Frogs and congressmen
Posted on | July 30, 2009 | No Comments
THE “National Water Policy Event” held this last Tuesday and Wednesday shall receive due comment when the various presentations have been through the de-spin cycle.
But in a quick trip to Washington DC and nearby Virginia this week to hear congressmen, commissioners and rival Western utility heads intone about water, not one speaker matched the eloquence of the frogs chorusing from the lily pads in the all but forgotten garden of Ira Noel Gabrielson.
Gabrielson was the first director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
For a purely delightful story in the Washington Post of the rediscovery of the Gabrielson garden in Difficult Run, Oakton, Virginia, click on the lily pads.
Just do not, as so many of us have attempted, try to emulate this watery Eastern idyll in the West. It’s not what Gabrielson was trying to teach us. 
Rather, his message was: “The conservation battle cannot be a short, sharp engagement, but must be grim, tenacious warfare–the sort that makes single gains and then consolidates these gains until renewed strength and a good opportunity make another advance possible.”
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > Washington DC > water conservation
Comments
Leave a Reply
North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
Garden blogs
