by a 20-something guard in a faux stone guard shack larger than my apartment: I can only go in if I look at a model home. I tell him that I'm just visiting, seeing how Maricopa has changed since I lived here the mid 80s. "Oh," the young man in the guard uniform says, "It's really different now. There was nothing here back then!"

The Maricopa Library looks like an upscale bank--a cross between a strip mall and a Moroccan palace. I follow BMWs and Mercedes Benz across decorative pavers to park under a palm trees in the lot. Across Porter Road I see that the pistachio orchard planted by a man I used to date has been replanted with homes.

Three tall arches across the front of the library are filled with smoked glass windows and an imposing front door. Inside, wooden tables and chairs rest on earth toned carpeting. Translucent window screens are pulled down across the smoked glass, letting in light but keeping out the sun's heat.

A wooden basket-weave wall curves around the children's section; a Maricopa timeline is burned into it. I learn that Father Kino visited Maricopa Wells in 1694, that there was a 100-year flood in 1983, shortly before my first trip, then another one ten years later in 1993. The time line concludes near the rest rooms with the library's opening in 2009.

I answer email and check the mileage to Yuma, where I'm visiting friends this evening. I'm still reeling from the changes outside, but inside the library is like every other library where I've checked email while traveling. The remarkable thing is that it's lovely, but unremarkable.

Before leaving Maricopa I head east, away from the center of town, and see that the house where I watched the sun and moon set is gone. But the packed earth yard where it sat is still surrounded by farm fields, a buffer between Maricopa and the Gila River Reservation.

I turn south toward another surviving farm where I lived for a summer in a trailer near the quonset hut shop. As I near the highway to head to Yuma I stop a crew cab pickup truck leaving the farm to ask about a friend, who used to manage the place.

A large, hirsute man fills the driver's seat and his large brown dog fills the back seat. The man manages the farm now; my friend is his uncle, but they no longer talk. He identifies himself as the younger brother of the man I dated while I lived in Maricopa.

He tells me that his brother died several years ago. He is the first of my old boyfriends to die. I had assumed the first would be the one who sky dives, rock climbs, wind surfs, scuba dives, and once roller bladed, unsuccessfully, down Mexican Hay Mountain. I didn't ask if his brother lived long enough to see his cotton fields sprout a crop of tan houses with spray-on stucco.

Kimchi

2011-01-20T16:02:00.015-07:00

I saw kimchi at WinCo in Boise today and bought some. I've sampled a few unusual animals (warthog, otolan, fermented sea slug--best stored outdoors, conch penis, and animals I've known personally), but my unusual plant foods have been limited to palm wine, millet beer, and red fruits that looked good during the hungry season in Senegal. Kimchi was on my bucket list.

My kimchi is made of nappa cabbage, garlic, green onion, hot pepper, sugar, salt, paprika, and ginger. As promised, the cover was bulging when I pried off the shrink wrapped security ring.

Kimchi has a remarkable odor: although it was 9 hours since breakfast, lunch suddenly seemed optional. The contents behaved as directed and bubbled up to overflow and run onto the countertop.

I fished out some of the pieces of cabbage and found them disappointingly like cabbage with garlic, onion, and red pepper. I had bought the Mild kimchi; I'll try the Strong stuff next time. The cabbage was still delightfully crunchy, unlike the cabbage in my fridge.

The label warns me to keep my kimchi refrigerated. It's hard to imagine that it could spoil; perhaps the warning is to keep it from growing enough to take over the kitchen.

Tree in Frost

2010-12-30T11:03:00.004-07:00

A pine tree protected an image of itself in frost on the roof of the neighbor's garage this morning. I fear its efforts will be in vain...until the next frosty morning in Boise.

I'm Cindy and I'm a Winter Squashaholic

2010-11-07T10:05:00.008-07:00

I am powerless to stop winter squash from leaping off the grocery store display into my grocery cart or from the farmer's market table into my shopping bag. I am weakest in the presence of acorn squash.

I must take the squash home, close the blinds, and lock the door. I cut the cute cucurbits up, place them in a casserole, and cook them briefly in the microwave with the lid on. Then I am driven to remove the lid and pop the casserole into the oven until the smell drives me to retrieve the delectable flesh with shaking hands. I try to remember to use oven mitts.

Completely overcome, I surrender and put butter and salt on the squash's delicious goodness and consume it. At night, I distribute the squash rind evidence among the three dumpsters at my apartment complex.

I am confident that my previously unknown metabolic condition, which produces uncontrollable cravings for tender orange flesh, will be discovered soon. I will not have to hide any longer and I can become the spokesperson for the WSA (Winter Squashaholics Anonymous). Between winter squash seasons I will travel extensively and urge others to seek treatment for the condition.
_____________

A recent post on Sarah Lenz's Prose and Potatoes blog forced me to recognize my previously unknown metabolic condition.

Rushing to be Good Citizens

2010-11-06T13:57:00.015-06:00

If your true personality comes out when you drive, then I'm in big trouble: I never should have had the gumption to graduate from high school. The only drivers who approach me in mellowness are on the island of Kaua'i.

Island drivers wave you into an endless line of cars crawling toward Lihue on a Friday afternoon. Waiting for the next hick-up forward, they roll down their windows to watch the surfers catching end-of-the-work-week waves. Island drivers thank you with a thumb and pinkie shaka salute when you wave them into line.

Yes, the traffic is heavy and slow; no, we won't get to Kapa'a in time; but the sun is turning the ocean to gold and the guy noseriding the longboard is slicing through the waves like a ship's figurehead. We might as well enjoy the view.

The other evening I uncharacteristically joined the thundering herd of vehicles leaving downtown Boise and wearing their tires to latex dust. Cruising down Front Street I cringed and caved as an SUV loomed on my front fender. I shuddered as a pickup appeared in my back seat at a stoplight. I avoided a Corolla wandering across lane markers while its driver laughed on a cell phone.

A white Suburban stitched a path from one lane to another and back, oblivious to the series of compression waves it created as drivers slowed to avoid it in each lane. The Suburban's brake lights flared angrily when it was caught in another driver's wave. We reached the 184 connector and the race was on. I chose life in the slow lane as a tan Chevy attempted a new land speed record to Meridian.

I looked at the clock on my dash: it was 7:23 pm on Election Day. I had voted that morning but the other drivers clearly had not: they must be rushing to the polls before they close. They must take their civic duty seriously and enjoy casting their ballots as much as I do.

In Print!

2010-10-26T12:01:00.007-06:00

Me. In print. Or in electrons, anyway.

No, I can't claim to be a professional writer, as I wasn't paid for the piece. But I didn't have to pay them to publish it, either.

Of Beavers, Rivers and the Moon is in the Twenty-second Flash in the Pan.

Five People at the Library

2010-10-04T13:19:00.002-06:00

Short legs negotiate with uneven slabs of sidewalk. His boots drum a slow, slurred beat. Listing from side to side, his brown face focuses straight ahead. Denim jeans and jacket remember hard work. A blue billed cap shades sunglasses and a mouth missing many teeth.

An orange plastic water bottle hangs on the thumb of one hand. The other hand cradles a cell phone to one ear. A chapbook waits in the crook of her arm and a one-strap backpack hangs down her back. Burnt red trousers echo the minor color in a short print jacket that includes the orange of the water bottle.

Soccer fit, tanned legs with muscular calves end in the latest tennis shoes with low cut socks. Navy soccer shorts contrast with a girly pink fitted fleece vest, zipped in the 63 degree sunshine. Sunglasses with a brown gradient tint talk into a cell phone as she plans a meeting.

Leaning on a burgundy metal cane he smokes his last cigarette before going into the library. A Kansas City Chiefs logo fills the back of a red windbreaker over stiff shoulders. His three-point walk toward the door dislodges jeans that drift down across a square bottom to touch blue Chuck Taylor low tops.

A beach-ball belly resting atop low slung black trousers arrives first and announces an expectant mother. The expectant father talks warmly into a cell phone at her side; he is "antsy." She listens to the conversation and flips a cloth lanyard of keys back and forth beneath an exhibit of expensively curled and bleached hair.

A Stranger in the Land of Beauty

2010-09-14T18:16:00.009-06:00

These things happened during an early visit to the Land of Beauty, some time in the mid 80s. I have learned more of the language and have had many fine interpreters over the years. I am now more at home when I visit and my hair looks better.
_________________

I was late. Thank goodness there was a bike rack next to the door. I parked my bike, slammed my bike lock shut, tore off my helmet, grabbed my water bottle and panniers, and burst inside.

The air conditioning turned sweat drops to ice crystals on the back of my shirt. I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand and pushed my hair out of my eyes. A woman in a pink synthetic blouse and frozen hair sat behind a tall counter, apparently in charge.

I lumbered to the desk and said, "I-have-an-appointment-with-Sherry-at-two-sorry-I'm-late."

I gasped to catch my breath. "My name's Cindy."

The woman looked at my coolly, then called Sherry on the overhead page system. I slapped down on the plastic couch in front of the desk and gulped water from my water bottle. My breathing was slowing to something like what it would be after finding a porcupine in my bathroom.

A young woman with a figure trying to escape from an outfit that resembled medical scrubs, but in a severe material derived from petroleum, appeared and asked if I was Cindy. Her hair was frozen into a corollary of the shape on the woman behind the desk.

I identified myself and apologized for being late: I'd picked up the phone as I was leaving my office. I detached my sweaty thighs from the couch, stuffed my water bottle into my panniers, and followed the struggle inside the scrubs, which showered me with third or fourth hand cigarette smoke as we walked.

I dropped my panniers next to the chair Sherry showed me to. It resembled a dentist's chair but was less comfortable.

My thighs attached themselves to the chair while the ice on the back of my shirt melted between me and the chair.

Sherry asked, "So what are we looking for today."

"Well, I dunno," I said. I'm thinking something shorter, and maybe poofier on the sides? Um, and see how it kinda sticks up here? Well, you know how Leslie Stahl does hers; it all sort of comes out from a point here? I'd like it to do that, maybe, so I'd have less of a part. Cuz I think I have a long face, kind of a horse face. If I didn't have a part then…it'd be different. Ya know what I mean?"

Sherry looked as though I'd asked her to derive the quadratic equation. Or shave it into my scalp.

"So are you thinking more of a bob? Or do you want it longer than that?"

I didn't know who Bob was, but I knew that when my boyfriend found out how much I was going to spend today he'd been shocked; he only spends $15. I knew I didn't want to look like him, as he was losing his hair, and I was afraid Bob might be also, so I said I wanted it longer than that.

She asked me to take my glasses off, so they wouldn't get in the way. My reflection in the mirror in front of us when fuzzy.

Sherry picked up a pair of naggle-toothed scissors with in one hand and a plastic comb in the other and went to work in silence. I didn't interrupt her.

After a few minutes of combing and snipping, Sherry asked, "So how's your day been?"

"Oh, same stuff. I was working in the lab for a while this morning and then I started packing for the field."

I wasn't sure if she wanted to know about the insects we'd be collecting later that week or not. I decided not, so asked her about her day.

"Oh, fine," she said, "I haven't been too busy today. Getting ready for a party this weekend at our place."

"Sounds like fun," I said.

Her identical twin, with her hair frozen into a second corollary of the first shape, brought a young man to sit in the dentist's chair next to us. Sherry's twin and the man seemed to know each other.

She used the same opening line, "So what are we looking for today."

He said, "I'd like about ¾ of an inch off top and just ½ inch of the sides this time. In back, keep it ½ inch above my collar, and could you touch up around my neckline?"

Sherry's twin went to work. She could work and talk at the same time. The young man was updating her on a friend of theirs; something about him and his PO.

PO? I wondered. I only used PO as an adjective; they were using is as a noun. Maybe they meant his ex-girlfriend, because she Ps him O. But wait, he was seeing his PO every couple of weeks. Why would he go on seeing her that often? Maybe they have a kid together, I thought.

The man and Sherry's twin kept me entertained for the rest of my appointment. I think they entertained Sherry, too. After two or three more dead end conversations, she finished with her implements and turned her blow drier on me. It drowned out the story next door and relieved me from fumbling for the dropped conversation.

"There! How does it look?" Sherry asked.

