The Dry Garden: Orb weavers
Posted on | September 10, 2010 | No Comments
In the oldie but greatie department, The Dry Garden this week reprises a 2005 foray by two leading entomologists through the haunts of the most common garden and household spiders of Southern California. For those who didn’t get snared the first time, and who, like me, love spiders, click here. Or to find Dry Garden events for September, click here. Or for information about the Spider Pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which opens September 26, click here.
Big water
Posted on | September 9, 2010 | 4 Comments
Click on the cover for the Pacific Institute report
A report released Wednesday by the Pacific Institute shows how in a relatively modest pass at obvious waste, California could conserve more than one and a half times the amount of water used every year in Los Angeles through improvements in farm irrigation, city landscaping, more efficient appliances and plumbing upgrades. Thirty per cent of the opportunities were found in cities and the remaining seventy per cent in agriculture. The most intriguing part? The cost is a fraction of the allowance for new dams called for in the bills behind the now postponed state water bond. Click here to read the synopsis, and here for the report. Or to read why conservation is the first most universally logical step for Californians to take to insure their water supply in the future, click here to read one of the report’s co-authors, Peter Gleick, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The week that was, 8/29-9/4/2010
Posted on | September 5, 2010 | No Comments
"... one jumped right in front of me and I realized what it was." -- Chuck Fountain on a leaping sturgeon caught on film by his wife Trina on the Ogeechee River. Click on the image to be taken to the story in the Savannah Morning News.
“This is what you get when you move to the desert to ski.” — Tribal spokeswoman Jamescita Peshlakai of Cameron, Arizona at a community meeting debating a proposal to use potable water to make artificial snow, Snowbowl vote postponed, Arizona Daily Sun, August 31, 2010
To me, the whole debacle demonstrates just how dysfunctional the state legislature has become … Laws that protect the special interests at the expense of the public pass routinely. — Heal the Bay president Mark Gold on the failure of the California legislature to pass a bill banning single-use plastic bags, “State senate: Industry bagmen,” Spouting Off, September 1, 2010
The Democrats have offered a slate of candidates for statewide office that largely hail from the cerulean blue enclave encircling the San Francisco Bay. — Ben Boychuk, Head to head: Should fractured California split itself into two or more states? Sacramento Bee, September 1, 2010
“If it starts in Colorado, it’s our water.” — Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes, Keeping our water not easy, Denver Post, September 2, 2010
Click here to keep reading ‘The week that was’
High good, low bad: Mead in August 2010
Posted on | September 4, 2010 | 1 Comment
There may be a plan in place to keep the West in water in the face of climate change, population growth and sluggishness to conserve. Or there may simply be plans for plans. The image above comes from a federal Bureau of Reclamation May 2010 Tribal outreach PowerPoint to do with supply and demand on the Colorado River.
To quote retired General Stanley A. McChrystal’s remark about another PowerPoint, “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.”
As for the current state of our shrinking Colorado River reserves, with apologies for the lateness of what should have been a September 1 posting, after the jump are the last 10 closing August elevations for the reservoir serving Arizona, Nevada, California and the Republic of Mexico as reported by the master of the river. The closing August 2010 elevation of Lake Mead was 1,086.91, the lowest since 1956. Click here for complete historical elevations from Reclamation.
Click here for August closing elevations from 2001-2010
The Dry Garden: Dig it
Posted on | September 3, 2010 | No Comments
The fig beetles seem late this year, and maybe they are. It’s been unseasonably cool for much of the summer. Yet when these drowsy fliers properly known as Cotinis mutabilis appear, it’s a cue. It’s time to empty the contents from the bottom of your compost bins to make room for fresh additions at the top.
Why? These bugs, also called June beetles, are in search of decomposing vegetation in which to lay eggs, where their grubs will become an integral part of the composting process. If you want to enlist these most excellent helpers and prepare your compost bin for fall planting, the time to do it is now.
You will need a pitchfork, a wheel barrow, some burlap, a scoop shovel and fluent profanity.
Click here to keep reading ‘The Dry Garden’ in the Los Angeles Times. Then by all means please return to check newly compiled listings of dry garden events for September.
Photo from Emily Green’s garden by Diane Cu
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