Pollenatrix

Odd couple

Awwwwww......

My new epithet

Massive cow manure mound burns for third month:

"a dung pile measuring 100 feet long, 30 feet high and 50 feet wide that began burning about two months ago and continues to smolder despite Herculean attempts to douse it."

That's one big pile of smouldering poo.

Shocked into silence

Sometimes we need to be reminded that not everyone shares our admiration and respect for the rare and beautiful things found in nature.

The Native Orchid Conference is an online group dedicated to "fostering the study, conservation, and enjoyment of the native orchids of the United States and Canada". They've put together an extraordinary package of information for beginners who want to take on their own long-term studies of orchid populations in the areas they live. Workgroup leaders have volunteered to help guide people so that data is scientifically collected and tabulated, and the results are expected to be invaluable for conservation purposes. It's a wonderful project for outdoorsy folks who plan to live in one place for years and years, and naturally there is (was, actually) lots of enthusiastic chatter about it on the Native Orchid Conference list.

The ever-wise and usually humourous Aaron J. Hicks brought everyone back to down to earth with the following comment:

"Not that I don't love you all, and it's not directed towards anyone in particular, but is everyone comfortable with discussion of specific sites with sizable populations of orchids?"

He was, sadly, very right in pointing out the dangers of disclosing the locations of wild orchids publically, on the internet. As Aaron pointed out, orchids are vulnerable not only to collectors who will pay a high price for wild-collected specimens. They also

"could be threatened by any one of a number of anthropologic threats -- digging, vandalism, random acts of stupidity..."

Another member agreed, and added:

"It may not even be the "Orchid Thief" who becomes a problem. Not too many years ago in Kansas, members of the Kansas Herpetological Society were monitoring one of two known populations of a threatened species of frog. They told the owner of the property he should keep a protective eye on the pond. The owner bulldozed the pond to be sure they were all exterminated so no government agency could tell him what to do on his property."

Another member quickly chimed in with more stories of wild orchids lost to a similar fate in Kansas and near Chicago.

A shocked silence seems to have descended on the list. I suspect people have taken the message to heart and have moved their conversations over to private email, where they - unfortunately - belong.

Pruning advice for geographically challenged

From the U.K.'s Telegraph:  It's a snippity-do-da day

A terrific article on how to do some mid-winter pruning of trees and shrubs. Keep in mind that the writer lives in balmy England; mid-February pruning won't expose his fingers and shrubs to frostbite. If someone were to try that here right now (I'm back in Ontario, Canada, visiting family and friends), they'd have to dig the plants out of the snowbanks first.

How not to kill a tree

Weeding out garden myths: This article from the Cincinatti Post separates some surprising facts from fiction. Make sure you read it before you plant your next tree.

Vancouver

I'm on my way back to Ontario after a quick trip to Vancouver to visit a beloved friend. Another visitor to these parts at this time of year is the bald eagle. My friend and I went for a walk in Lighthouse Park yesterday and we could hear the eagles squeeking at each other, but I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. The forest was very dark and wet, and the tops of the ancient Douglas Firs disappeared into the mist -- well beyond my meagre photography skills to capture properly, I'm afraid.

Here are a few shots from a walk along the less photographically challenging Steveston Dyke, at the end of No. 1 Road in Richmond. The Siberian Snow Geese and eagles hugged the shoreline, just out of reach of my zoom lens. A heron played hide and seek with me, obviously concerned about being on the receiving end of too much attention.

Only a few years ago this walk along the Dyke was tranquil, bordered on one side by marsh and ocean and by fine farmland on the other. This farmland was supposedly protected by the ALR (Agricultural Land Reserve). It has all been swallowed by suburbia now, and the only remaining patch of green space has been transformed into a "nature park". The roar of jets taking off from the Vancouver International Airport across the bay is constant and unrelenting. This piece of land, one of the most important migratory flyways for birds in North America, is no longer peaceful. No wonder the heron was nervous.

Holding on to the old ways...

Some pictures I took while visiting a friend north of Kitchener, Ontario last week. It was a very cold Sunday morning, and the roads were teaming with Mennonites on their way to church. The area is exploding with industrial and residential development which makes the Mennonite community's determination to hold on to their traditional ways all the more fascinating, and touching.

Good newbie orchid advice

Someone posted this second-hand to the Orchid Digest list, and it contains some very good advice for would-be and beginner orchid enthusiasts:

• E-Bay is a good place to get things that interest you as long as you are willing to take a chance on getting a rotting weed from an unscrupulous vendor.
• Home Depot’s death table is not a good deal at any time.  Unless of course, it is a REALLY good bargain and it looks like it might have half a chance.
• If you have only one orchid that someone gave you, do not promise to get it a “companion” if it is so kind as to bloom again.  There is no such thing as owning two orchid plants - there is one, or there is the path to perdition.  Of course, maybe after the first one it is already too late.
• I learned that I need to find new homes for the plants with less-desirable qualities.  My space ran out long ago and I need to recapture it.  Out with the deformed, non-blooming, sickly, and less-than-gorgeous.  In with plants that have beautiful, fragrant and long-lasting blooms.

Bring back the bunnies!

The bunnies are missing on Holy Island, and the orchids want them back:

"The rabbit population completely collapsed three or four years ago and as a result the grassland vegetation has grown longer and longer. The flowers, such as the Lindisfarne Helleborine orchid, get swamped and would eventually disappear if we did not introduce some sort of grazing system ourselves."

It's always interesting to note the comments of orchid experts who understand this stuff. One member of the Orchid Digest remarks:

"...rabbits were introduced to the British Isles by the Normans.  So, either the Helleborine colonized Lindisfarne sometime after 1066, or it it was able to survive in the absence of rabbits."

Another responds:

"Or the species didn't exist before 1066, and it's precursor has speciated over the last ~ 900 years by adapting to an environment with rabbits."

Another island -- I think it's called Australia -- might be willing to ship a few their way.

A trek through suburban wastelands

Note: This post was written two days ago. I'm now in soggy Vancouver!

I'm back home in Canada for a visit, and at the moment I'm on a Greyhound bus between Kitchener and Toronto, watching miles of relentless suburbia speed by. Highway 401 parts an ocean of low-rise industrial warehouses and cheap residential housing. The homes are huddled close together, large and featureless save for double garage doors and cheap tile roofs repeating endlessly into the horizon. This landscape was beautiful once, covered in rolling farmland, small country villages, and forests sweeping up and over the ancient cliffs of the Niagara escarpment. Now the small pockets of scenery that are left stubbornly hang on without hope as a tsunami of development pounds over them.

Here and there, this littered sea of ugly housing gives way to vast islands of retail escape destinations -- big box stores and malls surrounded by thousands and thousands of cars. I recall the awesome variety of products inside those walls, and compare it with the tiny stores in Munich with their equally tiny selections.

Then I had a curious thought.

The landscape outside my window would look very, very different if people had to rely on a bicycle for transportation, the way I do back in Germany. I can just picture Canada's suburban inhabitants pedalling madly through interminable streets to reach their shopping destinations, and imagine the dismay on their faces when they realize that every one of their purchases has to be hauled home on the back of a bike. For one thing, any appeal shopping in a big box store or mall might now hold would certainly disappear, as would the perceived value of sorting through 20 different brands of whatever after a stenuous and exhausting ride. I have no doubt the masses would find, as I have in Munich, something better to do.

I look out the window again, and my smile disappears. So much good land. Wasted.