I put my glasses on, braced myself, and looked in the mirror. It was shorter than it had been when I arrived and I still had more hair than my boyfriend. But it was unlikely that anyone would confuse me with Leslie Stahl: rather than forming a cohesive, professional shape, my hair ran down the sides of my face then tried to escape by jumping off a skateboard ramp at my jaw line. I recognized Marlo Thomas in "That Girl," as I was old enough to have seen the show in the mid 60s.

I struggled to display enthusiasm for my new look and to thank Sherry, but was disappointed in my performance.

I didn't put my bike helmet back on until after I had paid the woman with the frozen hair at the tall counter.

Tough Evening Commute

2010-08-21T16:01:00.009-06:00

It's tough to keep your eyes on the road while working at Flat Top Ranch in the Pioneer Mountains of Idaho. This historic ranch stars in Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land.

Bicycles: The End of an Era

2010-07-30T12:54:00.042-06:00

I felt as though I had sold a child. Amy handed me a check and drove off with Eugene strapped to the back of her car.

Eugene is a red 1994 Trek 370 Sport bicycle. He was the last in the fifty year-long chain of my two-wheeled companions. Sadly, Eugene spent most of his 15 years with me standing abandoned with the stacks of empty moving boxes and pair of mismatched suitcases that I stashed in storage closets in two states.

I bought my first car shortly after I got Eugene and I no longer had to strap groceries, books, or furniture on the back of my two-wheeled buddy. I had a more demanding job by the time Eugene joined me and I needed more time to think. Walking the three-mile round trip to work provided two quiet interludes in the day. This allowed me to be a spectator to the parade of aging co-workers who limped the halls after bicycling accidents.

For many years Bob Padgett, at Catalina Bike Shop in Tucson, supplied me with bicycles and taught me how to keep them rolling. An article in a local newspaper described Bob's kind and helpful manner and suggested that he might laugh himself silly at his customers' blunders by the end of each day. I'm sure I contributed to Bob's after-hours hilarity.

Bob was a friend to me and to my bicycles. He knew which cones my bicycle friends needed and what size bearings fit in each of their rotating joints. He tried to talk me out of buying a cable cutter, "Oh, just bring your bike in and we'll cut the cables for you when you need it." I bought one anyway because I was a bicycle mechanic. I also needed my own chain tool, spoke wrench, cone wrenches, third hand, bottom bracket wrench, crank puller, freewheel tools, and tire irons.

I was a capable mechanic, a strong cyclist and a confident traveler. I pedaled Eugene from Tucson to the (then) tiny town of Maricopa, 88 miles past saguaros, creosote flats, and irrigated cotton fields, to save the cost of a bus ticket. My bicycles were marvels of simple engineering. I may not have been up to supplying an army with my bicycle, but I kept myself well-supplied until I was nearly 40.

Last spring, my friend Amy saw Eugene standing on my balcony, waiting accusingly for me to rebuild him and put him up for adoption. He he had found his new home.

I visited several bike shops in Boise over the year it took me to finish the one-day job of getting Eugene ready to go live with Amy. But I couldn't find anyone like Bob Padgett in Tucson. No one knew me and no one knew my bicycle. I was looking for parts for a boring old bicycle and I was the age of everyone's mother, so I was also old and boring.

I worked on Eugene long enough that I moved to a new apartment and landed near Bob's Bicycle Shop on Fairview before I was done. I could walk over carrying the 15-year old part that needed to be replaced or pushing the bicycle I couldn't get the 15-year old part off of.

One young man, a mechanical engineering student, pretended to be interested in my bicycle stories. He ignored the fact that I was his mother's age (if she had had children quite late in life) and chatted with me about repairing bikes. I felt like a 20-something bicycle mechanic again and wondered why I hadn't worked on bikes for a living. It would have been an unusual career choice for woman then (or now), but becoming a scientist wasn't a common path either.

I got Eugene fixed up and ready for his life with Amy with several minutes to spare. Over the past year, working on a bicycle for the first time in 12 years, I learned that:

1. Few people fix bicycles from 1994 anymore.
2. Digital cameras let you photograph your bike before you take it apart, increasing the chances you'll put it back together the same way.
3. You can wear disposable rubber gloves while working on your bicycle, eliminating (cool-looking) grimy hands.
4. There are on line videos on how to rebuild (newer but still similar) bicycles.
5. Google can find accessories that Catalina Bike Shop stopped carrying in the 1990s and that you assumed were no longer available.

I was reminded of other things:

1. I cuss a lot while I work on bicycles.
2. Fixing bicycles is more of a duty than a hobby.
3. You feel GREAT when you're done.

I made sure Amy took all my bicycle tools with her when she left, plus the book (1971 edition), so that I'll never be tempted to work on bicycles again.

Taco Truck Lunch

2010-07-22T12:53:00.007-06:00

Three tacos pastor at Taco Veloz taco truck: $3.00.
Table conversation when you, the only woman, pull up a chair at the picnic table: None.
Reliving a previous life working in Mexico: Priceless.

Butterflies on a Road

2010-07-18T14:26:00.009-06:00

The snow melted enough that the roads were open in the Modoc National Forest above Lava Beds National Monument at the end of June this year. I left the already-baking campground at Lava Beds in late morning and climbed into the cool forest.

On a side road, clouds of butterflies collected minerals from damp spots in the soil. As a plant person, I only identified them to family: Nymphalidae. I was caught in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel as the butterflies surrounded me. They fluttered and landed on me when I got out of the car to photograph them.

They joined me when I stopped to take a bucket bath in the forest (there are no showers at Lava Beds). They pretended there were minerals to collect around the mirrors of my car.

They flew into the car to land on the dash and on me, to bless me with butterfly wing dust.

Mt. Rainier Visitor Center

2010-07-05T09:01:00.018-06:00

Many years ago, well into the summer tourist season, I saw a sign on the front desk of the Zion National Park Visitor Center:

1. Outside to the right
2. 93 degrees
3. 8:00 pm

I try not to ask many questions in National Park visitor centers. And I never ask where the restroom is, what the weather is expected to be or when the visitor center closes. I find the restroom before I go in, then I ease through the door of the visitor center, sidle along a wall and search the bulletin boards and displays for the information I need. I am an experienced and resourceful holder of a National Parks Pass.

But I was spotted entering the Mt. Rainier Visitor Center recently, after using the restroom outside. The avuncular man behind the desk boomed, "Do you have any questions?" while most of me was still outdoors in the light mist. He caught me before I had scanned the room for likely sources of information.

The man focused on me and blocked my view of the white board behind the desk, which appeared to hold the weather report. He seemed to have been waiting for me. I tried a few head bobs to get a clear view of the board, but he had dealt with craftier visitors than I. And he was not a small man.

I mumbled that I wanted to know how cool it might get that night and how likely I was to get rained on while camping. I seemed to be the first person to ask about the weather that day; he turned to read the board with me.

After we had established "mid 40s" and "probably" the man turned back to me and asked what else I wanted to know. He acted as though he had been waiting all week to answer my questions.

I warmed up to him and asked more questions: what was his favorite day hike (still snowed in, but there were several at lower elevations that I might enjoy), how much had I dropped in elevation since coming over White Pass (about 2500 feet), and was there a cure for my fear of trees (try taking my glasses off). I was clearly his favorite visitor that week.

We chatted on, swapping stories about other parks, our favorite hikes, and the foolishness of people who rely solely on their GPS unit rather than carrying a backup compass and noting where they are on the landscape (other people; not us). We were soon old friends; I was probably his favorite visitor all year. Admittedly, it was early in the season.

By this time, more visitors had arrived. None were sidling along the walls searching the bulletin and white boards, so I left the avuncular man to talk with other, less interesting, park visitors.

I moved on to the 3-D scale model of the park, on my way to the displays in the museum.

The man welcomed a young couple as they entered. He detected an accent and asked where they were from. When they responded, "Holland," he asked which part. He placed their home town in the correct region, which he pronounced convincingly in Dutch. Then he described the Dutch origin of the name of one of his children.

The couple were clearly his favorite Dutch visitors that week.

Salo Road

2010-06-14T09:13:00.008-06:00

I saw this in Eastern Washington, north of Sprague, where the vegetation does not obscure the road signs.

Brown Snow

2010-06-02T10:43:00.036-06:00

Susan J. Tweit described drifts of brown snow in South Park, Colorado earlier this spring. An April dust storm had carried soil from dry lowlands to the Rocky Mountains. Susan described how the dusting of soil increases the heat absorbed by the snow, melting it faster and hastening high spring river flows. This shortens the irrigation season from western rivers and reduces the water available for other uses later in the summer.

As a lowlander, I have seen where the mountain dusting of soil starts its journey.

In 2005 it seemed that the Clover fire had it in for me. After starting as a lightning strike southeast of Bruneau, Idaho on July 15 the fire, fueled by grass and sagebrush, widened as it moved north. After a half mile it found one of my research sites.

Before the fire the site had been covered with Sandberg bluegrass that brushed my knees and a sprinkling of pink and white phlox. Scattered "old growth" sagebrush with orange lichen festooning the stems were surrounded by duvets of sensuous moss.

The Clover Fire continued north for several more hours then reversed direction and burned south, swung due east for a bit, then meandered southeast for several more days, forming a lumpy burn scar visible from the air when you fly into Boise from the east. Six days after burning across the Sandburg bluegrass site the fire burned a research site where elegant Thurber needlegrass had flourished after an earlier small fire.

After burning 192,000 acres in six days the Clover Fire sputtered and died in the irrigated field just over the fence from the Thurber needlegrass ashes.

I visited the Clover Fire four months later, during clear golden fall days with nights chilly enough to send me to a motel in the nearby town of Bliss. The swells of the Sagebrush Sea had been replaced by bare soil broken by twisted sagebrush skeletons reaching skyward where the fire had cooled enough to spare them. Where the fire crossed roads it had eased enough to leave dried wisps of the previous spring's cheatgrass plants. Rare unburned islands, where the fire had been deflected around an area by rock or bare soil, contrasted with the emptiness.

Without its protective covering of Sandburg bluegrass, Thurber needlegrass, phlox, sagebrush, and moss, the soil had become restless. Roads had become rivers of fine soil dropped when the wind slowed in the lee of the berm the road grader left behind.

The soil in the roads had been scoured from other areas. In some places the roots of perennial grasses had been undermined, their leaves long ago sandblasted away by blowing soil. In other areas only spider webs of fine roots remained, incapable of catching even soil.

Although fire and soil erosion are natural processes, many areas of the West are experiencing more and larger fires. These are often followed by alarming rates of soil loss. We have changed the West.

There are more of us, driving more cars that catch fire along interstates, tossing more cigarettes mindlessly from car windows, and riding more ATVs. Earlier residents of the West brought exotic cheatgrass, which now blankets large areas with fine fuels that allow fire to spread more easily than do our larger and more widely spaced native perennial grasses.

Our recent warmer summers, whether fueled by CO2 released from consuming fossil fuels or part of a long term cycle, make wildfires more difficult to control. Predicted greater variability in precipitation may weaken our perennial grasses, which form the Thin Green Line that protects the land from both erosion and invasion by cheatgass.

Although we can measure the extent and frequency of fires and the rates of soil loss and deposition after fire, we do not know how many acres can burn and how much soil can blow to the other states before we careen into a downward spiral of unraveling natural systems. Rather than focusing on only our short term goals of production from our Western lands, we must remember to also focus on maintaining the long term function of our lands. We must remember to protect our perennial grasses so that they can protect the land for us.

The Cats is Coming!

2010-05-27T12:41:00.027-06:00

The Cats of Mirikitani, that is. The film will be shown at the Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium June 24 and 25, 2010 in Twin Falls, Idaho. Its director and producer, Linda Hattendorf, will attend to participate in a panel discussion of art in and about Japanese-American Internment Camps.

Linda met the artist Jimmy Mirikitani while he living on the streets of New York City, where he drew cats, Hiroshima in flames, and scenes from the Tule Lake Internment Camp. When she found him coughing in the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center, Linda brought Jimmy into her small apartment. She helped him apply for Social Security benefits, find an apartment, reconnect with the sister he had not seen since they were sent to different internment camps, and continue to create his art. Jimmy Mirikitani's artwork has since been exhibited at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle and other locations around the country.

