After two months off the bike to give my suddenly-dislocating thumbs a little rest from the brakes, I got back in the saddle this past weekend. With a mild vengeance. And it got me to thinking, once again, how deliriously grateful I am for the assortment of cycling jaunts within minutes of my front door. […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inLife + Outdoors
How Can Redwoods Grow So Tall?
How do the high crowns of redwoods obtain the water required for their photosynthesis? The pressure of the atmosphere (15 psi) is only sufficient to push water as high as 10 meters (33 ft.) into a vacuum, yet redwoods can reach 115 meters (379 ft.) into the sky! How is that possible? Osmosis is significant […]
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Mekong River Pulp
Our Evergreen Pulp, Inc. — the largest unbleached kraft pulp mill in North America — has been in the news recently because it will spend $5 million to settle state and federal charges of air pollution. According to findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the mill spewed noxious air pollutants that exceeded federal […]
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Trees Foundation Wins
The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See “Money on Trees,” Oct. 4). Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed […]
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Why Does Humboldt Quake?
These diagrams are your key to unlocking the secrets of our local seismic activity. They show fault boundaries between rigid rock plates moving over warmer, weaker rocks below. For example, the San Andreas Fault is the boundary between the Pacific and American plates. The Pacific Plate extends from here to Japan, and the American Plate […]
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On the Ocean
It was April 23, 2006, when I first realized that the ocean has a heartbeat. I was participating in a Godwit Days tour of Trinidad Bay led by Marna Powell, owner of Kayak Zaks, and Michael Morris, a local birder. I had been in a kayak before, but this was my first time on the […]
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Rejecting Winter
By the time you read this, the winter solstice will be over and the days will be getting gradually and imperceptibly longer. That’s fine with me. Having a few minutes of daylight and a few degrees of warmth snatched away from me day by day has left me feeling irritated and impoverished. I should be […]
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My Strange Plant Encounter
This is a story of accidental scientific rediscovery. The photo above shows a common coastal perennial plant named Cow Parsnip. Last spring I picked its large leaves to mulch redwood seedlings. During the next few days I watched a mild redness on my arms develop into a handsome tan. Discovery by accident is termed “serendipity,” […]
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Hot Season
People packed the banks on both sides of the Klamath River two weeks ago, holding fishing poles on the crowded river’s edge. The lines, 40 to 75 people long, shuffled from time to time as others came out of shade tents with gill nets and brought them down to the shore, yelling for anyone in […]
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Nine Ways to Die
Brace yourselves. Ready? OK: The draft Humboldt Operational Area Hazard Mitigation Plan is ready for your perusal! The multi-jurisdictional plan considers nine possible disaster scenarios in the county that could seriously disrupts lives — dam failure, drought, earthquake, fishing losses, flood, landslides and other mass movements, severe weather, tsunami and wild fire — and suggests […]
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All That for a Bee?
I’ll do just about anything to make a bee happy. I’ve filled my garden with asters and sedum and whatever else the bees seem interested in. I let leaf cutter bees carve tiny holes in my rosebushes and fly off unsteadily with a bit of green clutched between their legs. (I think they use the […]
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Magic Books
Magic Books Daddy, says Peter, I wish I could have another pretty little Picture-Book, for I have read Mrs. Lovechild’s Golden Present so often, that I can repeat it without book. I am very glad to hear it, Peter, says his father, and I wish I could afford to buy you books as fast as […]