Desertbounty

2010-12-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

Love is all you need by Meg Keoppen c2010

My love affair with the plant world began early. Running with delight across a newly mowed hayfield, my senses filled with the light and smell of summer is one of my first memories. My world was crowded with friends like rose, spirea, lilac, maple, apricot, apple, sumac and green grass.

I often changed my perspective by climbing one of the cherry trees that bordered the whitewashed brooder house out back, pretending I was on a ship's mast sailing the winds. If melancholy clouded my view, I sought refuge with Old Maple in the front yard. January storms drifted snow over the barberry hedge along the driveway. We kids took advantage and climbed on that hedge encased in snow and used it as a shield during snowball fights.

All around us was deep deciduous woodland. Exploring that forest was natural for this country kid. My uncles and father were woodsmen. Aunts, too, answered the lure of the woods, hiking and canoing at every opportunity. I tagged along, graduating from picnics at the local swimming holes to walking on my own along favorite paths. Sometimes I went hunting with my dad. I noticed that as the years went by, dad and uncles mostly gave up hunting with guns and chose to shoot with a camera instead. I believe they used the gun and camera as an excuse. Their excursions were really about getting outside into nature.

Plants transform the place they grow in. Even if we are unconscious of their gifts, plants offer much. They give texture, color, scent, food, flavor, shelter and protection. Plants create habitat, providing food, holding soil in place and slowing rain runoff, filtering toxins from water, deflecting wind, shading the land and bringing moisture to the surface from under ground. In fact, plants have an intimate relationship with water. They help cycle water by sucking it from the earth and breathing it out into the atmosphere. Plants can keep ponds and rivers oxygenated and clean.

Imagine what your neighborhood would be like without plants. Rocks and dirt are great, but what would keep them in place when it rained? Would rain come at all? How would the soil be kept shaded and cool? Would there be water in evidence? What would you eat? Where would the animals and birds live? What color would your world be?

I was deeply shocked and saddened at the age of nine. The road in front of our house was lined on both sides with large maple trees for a mile. The township decided that the road needed to be wider to accommodate more and faster cars. Every one those lovely trees was cut down. Old maple went with the others. Fifty years later that neighborhood remains exposed to the elements. Growing trees takes time.

I have never recovered. That experience stays with me, causing me constantly to wonder about our values as a culture and what the real costs of progress are. Sadly, most of us have similar stories of loss of open space, forests, diversified farmlands. We seem to have traded the natural world for the fleeting satisfaction of our own creations.

The miracle of life is that we have made this dream we live in. So, if we have dreamed it up, we can certainly dream it down. Thought by thought, breath by breath, word by word, step by step we can change the dream. Together we can heal this world.

Remember the scent of the woods.

2010-03-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

Whew! Where did the year run off to?
It is spring again in the desert after a wet late winter and the wildflowers and greenery are growing and blooming. Fat saguaros and barrel cactus, water in the stream beds, clear glorious nights with every star visible... My Sierra Club service trip and Spring desert herb retreat both went well with harmonious people. Aravaipa Canyon is verdant and wet and we got to see the big horn sheep that roam those canyons.
I am a bi-desert woman now. I movedaway from the Mexican border and up to the Yosemite area.
There is plenty to do and become involved with in that stretch of the great west. I have gardens to plant, food to prepare, veggies to pack, herbs both wild and domestic to use and talk about, and plenty to learn about in the Sierra foothills.
A few more days in the deset visiting family and friends and then I head north.

2009-03-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

March is roaring like a lion today. There's been no rain since January so the landscape is brown with only tiny dots of the hardiest greenery. We desert rats are not surprised by this weather but maybe a bit disappointed. Green is such an alive color; heartening in spring.
The first - and we hope the last - fire of the season is burning SW of here in Hell's Gate, Coronado National Forest. Man-made they say. No one in their balanced mind would start a fire in the current conditions. The destruction is sad. Sad too that they killed Macho B, the famous jaguar that roamed in that same area as the current fire.
Obama is the name of the hour, week, month, year. You would think that he embodied a messiah by the way folks invoke his name. I am here to say, that whatever the man is or whatever he may try to do - WE are the ones we have been waiting for! It is naive in the extreme to think that one man can change all to good. He may inspire, but WE have to get to doing the work.
I am planting spring things in the garden and on the windowsill while planning for summer. Plant a garden for yourself wherever you live and become involved in working with a group of allies who work together locally. Things are setting up to rock and roll next year.
Take good care of yourselves in all you do and say.

2008-01-27T18:35:00.001-08:00

Hey! It's raining again. Looking good for spring wildflowers. Soon the filaree will be out and Mexican goldpoppies will show in March with just a bit more moisture.
The Women of the Wild will be gathering in Brown Canyon next weekend, sharing herbal lore and performing ceremonies for the earth. In April will come the week of southwestern herbs and foods for a lucky 14 people who sign up first. See desertbounty.com for details and photos.

2007-12-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

Soon it will be planting time for farmers and gardeners in Southern Arizona. Select your seeds and plants from desert-friendly sources like Native Seeds/SEARCH or Horizon Herbs and make your garden plan now.
The sun makes his return now and days will be getting longer, encouraging sprouting of seeds, both wild and domestic. Such a time of optimism for folks attuned to the natural world!
We were blessed with generous rains during December and with a few more showers, our spring flowers and grasses will be popping up for a show of lovliness.
Please be kind to yourselves and the Earth by going organic/natural in your choices. First do no harm is a good moto for humans.
Be happy in your work and blessings to you.

2007-12-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

In April, my herbal friends and I will be offering a week respite from the confusion of our current world. We are offering a retreat in a wild canyon of southern Arizona for those interested in wild plants, brillant night skies, local native foods, herbal simpling, and connecting with a wild place with semi-wild people. See: www.desertbounty.com for more information & how to sign up.
The winter rains have started generously this month and we will have a grand wildflower display here come spring if we get a few more rain events. Rain transforms the land.
The Sierra Club offers 2 separate weeks of service trips in the Altar Valley here. One week in February and another in March.The group is small, usually 12 people, and they always have a grand time helping on the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. They learn a lot, too. Southern Arizona is a fabulous territory to explore.
A different service trip is offered in March west of Tucson, just an hour north of the Buenos Aires. Susan and Charlie lead a group of volunteers on the Saguaro service trip in cooperation with the National Park Service. You can sign up through the Sierra Club online.
Arizona has sunshine, open spaces, variety, and uniqueness.

2006-11-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

OK. So it's been awhile...things have been busy with lots of great new results. Thanks to my son and his womanfriend I have a beautiful website: desertbounty.com I am more than pleased with this evolving tool. Please take a look.
We planted several threatened plant species in the woods in Gowanda, NY. You cannot have too much goldenseal, ginseng, bloodroot, black cohosh, or Soloman's Seal. It was a joyous project for us. Two of the photos on the website are from that expedition.
I've been making soap and salves, several tincures for clients, spiffing up the space for my new Apothecary Shoppe (yeah!), writing articles for the local paper (one about jaguars here in our mountains), planting a garlic crop, and tending the goats and chickens.Had to discourage 2 raccoons from getting the chickens last night.
It has been unseasonably warm here until right now. Things will cool down to the 60's this weekend and we pray for rain to come soon.
Oops! There's javelina in the yard that the dogs are chasing...gotta go.

2006-07-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

Ah, rain. Some are frightened by sounds in the night. Here in our desert crickets serenade us in the darkness all summer long. Last night, just after the orange waxing moon set among clouds, the rain came. Sweet, gentle, long lasting rain falling down and lulling me to sleep.