I saw The Cats of Mirikitani last fall and could not stop thinking about it. As a child I heard my mother's story of her friend teaching at the Tule Lake Camp. As an adult I visited the sites of camps in Arizona and Idaho. As a caring person I am embarrassed by the institutionalized racism that allowed American citizens to be interned.

I contacted Linda Hattendorf and told her I was working to bring her film and Jimmy's artwork to Idaho.

Boise poet, photographer, and publisher, Betty K. Rodgers, saw my first blog post about the Cats of Mirikitani and put me in touch with Dr. Robert Sims, Professor of History, Emeritus at Boise State University. When I met Bob for coffee on a morning just before Christmas, he had already visited his young granddaughters, read them a morning story, and walked one to her school bus. Bob had watched The Cats of Mirikitani the weekend before and joined me in wanting to bring The Cats to Idaho.

Bob Sims has researched and written about Japanese Americans in Idaho and, in retirement, is working on a book about the Minidoka Camp north of Twin Falls. This is where Jimmy Mirikitani's sister was sent over sixty years ago. The camp is now a National Historic Site, where the Friends of Minidoka and the National Park Service preserve the history of the internment experience. Former internees and their families return to Minidoka each year on a pilgrimage to remember their three-year incarceration during World War II.

The Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium is held each year in conjunction with the pilgrimage. Bob has been part of the symposiums from the start and is often a featured speaker. Past symposiums have examined the role of journalism in times of crisis and presidential powers in wartime. Bob was tickled to tell me that this year's event would examine connections between art and civil liberties and focus on art in and about the interment camps.

Encouraged by my visit with Bob, I contacted Wendy Janssen, Superintendent of Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument and the Minidoka National Historic Site. Before coming to Idaho, Wendy worked to preserve African American history at several national parks. She agreed that the film would be a valuable addition to the symposium and promised funding to bring it and Linda Hattendorf to Idaho. Unfortunately, arranging an art show is more complex; Idaho must wait to see Jimmy Mirikitani's artwork.

Earlier this spring, I was delighted to invite Linda and The Cats of Mirikitani to the Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium. Linda will be able to squeeze a trip to Idaho into a summer filled with teaching and film work. She reports that Jimmy Mirikitani, now 91, is doing well despite a recent trip to the emergency room after a fall.

My To Do list:
Bring The Cats of Mirikitani to Boise? Check.
Bring Jimmy Mirikitani's artwork to Boise? Still on my list.

Standing in Line to Vote

2010-05-25T15:52:00.006-06:00

Voting an absentee ballot to save time is for sissies. I voted the old fashioned way today: I went to the polls and stood in line. Admittedly there wasn't much of a line.

Secret ballots are one of my favorite things about the U.S. There were secret ballots in Senegal, but voters lined up in different places to vote for different candidates. Their preferences were hardly secret.

The year my Peace Corps village voted, two Senegalese soldiers arrived to guard the ballot box. They were delighted to learn that an American woman lived in their assigned village -- you know how those American women are! They hurried to my hut to see if I really lived alone and to introduce themselves. Their suggestion of visiting me again after dark won them a chilly reception. They left the next day with the ballot boxes but without visiting me again.

People waiting in lines are another of my favorite things about the U.S. When I wanted kola nuts in Senegal I would go to the guro stand and wait patiently for my turn. Men wearing grand bubus and Islamic caps jostled me as they stepped in front of me. Children squeezed under my elbow as they wormed their way forward to watch the kola nut seller fold back the moist leaves that lined the woven baskets of red and white nuts. When I found myself squeezed back out into the street, I would give my money to a friend who elbowed their way into the stall and emerged with kola nuts.

No one jostled me or squeezed in front of me when I voted in the Idaho primary election today. The woman sitting at the table with the ballot box pronounced my name correctly when she told the world that I had voted. She tucked her white sneakered feet under her chair and looked at me over her reading glasses. She did not suggest visiting me tonight.

I Visit the Great Basin Desert

2010-05-13T14:36:00.015-06:00

Friends grimaced when I told them I was going to Winnemucca. They looked concerned when I told them I was going to enjoy it. My early spring visit this year was the latest in a series of winning Winnemucca road trips.

I left spring behind on the tail end of the Snake River Plain as I climbed through brown winter grass in the mountains above Homedale. In Jordan Valley, Oregon, I found cattle still snug in their green winter pastures. The low hills that lined the rest of the road to Winnemucca were wearing the green velvet of soft new plants. Above the hills bunt cake ridges were frosted with vanilla snow, which faded to a powdered sugar dusting on the mid peaks where the sun had warmed the south and west aspects.

Green vistas, occasionally dotted with puffs of pronghorn antelope, lasted for days as I visited several valleys around Winnemucca. I pondered why there has been so much less cheatgrass than before in some of them over the past several years. Other scientists, land managers and I are not short of theories, ranging from army cutworm to bacteria, fungus and drought, but we do not have a definitive answer yet. Science provides job security.

Last year's Nevada road trip was later in the season, when the valley bottoms were furnaces of shimmering earth covered with dried plants. After a day baking on the greasewood flats and sagebrush plains I reached state highway 305 where I turned north toward Battle Mountain.

I checked my DeLorme atlas of Nevada and saw that I would pass the "Great Basin Desert," according to the labeled "Unique Natural Feature" on the map. Interesting, as I had been in the Great Basin since I crossed the divide between the Snake River Plain and Jordan Valley. The Snake River flows into the Columbia near Washington's Tricities of Pasco, Kennewick and Richland and so is part of the Columbia Plateau. Rivers in the Great Basin flow into the Great Salt Lake or lose themselves in innumerable playas and salt flats in valley bottoms throughout the 200,000 square miles of the Great Basin; there is no outlet to the ocean.

I hurried on to visit the Great Basin Desert along highway 305.

I estimated the coordinates of the Unique Natural Feature in the atlas and entered them into my GPS unit. As the indicator on the navigation screen shifted from pointing ahead of me to pointing toward the west I got out of the car and followed the indicator on foot until I reached the Great Basin Desert.

The vertical orange fiberglass sign marked a survey benchmark inside the fence that separated grazing land from the highway right of way. I squeezed between the strands of barbed wire and found the benchmark, or triangulation station, placed by "Harry" from the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1958.

No, there had not been one last attempt to find an outlet to the sea from the Nevada desert. The Coast and Geodetic Survey began life as the Survey of the Coast in 1807. Established by Thomas Jefferson, it was the first U.S. civilian scientific agency, responsible for producing accurate nautical charts. This required knowing exactly where the U.S. was. Surveyors first precisely located points atop hills on Long Island by navigating from the stars. They expanded out by triangulating from these known points to new triangulation stations, such as the one I found in Nevada.

As the country expanded west the Survey of the Coast followed it on to dry land and continued to weave their network of triangles. Renamed the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878, its work allowed the country to be mapped into townships, ranges and sections for homesteading. In 1970 the agency became the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) within the National Ocean Service (NOS) as part of the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The original surveyors, shooting the stars in the early 19th century, could not have known that a Global Positioning System (GPS) would exist 200 years later. But their system of triangles, interlinked back to Long Island, allowed me find to the Great Basin Desert using my handheld GPS unit. I took a self portrait to celebrate.

I contacted Dave Doyle, the NGS Chief Geodetic Surveyor, who was willing to hazard a guess that there may be 30,000 triangulation stations in the Great Basin. (You can see Dave marking the population center of the U.S. after the 2000 census or ask him a question here.)

I'm tickled that my tax dollars were used to answer one of my burning questions, but Dave's answer just brings me to another question:

Why did the DeLorme company pick the triangulation station along Nevada state highway 305 south of Battle Mountain as the location of the Great Basin Desert?

Of Beavers, Rivers and the Moon

2010-04-25T22:25:00.014-06:00

I saw a beaver in the wild for the first time as I crossed the Capitol Street bridge at dusk this evening. The beaver was cruising upstream near the north bank of the Boise River. I had stopped to listen to the rapids and watch the nearly-full moon rise behind a light mist. I lingered to dream of another river trip.

For several years River Buddy Jim and I paddled a river in the West each summer. The desert sun distilled away the unimportant parts of our lives and left the sweet gooey essence of life on the river. We got up when the birds chirped, paddled hard all day, scared ourselves witless in the rapids, ate gargantuan meals, then relaxed in the evening and told lies while drinking malt-based beverages. We spread our sleeping bags on the sand at night then did it all over again the following day.

We timed our trips to start shortly after a full moon: even on the first night Jim could see the stars after the sun set but before the moon rose above the walls of whatever canyon we were running. Each night his star gazing window lengthened as the moon rose later. The moon always filled the canyon with light several hours after that when I climbed out of my bag to walk to the edge of the river to recycle beer, listen to the rapids, and watch the moon.

But in all those visits to the river at night I never saw a beaver.

Health Care: Three Idaho Approaches

2010-04-15T10:57:00.004-06:00

Rex Rammell, elk rancher and candidate for Idaho governor, appeared on national news last week. He voiced his support for militias and his opposition to the recent health care reform act. When questioned, he stated that he is not a militia member and that he had participated in rifle practice with the North Idaho Lightfoot Militia at their invitation.

Rammell has a different approach to health care reform than Idaho Governor Butch Otter. Otter had pledged to be the first governor to file suit against the federal government for imposing health insurance on all Idaho citizens; a promise he has since made good on. Last week Rammell warned, "We do not recognize your authority to come into the state and force us to buy insurance, and if you try we're going to throw you in jail." He quoted Jefferson in support of his position: "When injustice becomes the law, resistance becomes our duty."

While film of Rex Rammell and the militia aired on MSNBC's Hardball last week, another candidate for Idaho governor was looking for a creative solution to providing health care to Idahoans under the new law. Keith Allred suggested that Idaho may be able to use an exclusion clause in the health care reform act to craft a solution tailored for Idaho and pledged to work toward this goal.

This was the first time that Allred has spoken out on health care: he first took time to learn what the law says.

Creeping Socialism

2010-03-24T08:47:00.005-06:00

Over a dozen state attorneys general have joined Idaho's and filed suit against the US federal government over health care reform. Texas governor Rick Perry said,

"Unfortunately, the health care vote had more to do with expanding socialism on American soil than it does fixing our health care finance and delivery systems."

We have jumped back nearly 50 years to the debate over Medicare. In 1961, Ronald Regan spoke out against the creeping Socialism in the United States and the imminent loss of "our traditional free enterprise system." He calculated that the federal government already controlled "one fifth of the total industrial capacity of the US" and predicted health care rationing for senior citizens if Medicare passed.

In a recording distributed by the American Medical Association, Regan urged Americans to write their Congressmen [sic] and urge them to defeat the bill that became Medicare, warning that:

"If you don't, this program, I promise you, will pass, just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day...we will awake to find that we have Socialism. And if you don't do this and I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in American when men were free."

This was forgotten during the past year's health care debate, when the Republican Party cast themselves as the protectors of the same program they had opposed earlier. Ruling out the predicted Armageddon, my money is on the Republicans to jump on board when they realize how well health care reform works. In another 50 years I predict they will be protecting the recent changes from creeping Socialism.

Spring, Sprang, Sprung!

2010-03-23T21:34:00.008-06:00

One of my favorite spring flowers, sagebrush buttercup (Ranunculus glaberrimus), is blooming in the Boise foothills. The golden blooms are often seen shining through a late spring snowfall. Today there was just warm, sunny weather.

I returned to the parking lot to find a friend getting out of his truck. He had been driving by and saw my car. He turned in, although he was sure he wouldn't actually find me...

It's Your Choice, Idaho

2010-03-23T20:55:00.007-06:00

Two Idahoans made national news last week. One promised to sue the federal government if Idaho citizens are required to buy health insurance. The other described using collaborative polling to find sensible and fair solutions to divisive issues. The first is our current governor, Butch Otter; the second is Keith Allred, who is running for governor.

Butch Otter appeared on Fox News and CNN as the first governor to require their attorney general to sue the United States government if health care reform passes. Governor Otter seems to believe that Idahoans who cannot afford health insurance should not have it. He also seems to believe that those who prefer to gamble that they will not need expensive medical care should be allowed to pass those costs on to others if they lose the bet.

