Earth Day 2017

Earth Day dawns with exquisite beauty, a crescent moon rising close to Venus an hour before the Sun, our life-giving star.

As the sun warms the California poppies in my front yard, they begin to open.

Hallelujah!  Another day to ride our planet as it spins and moves a million miles or more in its circle around the sun.

Google provides a great cartoon with a little squirrel-person dreaming (fish dying in the ocean, penguins falling off melting icebergs) and then waking with alarm to go do various save-the-Earth activities.

Birds born in the nests tucked under the eaves of my house twitter in the liquid amber tree I planted twenty years ago, now two stories high.

Be well on Earth Day

Google doodle for Earth Day 2017

Poppies bloom--even with 45 in office

Hooray for the California poppies, which are blooming with as much joy and energy as ever, in spite of the ongoing soap opera in Washington, D.C.

Poppy time!

Poppies are starting to bloom--the most beautiful time of the year in California!

Hooray for the wild flowers, especially the ones that reseed each year.  

Nature, left alone, covers Earth with beauty.

Celebrating Trees

Jewish culture has a wonderful holiday celebrating trees.

It occurs on the 15th of the month of Shevat, and it's called Tu b'Shevat. (TU or Tet Vav is the number 15 when one uses the Hebrew alphabet to count: A = 1, B = 2, etc.)

http://www.reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/tu-bishvat

In my Hebrew class at American Jewish University, members brought fruit, nuts, and wine (the fruit of the vine) to celebrate.

Thank you to Jonathan Gregory for the lovely gift of clementines from the tree he planted a few years ago.  

Like Hanukkah, Tu BiSh'vat is a post-biblical festival, instituted by the Rabbis. However, the holiday has biblical roots. The tithing system upon which it is based dates back to the Torah and its deep concern with trees, harvests, and the natural world, all of which are at the heart of Tu BiSh'vat. Beginning with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden all the way through to Deuteronomy’s injunction against destroying fruit trees in times of war, our biblical text is replete with trees, both literal and metaphorical. Indeed, the Torah itself often is referred to as an eitz chayim (tree of life), based on a passage in the Book of Proverbs. - See more at: http://www.reformjudaism.org/tu-bishvat-history#sthash.uSVms9AX.dpuf

Friendly Fire Kills Fox?

The rat poison was not intended for this grey fox.

http://www.nps.gov/samo/blogs/Another-Victim-of-Rat-Poison.htm

However, if a fox eats a rat that ate the poison, the fox is dead too.

This fox was found dead but beautifully intact in the Agoura Hills northwest of Los Angeles.  It was not the victim of a predator or of an animal fight.

Most likely it was unintentionally poisoned by a homeowner in the area.

Think twice before you use arsenic-based bait to kill mice or rats in your home or garage.

Rethinking Mining HIstory

Up until this week, I've been proud of my family's mining history.

I've enjoyed seeing mines as I hike the San Juan Mountains.

But now I'm realizing the continuing environmental impact of the miners who came in, found gold and silver, processed it with cyanide and arsenic and other toxic chemicals, and made their fortunes--or at least made a living.

What I love is the natural beauty of Colorado, but I'm learning that huge deposits of poisons lie inside these mines, plugged for now, but just waiting for enough water drainage to burst the portals open.

This reality sheds a grim light on summer recreation in Colorado.  This blog was supposed to be about blue flax and dangers from invasive plants, but mining waste turns out to be a more frightening problem.

Allen Best analyzes the historical roots of the pollution today:

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_28617094/best:-kicking-the-environmental-can-down-the-river

The headline--"Kicking the environmental can down the river"--says it all.

Best is the only writer so far who addresses the whole historical perspective of mining in Colorado and its impact in the 130 years since the mines were first claimed.

My great-grandfather worked at the Black Bear Mine above Telluride--my other great-grandfather at a mine in Bedrock Gulch in the La Platas.  For most of my life, these miners have been romantic figures, and I've regarded the mines with friendly interest.

But now I'm realizing that these mines and their owners just kicked the can down the road on environmental impact.  

From now on, when I take mountain hikes past these old mines, I'm going to be worried and thoughtful rather than nostalgic.

But my brother Jim writes in an email:

"Well, ugly or not, disaster or not, I still love my leaky old Colorado mines! They're part of the heritage that opened up the state."

1978 Precursor to Gold King spill

Read about the previous mining disaster in the same location in 1978:

"Disaster at the Sunnyside" in The San Juan Triangle of Colorado (Denver: Lithographie, 2011), which is for sale at the museum of the Colorado School of Mines.


The Gold King Mine is part of the Sunnyside Mine, connected by the American Tunnel.

http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/museum/minsymp/abstracts/view.cfml?aid=100

The 1978 disaster at the Sunnyside also emptied into Cement Creek because the mines are connected, essentially in the same place.  

Cement Creek runs northwest-to-southeast directly into the NW corner of Silverton, joining the Animas in the SE corner of town.

Here's another great analysis of the causes and history of mine spills near Silverton:

http://www.hcn.org/articles/when-our-river-turned-orange-animas-river-spill?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=55cc813204d3012947000001&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

To learn more, I need to take the Old Hundred Gold Mine Tour near Silverton.

  http://www.minetour.com/index.html

I've only done the Bachelor Syracuse Mine Tour near Ouray and the Silver Bell tour they used to have at Ophir.