As the area of our knowledge grows, so does the perimeter of our ignorance. Neil deGrasse Tyson When my wife, Cheryl and I were in Lamington National Park, QLD, Australia, we learned about Red Bull Ants. They have nothing to do with the soft drink but do have unusual powers. “They are characterized by their… (read more)
100 years ago, my grandfather sold boxes of apples door to door in St. Louis. He picked them up at the train station. They were labeled “Kettle Falls”. Lenore Bible and her brother worked after school nailing apple boxes together in Kettle Falls to make money for their family after their father died in an… (read more)
I have been writing about regenerative agriculture in the North Columbia Monthly for 5 years and for the last 3 years have been writing about the establishment of Hudson’s Bay Fort Colvile (sic) 200 years ago in the Silverado. This summer those two passions converged as I attempted to understand a Salish language word by… (read more)
It was a dry winter and June was a dry month. A lot of us farmers are worried about the lack of water. Still more folks are worried about fire danger. With water in mind, earlier this Spring I started collecting rainwater off the metal roof of my office building. We have been using it… (read more)
Here is a link to this blog: https://barrecavineyards.com/Downloads/A%20Long%20Hot%20Summer.pdf
You are born. Life gets more and more complicated. Then you die. Okay. Maybe it’s not as simple as that. But simple is pretty hard to come by these days and more and more complicated covers a lot of our mutual experience. New ideas, methods, technology and players are springing up in every field. One… (read more)
I have experienced mixed results with community projects. One food Co-op I helped start is still going strong. Another failed after many years. Some collectives of people living near each other dissolved over time. Others have gone on for multiple generations. Some community gardens flourish while others peter out. So, I was particularly interested to… (read more)
Many bad things have happened to our earth. Now it is time for the Indians to teach the white man how to live as one with the earth and each other. “People of the Falls” Mural Artist Michael Paul (1934-1993) The Spring of 2025 in Northeast Washington has been wonderful so far. We are getting… (read more)
It all started with a visit to a local meat cutter to pick up lamb. They had my lamb meat wrapped and ready to go. They also had a big barrel full of bones left over from the carcasses they had been butchering. They were dumping them somewhere and I had a feeling that a… (read more)
On the long drive up Aladdin Road to Blue Ridge Farm dense forest alternates with open fields and old farms. The area was once more populated than now. When the Goldfield mine and mill was running, you could operate a farm and work at the mine nearby. Jillian and Ryan Garrett are a modern version… (read more)