As a healthy young person I always had medical insurance. When it was not provided by my job or university, I bought an individual policy so that my family, the hospital, and other patients would not have to pick up the tab for my illness or accident. Insurance pools risk across a group: we must participate as healthy young people and we should be covered if we become ill.

While Butch Otter was appearing on television news, Keith Allred appeared in High Country News, a twice-monthly newsmagazine "for people who care about the West." Keith is running for governor as a Democrat in a state that is Republican and proud of it.

Growing up in Twin Falls, ID, working on his grandfather's ranch in high school, and serving a mission with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Keith Allred has Idaho street cred to spare. He has been to the National Cutting Horse Association championship twice and is rumored to be a better rider than our current governor.

After attending Stanford and UCLA, Keith Allred taught conflict resolution and mediation at Harvard. He returned to Idaho to found a consulting and mediation business that finds equitable solutions to high stakes natural resource, land management, and urban issues. His non-profit, non-partisan group, The Common Interest, provides citizens with unbiased information on key Idaho policy issues so that they can advocate for practical solutions.

Keith Allred's selection of his honorary campaign co-chairs illustrate his inclusive approach: Four-term Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus shares the job with Republican rancher and former Idaho Senator Laid Noh, who is a founding board member of The Common Interest. Senator Noh said, "Conflict and policy paralysis are our enemies. Overcoming these is Keith's long suit."

Last week, while Governor Otter was promising litigation to block more equitable health care, candidate Allred was describing his collaborative, inclusive approach to finding sensible solutions to divisive issues.

It's your choice, Idaho. Let's do the right thing.

Women Making History: Laytreda Schultz

2010-03-05T21:19:00.003-07:00

I wrote about two women for the Women Making History supplement in the Idaho Statesman on March 4th, 2010. Laytreda was one.
The articles are not available at IdahoStatesman.com, so I've posted them here.
________________
Laytreda Schultz goes to work surrounded by what she fears most. She is a marine law enforcement officer who cannot swim. She is also a visionary who sweats the small stuff and a sheriff’s sergeant with enough financial smarts for street cred at a CPA convention.

“Marine work got me out of the office,” she says, “and it was also a way to make extra money.” But her biggest motivation was overcoming her fear of water. “A lot of kids learn to swim when they’re young, but I didn’t. I grew up afraid of water. Although I’ve conquered that fear, I still have a healthy respect for it.”

Laytreda started with the Elmore County Sheriff’s Department in Mountain Home, Idaho as a dispatch operator when she was a teenager. After 14 years, she had worked her way up to supervisor. When she found that she could go no farther to advance her career, she tried a year working in Boise. But Laytreda soon returned to the sheriff’s department, this time working in both the warrants and the accounting offices. She tracked down outstanding warrants throughout Idaho and across the country. And as an accountant, she honed her skills at tracking down and capturing the funding needed to help keep the sheriff’s department in operation.

When a part-time position on marine patrol opened up in 1996, Laytreda seized the chance to get out on the water and face her fears. Although she doesn’t see herself as a daredevil, she admits that she enjoyed the challenge of running white water. She says, “The first time I took a boat through some rapids the adrenaline rush afterwards was amazing!” And it wasn’t long before she used her financial skills to locate funding for greater resources and better maintenance of the marine facilities.

Laytreda left the paperwork of the warrants office for the towns of Elmore County after she helped obtain funding for a community policing deputy. In this position, she patrolled in town during the week and still spent weekends on the water. During her first year as a new deputy, Laytreda attended the Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Academy, was certified, and became a sworn law enforcement officer. This gave her the authority to arrest suspects.

Five years later, Laytreda was promoted from deputy to sergeant. “It’s hard to explain what I do,” she says. “My job didn’t exist when I started and it’s different every day.” She supervises deputies in Pine and Featherville, who are responsible for backcountry law enforcement in the mountains of Elmore County. When the primary marine deputy left, she began supervising the marine program as well. Over the years her job has expanded to include Recreation and Search and Rescue.

Laytreda is also responsible for special events like the Three Island Crossing reenactment. This commemorates the Oregon Trail pioneers who crossed the Snake River near Glenns Ferry. The journey was a perilous one for the pioneers, but fortunately for modern-day river crossers, Laytreda was standing by to help ensure everyone’s safety. She especially remembers one year—seeing a close friend swept off his horse in the chaos of an overturned wagon and the struggle to unhitch the horses. Although her friend was not injured, her helplessness, as her jet ski stalled in the moss-chocked water, haunts her. “It’s still hard to think about. I can still see him in the water and remember tying to get to him but not being able to.” Laytreda watched over her last crossing in August, 2009, when the event officially ended after 24 years.

Laytreda is also involved in safer events like Shop with a Cop. This program helps children from disadvantaged families buy Christmas gifts for their siblings and parents. Each December, over one hundred law enforcement officers convoy through Mountain Home, lights flashing, for a shopping spree with young deputies-for-the-day.

Even with a heavy schedule in law enforcement, Laytreda still helps manage the department’s finances—nearly a full-time job by itself. “If I had it to do over again, I would be an accountant,” she says. “You have to live on a budget at home. It’s the same thing here at the sheriff’s department. Knowing your limitations and working within them is the key to a successful program.”

Although she understands the limitations of the sheriff’s budget, Laytreda shows limitless creativity in locating sources of funding. She knows where to look for money and how to secure it through warm personal relationships and persistence. She says, “When I walk in to the county commissioner’s meetings they sigh and ask me what I want.”

Once the sheriff’s department has purchased new equipment, Laytreda shows the same persistence and attention to detail when maintaining it. Her fleet includes boats and jet skis for marine work, and snowmobiles and four wheelers for search and rescue work. She is currently planning a new county building that will provide safe equipment storage, plus offices and classrooms. Even in these difficult times, she has located enough source of funding to reach her goal.

Laytreda’s coworker, Deputy Sheriff Nancy Hawley, says, “Laytreda stays on top of the little stuff, so that the big stuff all works.” Laytreda sees herself simply as a problem solver. “I solve the community’s problems through my law enforcement work, and I solve funding problems at the sheriff’s office.”

Women Making History: Stacy Falkner

2010-03-05T21:12:00.004-07:00

I wrote about two women for the Women Making History supplement in the Idaho Statesman on March 4th, 2010. Stacy was one.
The articles are not available at IdahoStatesman.com, so I've posted them here.
____________________

Stacy Falkner starts each day with gratitude. She is grateful for the love and encouragement of her amazing husband, for her “two hysterical kids, close-knit family and wildly wonderful friends.” But rather than “paying back” her many blessings, Stacy feels an obligation to “pay it forward”.

In 2006, Stacy had a fulfilling life as a wife and mother. But she was nagged by the feeling that she could be doing more for others. “I wanted to do more to make the world a better place for everyone,” she says, “and I saw political science as a path to doing that.” Stacy enrolled at Boise State University to complete the bachelor’s degree that she had started several years earlier at the University of Idaho.

One of her professors challenged the class to read a book that was not part of the assigned readings. Stacy chose “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama. Finishing the book was a defining moment for a woman raised in a well-informed family of staunch Republicans. Obama’s message of hope and change resonated with Stacy and echoed her own optimism and desire for a better world.

Even more significant was Obama’s approach to decision making. “He had me at common sense,” says Stacy. His description of past politics, when Congressional members saw each other as worthy adversaries who challenged one another to clear thinking and creative solutions, struck a chord with Stacy. This helped focus her own approach to creating the world that she imagined. “The pursuit of better policy doesn’t have to be contentious,” she says, “it can be collaborative.”

When Obama announced his intention to run for president, Stacy knew she had to act. Designing an internship through Boise State allowed her to combine working for change with completing her degree. The national Obama campaign challenged Stacy to establish chapters of Students for Barack Obama at every college and university in Idaho. This meant locating students who wanted to work for a Democratic underdog in their historically conservative state. Stacy’s first grassroots organizing experience was a success. By the end of her internship, chapters existed at each of the nine schools in Idaho and students were campaigning for Obama.

Embarking on a second Boise State internship gave Stacy a closer look at how policy is created at the state level. She served as an aide to Idaho State Senator (then Representative) Nicole LeFavour. This allowed her to see the valuable role that personal relationships, often crossing party lines, can play in lawmaking. She says, “Individuals can disagree productively when they respect each other and recognize that each person’s beliefs are as valid and as deeply held as their own. Good debate fosters growth.”

After graduation in May, 2008, Stacy was hired as the Idaho Field Director of Obama for America. She “found islands of bold and eager Democrats in a sea of red” as she shared Obama’s vision for America. She credits experience on the Obama campaign with honing her listening and leadership skills. “The most important skill for grassroots organizing,” Stacy says, “is the ability to recognize what is most important to people. This means listening closely to find the one thing that each person feels passionate about and then turning that energy into action.”

In January 2009, Stacy traveled to Washington D.C. for Obama’s inauguration. The following day, when President and Mrs. Obama visited the Staff Ball, the Idaho for Obama team was thrilled to hear their state singled out. The new President stated, “You didn’t listen to the naysayers. You said, ‘I’m Idaho for Obama. Yes we can!’ ” The crowd erupted into chants of, “Way to go, Idaho!” that provided a celebratory end to months of campaigning.

Unfortunately, Election Day meant unemployment for Stacy. But her organizing skills and experience with the legislature paved the way for her current position. She now serves in the Public Affairs department of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest (formerly Planned Parenthood of Idaho). Her job focuses on health policy and lobbying during legislative session and shifts to outreach, education, and volunteer recruitment during the rest of the year.

When women have access to quality, affordable health care, they are more likely to avoid a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or unplanned pregnancy. The key is prevention through comprehensive health education. Stacy point out, “We teach our children about the danger of not wearing a seatbelt even though we don’t anticipate a car accident, but we avoid telling them the risks of unprotected sex because we’re uncomfortable talking about it.”

Stacy is determined that her children will grow up in a more compassionate world. She sees her rewarding family life as the fulcrum on which the rest of her life balances. The happiness she finds with her family and friends gives her the energy to champion progressive causes and dedicate hours to volunteering for organizations close to her heart.

President Obama said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Josie Evans-Graham, Education Coordinator at Planned Parenthood, adds, “This epitomizes Stacy’s attitude and inspiration. She has--and will--play a role in the positive change we seek in our state.”

Audio Roommates

2010-01-27T12:58:00.013-07:00

I have three sets of audio roommates. One set and I share a living room/kitchen wall. They also share with me their joy at a touchdown in a televised football game, their disappointment at a loss in basketball, and the excitement and squealing tires of video games.

Another set of audio roommates shares a bedroom wall with me. By 2 a.m., alcohol has propelled the woman's voice into my bedroom. Alcohol increases her linguistic creativity; the F word morphs from a verb into an adjective, a noun, an adverb, then back to a verb.

For many weeks the focus of her linguistic skills was "David." The verbal onslaught would still briefly during vigorous sex, then immediately resume. Oxytocin ("the love hormone"), which is produced during sex and triggers feelings of romantic love and contentment, was powerless against her anger. When David was present, the woman cried in frustration and disappointment. When he left, she wailed in loneliness. The cycle repeated several times.

I moved my pillows to the end of the bed farthest from the wall and directly under the window. It attenuates the noise and lets me watch the moon slide toward the western horizon while I wait to fall asleep again.

One night, a previous set of bedroom audio roommates shared "Don't hit me!" and the sounds of someone being beaten. The police responded to my call with a knock on their door loud enough for me to hear. The beater did not go to jail and the beaten did not go to the hospital, but there was no audio feed in my bedroom for two weeks. The woman moved back to her mother's a short time later.

My third set of audio roommates fills my life with every event in the apartment below me. For three years the apartment has been a revolving door of nearly interchangeable young couples who smoke and test the boundaries set by the apartment managers. The current occupants own a TV that goes to 11; they like 11.

My current downstairs audio roommates are happy in a new romance and their first apartment. In less than two moths the midnight noise has escalated from shouting and door slamming to the sounds of a lengthy physical battle accompanied by a stream of insults in a male voice. I couldn't tell if he was battling with his girlfriend or with the furniture and walls. I did not call the police, as attacking household objects is not illegal.

The next morning the couple was in the living room, singing a cappella and having sex.

I want to escape the sound track of violence that fills my apartment. But moving would not end the violence; it would only keep me from hearing it.

A friend, whose wife is an Assistant District Attorney in a large U.S. city, summed up my reluctance to call the police as the "ambiguity in our collective social contract that lets abusers get away with abuse, and sometimes murder." His wife handles many cases where women did not get the opportunity to say, "Don't hit me" or whose cries were not heard. These are murder cases.

I asked a police officer when it is appropriate to call. Although involving the police can sometimes put the woman in danger or drive her to side with her abuser, the police are skilled at defusing violence. He told me to call next time.

The officer cautioned me against becoming so emotionally involved in the problem that it interfered with my life. He reminded me that women in abusive relationships often believe that the violence is caused by their shortcomings; that the beatings are "their fault." The women love the men despite the abuse. He described his personal heartbreak at unsuccessfully encouraging women to leave abusive relationships.

The Women's and Children's Alliance (WCA), in Boise, estimates that one in four women is the victim of domestic violence at some time in their lives. A staff member told me that only the women know when it is safe for them to escape. Her agency provides resources to help victims leave an unsafe situation and to help both abusers and victims learn new communication skills.

The WCA provides "sock cards," small enough to conceal in a sock. Available in English and Spanish, the cards help victims recognize when they are in an abusive relationship, develop a safety plan, and escape.

WCA staff members can provide training for apartment managers in Boise. I will contact management companies to arrange trainings, and then I will keep the participants' rental offices supplied with sock cards and other resources.

I live in an apartment because it is ecologically and economically the least expensive option.

Apartments consume fewer resources and less energy than single family homes. Multi-unit dwellings promote infill, which allows more people to walk, bike, and bus to work, shopping, and entertainment. Our economy is still reeling from the recent stampede to buy and sell houses.

I hope that apartment managers in Boise will work to provide safe and pleasant homes for all of their residents. Living in apartments will help us live more lightly on the Snake River Plain. Replacing violence with more effective communication will help make Boise a more peaceful and happy place for everyone.

The Thin Green Line

2010-01-09T15:59:00.014-07:00

Someone mentioned using early spring grazing to control cheatgrass the other day. My response is, “Let’s think about it very carefully.”

Cheatgrass is a small plant with a large impact. It blankets miles of the Intermountain West with a carpet of dry tinder in summer. Lightening or a cigarette tossed out of a car can ignite a blaze that spreads from plant to plant.

Fire moves more easily through a stand of cheatgrass than it does through native sagebrush steppe vegetation. Natives survive the dry climate by growing in clumps, or bunches, to reduce competition for water, which makes it harder for fire to jump from one to the next.

Vegetation at lower elevations of the Sagebrush Sea, such as the Snake River Plain, did not evolve with frequent fires. The clumped plants do not provide the continuous fuel bed that fire needs in order to spread. Sagebrush, the icon of the Intermountain West, is killed by fire. Frequent fires can remove sagebrush from large areas and eliminate this important food for sage grouse and pygmy rabbit.

The increased frequency of cheatgrass-aided fires in areas where the vegetation did not evolve with fire destroys and damages the native vegetation. This makes it more difficult for the plants to recover after the next fire or other disturbance.

Cheatgrass and our native plants

Introduced from the Mediterranean region, cheatgrass is an exotic species. The seeds germinate easily in disturbed areas where people, machines, animals, or fires have damaged or destroyed the vegetation. Cheatgrass thrives in empty lots in Boise and where wildfires have removed native vegetation on the Snake River Plain.

As an annual plant, cheatgrass lives only one year. The plants grow rapidly in the moist, mild days of April and May and produce seeds before they die in the dry heat of June. Cheatgrass avoids the hot, dry summer by waiting as seeds. The seeds then establish new stands in the fall or the next spring.

Cheatgrass is thrifty and opportunistic; some say sneaky (its name is "cheat"). It uses the nutrients and water left in the soil when other plants are damaged or removed. Cheatgrass has been accused of "displacing" native vegetation, but it is actually a scavenger living off the leftovers of disturbance.

Making use of leftovers, cheatgrass rarely makes inroads into vigorous stands of vegetation, where the actively growing plants make use of the nutrients and water. Both our native vegetation and exotic plants that have been seeded after wildfires are able to keep cheatgrass at bay when they form healthy stands.

Unlike cheatgrass, which is an annual, most of our native grasses are perennial bunchgrasses, which live for many years. They avoid the hot, dry summer by going dormant. The grasses then resprout from their roots the next spring.

Forbs are the wildflowers that dazzle us with yellow pointillistic displays across the hills in spring. They survive summers either as seeds, like cheatgrass, or by going dormant, like perennial grasses.

Although plain, green grasses are not as pretty as forbs, it is grasses that do the heavy plant work. The durable leaves of grasses protect the soil year around, unlike forbs, which die back to their roots. The fibrous roots of grasses provide more protection for the soil than the narrow taproots of forbs.

Perennial grasses, whether native or seeded exotic species, are the Thin Green Line that protects us from cheatgrass.

When someone mentioned using early spring grazing to control cheatgrass, he reminded me of years when cheatgrass starts growing three weeks before the perennial grasses do. When the perennials begin to grow, the cattle are to eschew the tasty sprouts and stick to the now older, and less appetizing, cheatgrass.

I like cattle. They taste good and they work cheap. But I have never seen one politely decline a new, tender, green perennial grass.

I like perennial grasses, too. They work even cheaper (although they only work during the day, when they can tap sunlight for photosynthesis). They also do a better job of keeping cheatgrass out, when we allow them to do their work.

A White Water Analogy: Don’t look at the rock!

The hardest thing for me to learn when I started kayaking was, “Don’t look at the rock!” If you focus on the rock in the rapid, you will hit it every time. I proved this over and over until I finally learned to look at the smooth path I wanted to take through the rapid.

To run a rapid successfully, you must focus on where you need to be. Big rapids need to be scouted from the shore: first find where you want to come out at the bottom of the rapid. Then look back upstream to see where you need to be to get to your exit point, then look back to where you need to be to get to that place, etc. until you know where you need to enter the top of the rapid. Then jump in your boat, paddle hard, and focus on where you want to be. Don’t look at the rock!

We should use the same approach to managing cheatgrass. If we focus on the smooth path of healthy stands of perennial grasses, the grasses will keep cheatgrass at bay for us. If we focus on the rocky problem of cheatgrass, we will lose sight of our strongest ally in addressing the problem.

Let’s focus on the Thin Green Line

If we want to reduce cheatgrass in an area, reducing the number and size of plants is not enough. As an annual, cheatgrass waits out the summer to reestablish itself from seed. To reduce cheatgrass we must also reduce the number of seeds. Research has found that clipping cheatgrass plants once or twice does not prevent them from producing seeds. The plants must be grazed repeatedly, and at the proper stage of their growth, to significantly reduce the number of seeds produced.

After cattle have grazed an area the plants are shorter--all of them. There is less cheatgrass, but there is also less bluebunch wheatgrass, less Siberian wheatgrass, and less Sandburg bluegrass. We need to understand the effect of this early spring disturbance on the overall, long-term vigor of our perennial grasses. We all want vigorous stands of perennial grasses that are capable of competing strongly with cheatgrass and recovering quickly after fire and other disturbance.

I believe that early spring grazing will provide only the short-term satisfaction of seeing less cheatgrass for a brief period. I believe that early spring grazing will lead to the long-term problem of weakened perennial grasses. Without vigorous perennial grasses, I am afraid that we will spiral farther and farther down into an Intermountain West dominated by cheatgrass and ravaged by frequent fires.

Let’s do all we can to help the Thin Green Line help us.

Ice is nice...

2010-01-03T17:12:00.006-07:00

...when it's ouside on the trees,

but not when it's inside the house!

Big fluffy towels

2009-12-23T22:14:00.005-07:00

I like big fluffy towels. I enjoy using them when I need to stay in an upscale hotel for work.

I saw an American student steal one from a small hotel we stayed at in England years ago. Her parents were picking up the tab for her to attend Ithaca College and participate in their semester in London. They had rented a harpsichord for her so she could practice that semester but had apparently neglected to provide her with a big fluffy towel.

For three years in Senegal I used pagnes, two meters of cotton fabric that serve as skirts, bathrobes, and towels. They dried me successfully after every bucket bath I took as a Peace Corps volunteer and shower I took as a Fulbright fellow.

In the US I use towels I buy at thrift stores. Sometimes I find two that match.

My mother found a barely-used big red fluffy towel in a dumpster. Its only crime seemed to be that it had gotten wet. She washed it and offered it to me when I visited the next summer; I gladly accepted.

I enjoyed the big red fluffy towel until it disappeared the same day the maintenance crew calked my tub. When I couldn’t find any sign of either my towel or greater dementia over the next few days, I stopped by the apartment manager’s office and mentioned the missing big fluffy towel. I learned that the maintenance workers had used it to clean up the tub calk. “Instead of the small, worn out, torn one hanging next to it"?! The manager bought me a big tan fluffy towel as a replacement.

My neighbor at the time made frequent trips across the landing with plates of high fat comfort food. He occasionally brought other things: pots and pans after he bought a new set, various jugs of cleaning supplies that didn’t meet his high standards, and a big white fluffy towel. Its only crime seemed to be shedding white fuzz during its first few washings.

I loved my two big fluffy towels. But I was doing laundry more frequently: each towel took up almost half of a load of sheets and towels. This took more water, more soap, more electricity, and more time. My washing machine developed a tendency to become unbalanced, thump like a blown front tire, then expire into fixed and damp silence. When I went to resuscitate it by rearranging the now very heavy towel, I smelled the strain that washing my big fluffy towels put on the washer’s belt.

Pagnes did a fine job of drying me after bathing in Senegal. Thrift store towels do a fine job of drying me in the US. Big fluffy towels are resource intensive, move perfectly lovely people to crime, and are irresistible to maintenance workers.

If anyone would like two big fluffy towels, only slightly used, they are at the Idaho Youth Ranch Thrift Store on Orchard Street.

Two Channels vs. Five Channels

2009-12-13T16:47:00.013-07:00

In a discussion of different perceptions of climate change, and change in general, on the Ecological Society of America listserv, a reader posted a link to Jonathan Haidt’s talk at the 2008 Ted Conference. In it he shared a social psychologist’s view of the moral roots of progressives and conservatives.

Jonathan Haidt started by describing the great difference in openness to new experiences between progressives and conservatives; what I call their ability to live with ambiguity. Progressive embrace new experiences and conservatives avoid them.

Haidt and a coworker then identified five aspects, or channels, of moral decisions:
Caring for others
Fairness
Respect for authority
Group loyalty
Purity/Sanctity

They polled 23,000 people in the US to describe the moral foundations of progressives and conservatives (You can learn about your moral foundations at http://www.YourMorals.org).

I’ve reproduced Jonathan Haidt’s graph of the differences (below). Progressives scored high in Caring for others and Fairness, but low in the other three aspects. Conservatives scored high in all five aspects. Haidt described the pattern as “Two channel” versus “Five channel” approaches to morality.

Everyone agrees that Caring for others and Fairness are important apsects of moral decisions, but only Conservatives also value Respect for authority, Group loyalty, and Purity/Sanctity. Haidt makes the case that both approaches to moral decisions are important and that each balances the other. Progressives “want change, even at the cost of chaos”; conservatives “want order, even at cost to those at the bottom.” Progressive speak for those at the bottom of society and conservatives speak for institutions and traditions.

Both progressives and conservatives contribute to improving our society through their different and complimentary views on change and tradition.

Climate deniers should be understood

2009-12-07T17:02:00.015-07:00

The Ecological Society of America listserv has been discussing climate deniers. I share a recent contributor's concern that climate deniers have “stopped thinking.” I believe that this is the crux of the issue and that it’s rooted in their discomfort with ambiguity. The contributor also described climate deniers as “angry.” I believe that this is their quite rational response to the threats they feel. I'm glad that the contributor reminded us that we need to understand WHY climate deniers act as they do. I agree that we need to understand their apparent intransigence in order to meet them in the middle to solve the serious challenges facing us.

Climate denying tends to be linked with opposition to health care reform and both are seen more frequently in conservatives than in progressives. Conservatives are more reluctant to change than are progressives, who conservatives see as indecisive creatures without clear value systems: after all, they change their minds whenever better data are available!

Conservatives are conservative because they prefer things the way they are, good or bad, to unknowable change. But I believe that the even larger boogey man in the climate debate is the possibility that the government will tell them what to do (but it had better not touch their Medicare).

Progressives are progressives because they envision a better world and want to move toward it. This means that they modify their approach as they learn more, which compounds the poor conservatives’ fears: they were just getting comfortable with the first approach and now everything has changed again!

Both progressives and conservatives change, they just make decisions in different ways. For example, compare the Republican Party’s current role as the champion of Medicare with Ronald Regan’s 1961 speech that described Medicare as the first step down the slippery slope to Socialism. Conservatives simply needed more concrete evidence than those flighty progressives, who rushed headlong into government health care before all the facts were in.

I believe that conservatism stems from discomfort with ambiguity, apprehension over change, and fear of government intervention. Further, I believe that the conflict between these values and progressives’ acceptance of ambiguity, enthusiasm for change they believe is for the better, and vision of a compassionate government caring for its citizens are the basis of conflict over climate, health care, and other issues.

When someone is uncomfortable with ambiguity they look for solid, unambiguous answers that are part of a cohesive framework that will answer a range of questions. They would rather hear, “It’s not true, don’t believe any of it” than a mealy-mouthed mish mash of, “Well, some things we’re very sure of, other things we’re sort of sure about, and then there’s a bunch of stuff we’re still scratching our heads over.” Unambiguous, far ranging answers provide comfort and reduce the amount of thought required to understand complex issues. Thinking is hard work: when is writing the Discussion section of a manuscript easy?

Ecologists can help ease fears over climate change by clearly stating what we know, painting vivid scenarios of expected future conditions, and listing concrete actions that we can take now to deal with climate change and its consequences. Climate change will still be very frightening because there WILL be tremendous change and the government may need to place limits on both industry and citizens. But neither anger at the idea of climate change nor anger at people’s refusal to recognize the process will slow the pace of climate change.

Quivira Conference 2009 - November 4-6, 2009

2009-12-06T19:11:00.015-07:00

In Spanish Colonial America, “Quivira” described unknown territory, where an elusive golden dream was waiting to be discovered.

The Quivira Coalition was started by a rancher and two environmentalists. The group does not litigate or mediate between sides in the debate over livestock grazing. Rather, they demonstrate and participate in sensible and sensitive ranching and farming. The Quivira Coalition focuses on “grassbanks, dormant season grazing, planned grazing, restoration, collaboration and education.” We “Quivireños” are nearly alone in the “Radical Center” -- radical because it’s ground breaking to refrain from taking sides in this polarized issue.

Quivira Coalition’s Conferences are a mix of conservation, ranching, science, and art. You can ponder statistical minutia while hearing about research findings, think about the role of grazing when hearing about managing invasive plants, and find yourself tearing up and sniffling during readings from literature about the US West.

At this year’s conference we learned about dung beetles from Patricia Richardson, a professor at the University of Texas. I hadn’t thought much about dung beetles since I got back from Senegal, where I found them delightful and entertaining creatures. At the conference I learned that many species of dung beetles are rarely seen, as they live underneath cow pats and bury the manure from below. Only the show-off species roll the dung balls that I saw in Senegal.

We heard about the Desert Ranch's large operation in northeastern Utah. In addition to raising cattle and forage, they provide guided hunting and fishing trips and are a popular birding spot.

Randy Udall, from the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), warned us that we’ve pumped 2/3 of the world’s oil. He illustrated this with a slide of four beers gone from a six pack. He also pointed out that “Cheap energy of any kind can subsidize stupidity.” Ouch! I’d flown from Boise to Albuquerque for the conference.

Tim and Katie Kline are raising kids, crops, and animals organically on their 80 acres in Ohio. They’re primarily dairy famers and enjoy the opportunity to work through issues while milking together in the evening while the children do homework. Or, as Tim hastened to add, they would work through issues, if they had any. As Amish farmers, they use animal traction for farm work and have no tractors.

I lurked with intent after Linda Hasselstrom read from her work and scored a spot next to her at lunch. I hoped that my writing would improve through the process of osmosis.

An innovative approach from a grass-fed beef farm in Wisconsin showed how collaboration can provide rewards on all sides. In return for hunting access, hunters each contribute six hours of work on the farm. Over the years hunters have roofed the barn, filled the basement with fire wood every year, taken care of the cattle while the owners travel, dug fire line for prescribed burns, and painted the buildings. The original groups of hunters now bring their children to work on the farm, as it’s also their family’s farm.

Craig Allen, with the USGS in Los Alamos, NM described cutting juniper trees, lopping off the branches and spreading them across sites degraded by erosion in Bandelier National Monument. The branches provide “safe sites” for native seeds to germinate and grow sheltered from the sun and drought. Both the new seedling and plants already growing on the site take advantage of water caught by tiny dams formed by the branches. Reestablishing vegetation on the previously depauperate sites fills in the bare areas that had spread across the sites in the past. Criag hopes that the vegetation will become healthy and abundant enough to fuel prescribed fires to keep juniper at bay in the future and to allow fire resistant Ponderosa pine to recolonize the sites.

The writer, conservationist, and thinker, Gary Nabhan, described new seeds of collaboration sprouting in Arizona. At the annual meeting of the Diablo Trust, a collaborative land stewardship group, The Arizona Wildlife Federation apologized to the Trust for the destructiveness of their past negativity (page 5). The two groups are looking forward to working together to manage natural resources in northern Arizona.

Gary’s story reminded us that change can happen in unexpected places and prepared us to welcome more into the Radical Center.

Breakfast at the Flyswatter Diner

2009-12-06T13:18:00.011-07:00

I passed purple clematis flowering in weed-free beds as I walked to the door. The screen door caught on the ground as I opened it and the wooden door needed a shove to open. No one was sitting at the tables in the dark and chilly lean-to, but walking up two steps I found the main part of the diner cozy and light.

Three locals in Wranglers and big hats went silent as I crossed to a stool at the counter. The proprietor, a woman of no few years or pounds, poured me a cup of coffee and conversation. I ordered a Denver omelet.

I looked across the galley way behind the counter to blue sky through the upper corner of a window behind a coffee maker, a malt machine, stacks of dishes, piles of to go cartons and bags, a brace of toasters, and a mixed herd of ketchup and mustard bottles in various stages of completeness. Calendars on the walls, refrigerators and cupboards announced several different years.

The big-hatted locals in the corner discussed baling hay, debated the merits of several trucks and also those of Karen. “You know, she built most of that pole barn by herself”! They agreed that she was quite a worker and that her husband had made quite a catch.

The proprietor brought me a plate mounded with hash browns, toast, butter, jelly and a Denver omelet nearly hidden under a slab of a cheese-like substance. She cleaned up spilled coffee grounds next to me with a wad of sticky gray dishrag.

The breakfasting Big Hats finished eating and cleared their dishes. They wiped off their table with the gray dishrag, got out a deck of cards and started their first card game of the day. I finished my hash browns and continued the struggle with my omelet-with-cheese-substitute.

Another Wranglers wearer came in, poured himself a cup of coffee and topped off mine. As he talked with the card players a fly darted around his face. He took a fly swatter from behind the counter, sent the fly to meet his maker, then brushed its mortal remains from the swatter into the trash. The owner came out from the kitchen in back, her face twisted in disgust. “Give it to me,” she said, reaching for the flyswatter “I’ll wash it.” Holding the object at arm's length, she returned to the kitchen.

I gave up and scraped the remaining cheesy material off to the side and worked on my now naked omelet. I tried, unsuccessfully, not to picture the woman spraying the fly swatter off with the dish washing sprayer over a sink full of dishes. She returned after an absence that suggested great attention to detail, buffing the flyswatter with a wad of paper towels the size of a poodle.

I surrendered to my naked omelet and paid my bill. As I left the diner I noticed that the purple clematis had recently been watered.

Dying to Cross the Street

2009-11-02T08:40:00.017-07:00

I'm off to Albuquerque for the Quivira Coalition's conference this week. We'll be meeting at a different hotel this time, so I'll be staying at a different less expensive motel nearby and walking back and forth. I'll be taking my red blinking lights, my reflector strips, and my attitude with me again. Here's what happened last time, as it appeared in the Letters to the Editor of the Albuequerque Journal:
__________

I recently visited Albuquerque for the Quivira Coalition conference, where I reveled in collaboration and caring for the land. Saving fossil fuel and keeping myself in shape, I walked between the conference and my motel, crossing I-25 at Paseo del Norte.

Morning was easy, as commuters headed to work in daylight. Evening was a near-death experience, as commuters headed home after dark. Dressed in light jeans, reflector strips on an arm and a leg, and sporting a flashing red light, I was a traffic-savvy and highly visible pedestrian. Girded for battle, I waited for the walk signal and a break in traffic, then started across [the right turn lanes coming up from behind me].

A car close on my heels gave me the previously unrealized gift of flight and I suddenly found myself back on the sidewalk. I heard someone scream, "It's a crosswalk." The pain in my throat told me that the car had also given me previously unrealized vocal volume.

More careful after that, I waited for the walk signal and a break in traffic, looked at drivers and pointed at the walk signal, clasped my hands in supplication, gestured to the other side of the street, waited for the walk signal of the next traffic cycle, looked at drivers and pointed at the walk signal— I had become a deranged woman on a busy street corner. But surely deranged women don't dress in Patagonia and sport Land's End laptop cases? Darkness had obscured my credentials of sanity.

The herd of pickups, SUVs and sedans thundered on [as two lanes of traffic rounded the corner and headed onto the freeway]. Any one of them could end my life; collectively, they could ensure that DNA testing be required to identify my meager remains. If I were a toddler or an endearing puppy, surely someone would stop. If I were 30 years younger, surely someone would notice. Or perhaps my traffic-stopping abilities were intact, merely, like my sanity, obscured by the darkness.

About the fourth traffic cycle, a young woman with a young man in the passenger seat paused and asked if I needed help. "I'm trying to cross the street," I said. But that wasn't a compelling enough reason for her to stop, so she drove on, leaving me on the corner. I didn't think to say, "I'm in labor and I need to get to the hospital."

Next time someone is begging at a busy intersection, please take a look. They may be begging for the opportunity to live long enough to cross the street.

The Cats of Mirikitani

2009-11-01T19:46:00.028-07:00

I can’t stop thinking about The Cats of Mirikitani. Netflix sent me the film last weekend and it’s stuck in my head like a song from the ‘80s.

The filmmaker, Linda Hattendorf, met a homeless Jimmy Mirikitani drawing and talking about cats, Hiroshima in flames, and the Tule Lake Japanese American Internment Camp. He drew constantly, oblivious to the distractions of life on the streets of New York City.

When the filmmaker saw him coughing in the dust from of the collapse of the World Trade Center, she brought him inside to stay with her and slowly unraveled his story. Born in Sacramento in 1920, Jimmy Mirikitani was sent to Japan to be educated as a child. He returned to the US shortly before the Second World War and was caught in the anti-Japanese sentiment of the time and sent to the Tule Lake Camp in California. The last time he saw his sister, Kazuko, she had been sent to the Minidoka Internment Camp in Idaho.

While Linda pieced together his past Jimmy drew, entertained her cat, and worried when Linda stayed out late. She discovered the stories of his US citizenship lost and restored, Social Security benefits not yet applied for, and his sister very much alive in Seattle. The filmmaker found Jimmy an apartment, which seemed to be larger than the one the two of them had shared. The walls were soon covered with art and a cat soon supervised the work.

When I was a child my mother told us about her friend, Patty, who had volunteered to teach at the Tule Lake Camp. As a Quaker, Patty had been drawn to teach the men who had refused to serve in the war. Since then I have visited the sites of camps in Arizona and here in Idaho and have been “adopted” by a Japanese American family (Christmas dinner is prime rib, potatoes, rice, and sashimi).

When I moved to Boise in 2003 from a Fulbright fellowship in Senegal, I was struck by how white everyone here was. But within a few years Boise began receiving refugees from Somalia, then the Congo, Thailand, Bhutan, Burundi, Uzbekistan and more. Boise is now a resettlement area for refugees from around the world.

In my professional life I find myself in the middle of disagreements between “old Idahoans” (ranchers) and “new” ones (mountain bikers, environmentalists, and people who think cattle should be banned from public land). Idaho is struggling to shift from an economy based on mining, logging, and ranching to one based on high tech, health care, and education.

We’re also morphing from a red state into a purple one, through the addition of blue drops to Boise and Sun Valley. Add to that all the other colors the refugees bring with them we’ve got some thinking and adjusting to do. The themes of helping, healing, loss, and discovery in the Cats of Mirikitani can help guide us through the changes ahead.

Since seeing the film I’ve found my mother’s friend Patty’s daughter, Hannah. Her father also taught in the internment camps and she is writing a book about her parents' experiences. And Hannah knows my friends Betty and Ken Rodgers, who are poets and teachers here in Boise. Much of my life seems to be converging around the Cats of Mirikitani.

Linda Hattendorf sorted out 85 years of Jimmy Mirikitani’s story in the film, but the story of the Cats of Mirikitani in Idaho is only just starting. I have emailed her about bringing the film and the artwork to Boise.

Oh, say can you see why I like it?

2009-10-30T17:58:00.031-06:00

A friend phoned me on a Saturday afternoon in September, just as the Meridian Lions Club Rodeo was getting started. I was in the stands digesting my rodeo burger and thinking about a beer chaser as I waited for the Grand Entry.

My friend, Ted, called to talk about statistics. He’s a rancher near Mountain Home, ID and he thinks about statistics and data quite often, especially when they're used to argue that cattle should be banned from public land.

Ted heard the rodeo announcer over my shouting as I ducked behind the stands to talk to him. I was eager to talk to him but I didn’t want to miss the national anthem at the start of the rodeo. I'm a sentimental fool about the Star Spangled Banner.

Years ago an old boyfriend accused me of not being sentimental. Although I didn’t admit it, I had (and still have) every love letter he wrote me (we dated long before email). I only occasionally admit to being sentimental about the national anthem.

Although it’s not an easy song to sing, or even to listen to sometimes, it reminds me that I’ve got a pretty good deal in life. As a woman who grew up in a not-very-prosperous family, I doubt I would have the education I do if I had been born just about anywhere else in the world. More importantly, my education led to my challenging, interesting jobs.

If I had been born in the Senegalese village where I lived as a Peace Corps volunteer, I would have aspired to marrying and raising a family. By now I would be the CEO of a large household with several daughters-in-law to do the actual work: I would spend my days supervising them and shouting at the grandchildren.

As it is, I spend my days as a scientist: thinking, writing, questioning, and traveling. I have had perhaps more than my share of interesting jobs: cutting hay on the drumlins of upstate New York, unraveling the mystery of invasive grasses in the Sonoran Desert and the Intermountain West, and helping Senegalese farmers store peanut seed and plant trees.

I think about this whenever I hear the national anthem. I always wish the audience were invited to sing along, but I usually change my mind by the time the singer struggles and quavers through the tricky parts. As Ted and I wound up our conversation he said, “The best way to hear the national anthem is with the bareback broncs providing the bass line.”

Our bareback horses were waiting in the metal chutes for the first bucking event when I got back to my seat. They stood quietly during the song, but even without an equine bass beat the anthem was moving.

The fulfilling life I have is hard to beat and it would be hard to replicate anywhere else. It makes up for suffering through the world’s longest presidential campaigns and soporific precinct caucuses, learning spelling and grammar developed by a committee that couldn't agree on anything, and having a nearly unsingable national anthem.

Shrubs versus Trees

2009-10-18T15:36:00.012-06:00

I like living places where most of the plants are shorter than I am.

I depend on a view of the mountains to navigate in downtown Boise, where the streets follow the river as it meanders through the old part of town. I live up on the Bench, away from the claustrophobic riparian area, and where the well-behaved street grid follows the section lines.

Working out on the Sagebrush Sea, I navigate by the solemn Owyhee Mountains and the almost heartbreakingly beautiful Lost River Range. I wake up in a forest of sagebrush, which shrinks when I get out of my sleeping bag and stand up. Sagebrush is a self-effacing plant that hides in plain sight over much of the West and doesn’t block my view of the mountains.

My friend Caitlin lives in northwest North Dakota, surrounded by canola fields. She posted a photo of one, stretching to the horizon, on her Facebook page. Below it her friends debated the usefulness and advisability of trees. I contributed, “I’m Cindy and I’m afraid of trees.”

Caitlin’s friend Nancy tried shock therapy with a link to a photograph of a tree she considers a friend.

I clicked on the link and a tree is the size of an apartment building appeared. It had grasping, hungry branches ready to catch and imprison unsuspecting passersby. It waited patiently for the opportunity to drop limbs on top of chattering, laughing children on their way to school. The tree would die fulfilled and ascend instantly to the highest level of Tree Heaven if it managed to topple over on top of a crowd that had gathered beneath it to shelter from a sudden thunderstorm.

Even if none of the tree’s nefarious hopes ever come to fruition, it still blocks the view for several city blocks. It flatly refuses to let other plants grow underneath it by greedily using up all the sunlight that reaches it. And it practices a pernicious form of spatial hegemony as it dominates a large part of the otherwise peaceful town of Thomasville, GA.

Concerned about what sort of town would allow this danger, I investigated. Mapquest showed me a town with streets laid out in untidy, vaguely radiating spokes that look like a web spun by a spider on LSD. At an elevation of 279 feet there are no mountains nearby for navigating, even if you could see past the tree.

I’ll stay safe here in Boise, where most of the plants are shorter than I am.

Kids Meet Sheep - Wooly Wisdom, September 2007

2009-09-28T13:00:00.008-06:00

Yes, there's a (very tolerant) sheep in there, under all the hands.

Traffic on Highway 75

2009-09-22T11:33:00.008-06:00

North of Sun Valley, ID.

Where Boots Go to Die

2009-09-22T11:30:00.005-06:00

Along the blue highway north of Malad City, ID. The display continues for several miles.

How to Ride a Mechanical Bull

2009-09-22T10:54:00.015-06:00

The Idaho State Fair.

1. Make sure your hands are clean (below).

2. Wear your big girl pants (below).

3. Pray (below).

Three Fine Years - 27 August 2009

2009-09-14T13:39:00.068-06:00

My grandmother didn’t approve of me pointing. I was in my early 30s when she died and I was going to live forever. Or at least follow her example with an active life well into my 90’s when the coffee, beer, and vanilla Swiss almond Hagen Daz would finally do me in.

But at the end of May, 2006 I noticed that my shoulder hurt. I noticed it when I pulled a shirt over my head, when I reached for the stapler at work, and when I picked up a bag of groceries. The pain was worse at night and it often woke me up.

By mid June pain had spread to my back, hips, and neck. Walking was difficult, so I drove more. Driving was more difficult, too: I needed both hands to turn the key in the ignition and I could no longer look over my shoulder when merging.

Dressing, preparing food, and using the toilet became protracted and painful struggles. (Try hooking your bra, slicing potatoes, or using the toilet without using your hands or twisting your body.) Graduate students wrestled open bottles of water for me and friends retrieved silverware I dropped during meals.

That July two of my fingers swelled to resemble sausages and became largely immobilized, half straightened and half bent. I could neither straighten my fingers to wave “Thank you” to drivers who stopped for me at crosswalks or wrap my hands around a warm mug of coffee in the morning. And I certainly couldn't point at anything.

Oh, yes, I did see a doctor: an orthopedic surgeon, a sports doctor, and a neurosurgeon each recognized my condition. Each recognized it as something different and suggested a different treatment.

Showing my newly swollen and bent fingers to the sports doctor, on a repeat visit, sent him out of the room for a few minutes of research. He returned and suggested psoriatic arthritis, a form of spondylitis, which is an autoimmune condition similar to rheumatoid arthritis. I would need to see a rheumatologist.

The three month wait for the next New Patient slot with a rheumatologist drove me to calling the office repeatedly and asking, in a quaking voice, if there had been any cancellations and wondering if I would lose the use of my hands before my appointment.

My primary care physician referred me to a hand surgeon while I waited for my rheumatologist appointment. The struggle to fill out another set of forms in his waiting room brought tears to my ears and made my nose run. I waited in my assigned cubicle until the hand surgeon, a slender, intense man with dark hair, came in. He complained at some length about the bureaucracy, looked briefly at my hands, twisted and pulled them in a short game of “Does This Hurt?" and left.

He reappeared with a Jim Cramer look-alike, who carried the gravitas of someone who gives advice on health, rather than investments. The hand surgeon introduced him as Dr. Knibbe, the rheumatologist from across the hall. Dr. Knibbe looked at my hands, then twisted and pulled them in another game of “Does This Hurt?". He said, “Come with me. Walk this way.” and performed the Marty Feldman bit from Young Frankenstein as he left the cubicle. I did both, after hurriedly thanking the hand surgeon, who had succeeded in getting me an on-the-spot rheumatologist appointment.

I walked the Marty Feldman walk with my rheumatologist on 27 August 2006. I was being treated for psoriatic arthritis later that day after Dr. Knibbe squeezed my appointment into his lunch hour. Two days later I described my improvement in an email to him:

I can make Minute Rice in 30 seconds, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and red lights turn green as I approach. I am now smarter, I’m better looking, and small children stop quarreling and smile as I walk by.

Although steroids improved my condition immediately, the heavy lifting was done over several months by one of the new biologic drugs. It took about the same length of time to stop my immune system from trying to detach my ligaments and tendons from my bones (the mechanism of the spondyloarthropathies) as it did for my immune system to largely immobilize me.

Although TV commercials for the biologic drugs (Enbrel, Humira, and Remicade) include a breathlessly long list of potential side effects including serious infection and lymphoma, I have developed none of those listed. "Poverty" is not mentioned in the commercials, although many who use it (especially those who are self employed, as I am) suffer terribly from this side effect.

It also took time for my muscles, atrophied from disuse, to strengthen. After a few days of steroid use the pain in my right wrist had subsided enough that I could remove the wrist support I had worn for the previous several weeks. This revealed my skeletal hand, complete with the "ash tray" (yes, that's the medical term) divot that had developed between my thumb and forefinger. It was not an attractive sight, judging by the reaction of people around me, but for me it was pure joy to see my hand functioning again.

Now, three years on, I am as astonished at my good health as I was after the first flush of steroids. The new biologic treatments for inflammatory forms of arthritis (psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, etc.) have transformed these painful afflictions into treatable conditions. These drugs make it possible for inflammatory arthritis patients to lead normal lives without the crippling deformities and disability that stalked sufferers in the past.

Now, three years on, I have my life back. I can do everything I could do before I became ill including sweating in 100 degree heat while struggling up and down canyons under a pack full of equipment, measuring the sagebrush and grass while I hang on to it keep from tumbling downhill. I can do the work I did before I became ill.

Now, three years on, I wake each morning without pain and each day seems like the first day of summer vacation. Many people describe deep lessons learned after a bout of serious illness. But for me, recovering from an illness is like beating you head against a wall: it feels wonderful when you stop.

Even though my hands no longer hurt, I still can’t point straight at anything. My grandmother would be so pleased.

Digital photos: as easy as 1, 2, 3

2009-09-06T21:46:00.040-06:00

1. Start taking photos 30 years ago.

2. Buy a digital camera. You can buy a very good one for less than $500. Having kids is a plus, as they can read the manual and teach you how to use the camera. (You need to have started having kids a dozen years earlier.)

3. If you’re a scientist, you’ll want to know exactly where your photos were taken, so you’ll need a GPS unit. Follow the same learning path as for your camera, up to downloading waypoints.

4. Downloading waypoints. If your new GPS has a serial connection, your children probably will not recognize it. Your laptop may not know what to do with a serial connector either.

5. Go to the computer store to buy a serial-to-USB adapter. If the person at the computer store looks as though his mother drops him off at work after school, he won’t recognize a serial connector. If you’re female he won’t believe that a serial-to-USB adapter exists. Spell “serial” for him (it starts with an “s”, not a “c”). If you’re female and your mother hasn’t dropped you off anywhere in 35 years, you will have brought along your GPS cable as a teaching aid.

6. While you’re at the computer store, pick up an armload of external drives. You’ll need them when your photo backups metastasize to fill up your computer hard drive, your external drive, your other external drive…

7. You are now ready for a day in the field. Have fun and take lots of pictures: the camera can make all the decision for you; you just keep pushing the shutter. No film to buy! No film to process! Take dozens of shots of everything to be sure that you capture just the right angle and lighting. If you’re a scientist, you’ll be collecting GPS coordinates at each stop. You’ll soon devise a system for naming the waypoints (8 characters maximum) in order to match them to the photos.

8. When you’re back home, download your photos and start editing. This will include cropping your photos and adjusting the brightness, contrast, and perhaps the color. Both PCs and MACs include software to do this. Set aside many hours for deciding which of the dozen photos you took of those beautiful wildflowers is really the best one.

9. At the end of the first day, when you're sneezing from the wildflower photos and have broken out in hives from the sagebrush photos, you’ll realize that you need to make a list of your lovely photos so that you can find them again. Open up a spreadsheet. If you’re a scientist, you’ll want to include the GPS coordinates. Your spreadsheet should also include the file number of each photo, the date it was taken, where it was taken, plus a short description of the subject(s). If there are people in the photo, you’ll want to include that information, as it’ll save time looking through thumbnails, which get smaller and fuzzier each year.

10. After a few years of taking digital photos someone will ask you for copies of your photos because yours are so very very good and they need a photo exactly like the ones you took on the tour that one time, they just can’t put together their Powerpoint/flyer/brochure without your photos. They’re not sure which photo(s) they need or what exactly they’d like a photo of but they know that one from the tour would be just perfect, could you just send them all?

11. Return to the computer store for CDs and padded envelopes. Pretend you were kidding about the padded cell when the person at the computer store, who looks as though his mother hands them his Binky when she drops him off, looks confused and frightened.

12. Once you’re back home, with the six pack you picked up at Circle K on the way:
* Search your spreadsheet for the photos from the tour. The spreadsheet works great as long as you keep it up to date.
* Locate the photos on one of your external drives. One that hasn’t crapped out yet.
* Create a small spreadsheet, containing information for the photos from the tour.
* Burn the photos to a CD. Dang, why can’t you add another file to the CD? Toss the CD in the trash and burn one with the photos AND the spreadsheet.
* Label the CD, put it in a case, then in a padded envelope and seal.
* Google the person who requested it, to find their snail mail address. They didn’t bother to give you that information.
* Address the envelope.
* Take it to the post office.
* Stand in line.
* Strike up a conversation with the person in front of you in line.
* Mail the letter.
* Exchange business cards with the woman you were talking with in line.
* Stay in touch with her and learn that you have friends in common.

13. Go home to wait for the photo recipient to thank you.

14. Continue waiting.

15. It’s been three months now: stop waiting.

16. Enjoy seeing your photos in Powerpoints, flyers, and brochures. Swell with pride when they appear without attribution. Become ecstatic when you see your photos in print with someone else’s name on them.

See how easy digital photos are?

I Become a Professional Poet - July 2008

2009-06-25T14:17:00.019-06:00

According to Merriam-Webster a professional is someone who “participates for gain in an activity often engaged in by amateurs”. That makes me a professional poet.

It was time to either sign a new lease on my apartment or move on. Perhaps even buy a home. But I loved my apartment: on the second floor with large windows, it was full of light.

My previous apartment had been a north-facing basement efficiency, which was torn down to make room for expensive condos overlooking the park and downtown. There had been more spiders and backed-up sewage than light.

I also loved my apartment’s location: just the right distance to walk to either the university or downtown in the morning, then there were buses waiting to take me home in the evening.

A condo across the street from my apartment was for sale. I met the realtor in a thunderstorm to look at it. The condo was perfect: two stories, two bedrooms, asking price $114,000. Although it was built the same year that I graduated from high school, it had been treated gently and had perhaps aged more gracefully than I have.

The east-facing bedroom window looked out into a flowering apple tree and onto the lawn surrounding the pumphouse owned by the city across the street. On the first floor south light flooded in from the patio, which begged for potted plants and flowering vines. My car would lust after the enclosed carport if it knew such a thing existed.

But even I would have to repaint the wall of the kitchen and dining area downstairs. You could call it burnt butterscotch if you were feeling charitable. Or you might mention that if you found something that color in the pig barn you would treat the whole bunch. The realtor pointed out that the bathroom needed to be updated, but it seemed to me that it worked just fine.

When I got home, I built a spreadsheet to compare the costs of buying the condo and of continuing to rent.

I estimated that staying in my apartment would save me about $2,002 per year over buying the condo: renting enough money to pay for it, higher utilities than my apartment, plus HOA, insurance, repairs, and taxes. And I could also keep the $114,000 purchase price, plus the closing costs, and the cost of a home inspection. The money would stay in investments that have historically produced better returns than real estate.

I also would not spend weekends struggling with home repairs. Nor would I spend the following week making the money to pay someone to repair what I made worse over the weekend.

I decided to stay in my apartment but I did not want to pay the inevitable rent increase for a new lease. The property management company accepted a poem as evidence that I am an exemplary tenant who costs them less than the average resident.

I saved $195 with my poem, which qualifies me as a professional poet.

The ‘dozers were coming
I had to get out!
I went to see Susan
and gave her a shout.

I said, “Help me please,
I need a new place!
I’d like lots of light;
I’d like much more space.”

Susan knew at once
What I’d think was keen:
She showed me the place
At Linden, four nineteen.

It’s big and it’s light,
With a washer and dryer…
There’s just one thing:
I hope the rent goes no higher.

I really believe,
That I’m meant for the spot,
I keep it tidy and clean;
I pay my rent on the dot.

I’m quiet and considerate,
I help Jill with the trash,
I’m happy, contented,
My teeth I don’t gnash.

I’d love to stay on,
As I think it was meant…
Could I sign a lease
At my current month’s rent?

Raptor Party - June 2008

2009-06-25T14:12:00.011-06:00

They migrated from grasslands, forests, shrublands, and deserts. They crossed mountains and rivers on their way to Boise. Some flew and others arrived overland.

They headed south from the Mountain big sagebrush of the Boise Front, through tall Basin big sagebrush and into shorter Wyoming big sagebrush as they approached the Snake River.

Some stopped to remember as they crossed the sagebrush plains. They watched plump ground squirrels dart across the road, the tail end of the spring’s party. The ground squirrels were too busy eating before they returned underground for their eight month-long nap to notice the travelers.

Jackrabbits watched them from the shade of the small shrubs and flopped their ears. Unlike the ground squirrels, they were active all year and never safe from Golden Eagles overhead.

As the travelers neared the canyon the sagebrush gasped, sputtered and gave out. Low grey winter fat took its place at the lower elevations near the river. The travelers followed the winter fat until it dropped off the cliff and into the canyon. Switchbacks led them to the irrigated oasis at the water’s edge where they gathered.

The flocks of raptor biologists laid out food, set up lawn chairs, and opened beers. Previous students arrived with their fledging broods or sent messages from their field research sites.

The biologists described the life cycle of the ground squirrels to nonbioloigst family members and identified the birds of prey circling overhead as turkey vultures or “TVs”. They told stories of science and of the natural world. They told stories of Mike and Karen.

Mike had arrived at the Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, where ground squirrels sleep away much of the year and feed raptors the rest, in the early 1970’s. Karen had arrived in the canyon a few years later, to expand the research efforts.

Mike understood the raptors, the squirrels, and the sagebrush, but had more trouble remembering the difference between left and right, up river and down river, and where, exactly camp was. Karen imposed order: on Mike, on field crews, on data, publications, work schedules, and hapless office equipment that offended her.

It was a successful pairing. The pair uncovered the stories of the Prairie Falcons and the Golden Eagles and shared them with the world: where they travel, what they eat, and how they raise their families.

On the cusp of retirement Karen and Mike looked back at the high points of their careers. Their assembled friends and coworkers reminded them of some of the low points. The gathering shared stories of scientists and of science, of vehicles lost over the canyon’s edge and of discovering the summer range of a species.

The thrill of science may be the discovery, but the satisfaction of science is the telling of the stories.

Karen Steenhof and Mike Kochert were Research Wildlife Biologists at the Birds of Prey National Wildlife Conservation Area near Boise, ID. They were first based at the Bureau of Land Management then later at the US Geological Survey after researchers in the Dept. of Interior were moved into that agency.

Spring in Boise

2008-06-27T17:48:00.014-06:00

Jill Kuraitis, at NewWest.net/Boise, challenged us to come up with inventions to help suburban homeowners get ready for summer. She threw down the gaunlet with her automatic gutter cleaner and dog hair sucker. http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/call_for_entries_new_invention_category/C108/L108/#comments

I don't live in the suburbs and I don't own a home, but I realized that I do need a couple of things.
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Unencumbered with a home in the suburbs, or a home anywhere, for that matter, I have no use for a gutter robot or pet hair sucker. I have, however, recently upgraded from a north-facing basement efficiency apartment to a second story, south- and west-facing version with interior walls. My windows look out into apple trees.

Winter from my aerie is snowy and still; summer is green and full of life. A magpie arrived this spring and objects to the cat that has stolen his black and white gang colors. The bird shadows the cat much of the day, taunting and jabbering at it. The cat half-heartedly climbs a tree after the magpie, knowing the bird will soon fly away. Children play sweetly on the swings nearby, not yet in junior high and old enough to carry weapons.

I look forward to the riot of pink blooms during apple blossom time. Early in the morning, I throw open the balcony door to the spring breeze and remember the cool summer mornings of my Minnesota childhood. Late afternoons, I revisit the Peace Corps in Africa under the blast of the western sun. I can relive much of my life each day through the temperature extremes of a Boise spring.

Just one thing is missing from my practically perfect digs: a Neighbor noIse eXcluder, a “NIX”. Pink apple blossom time is also the opening of Window Season. Every evening the downstairs neighbors return home after nursing hurt feelings, imagined slights, broken hearts, and crushed dreams for eight hours at their respective jobs. They are game for another round. They open the windows and drown out the children playing and the magpie taunting the cat. The arguments continue into the night.

Shouts and shrieks wake me from a deep sleep into a cold sweat. My lizard brain is awake first, trying to protect me from the danger, but what is it? A saber-toothed tiger? An earthquake? A fire? The rest of my brain awakens and discovers that it is almost midnight. There is time for another round of neighbor vs. neighbor before I fall asleep again. My NIX Noise Collecting and Canceling System would collect “YOU DID TOO!”, “I DID NOT”, “YES, YOU DID!!”, “NO, I DIDN’T!!”, “DID TOO!!!”, “DID NOT!!!” and turn it into birds chirping in the rustling palm trees outside my beach house on Kaua’i. In the background, ice cubes clink in the gin and tonics on the pool boy’s serving tray.

My NIX would collect the names and obscenities the neighbors hurl at each other and turn them into…you know that bird that’s always singing in the background in Discovery Channel shows about the wildebeest crossing the Mara River? That place where the crocodiles eat the wildebeest that don’t break their necks careening down the steep slope into the river or get trampled scrambling out the other side? Those birds with the crazy cascading song that sounds like Curly in the Three Stooges? They really exist! My NIX would turn the names and obscenities into their song, filling my apartment with melodies of the African Bush.

And the video game roar of race cars, the BLAM BLAM BLAM of small weapons fire, the RATATATATATATAT of machine guns, and the KABLOOOM! of heaven knows what would be turned into the ebb and flow music of a Colorado River rapid, lulling me to sleep after an ABC (Alive Below Crystal [Rapid]) Party on a river trip through Grand Canyon.

I would pay extra for an add-on that would replay the collected bits for the neighbors at random times during the night, at full volume.

To complement my NIX, I would also like a GREAT (Give me moRE of thAT) System that would create more of the neighbor across the landing that brings over the World’s Best Potato Salad, Out of This World Stew, and chicken breast with bread crumbs cooked just so. And I would not object to more of the refugee family that not only feeds me home made bread, fried meat and rice dishes, and apricots, but also lets me spend evenings sitting on their couch watching TV in a language I do not understand. It will have to do until I can get my NIX installed.