Family Vacation - Summer 2012

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The Unintentional Gardener

Back in March, I posted my experience and background research on building a keyhole garden. Truth is, I ran out of bricks and haven't had a chance to go get a load of dirt or plant a proper garden. We have continued to use our compost heap, now relocated to the center of (what will someday be) the keyhole garden.

Due in large part to the unusually wet start to the summer, my inattentiveness has borne unintentional fruit (pun intended). The wet weather has also caused an explosion in the cricket population, but I'm hoping that we keep getting rain each week.

Here are pictures of what looks like a squash vine that sprouted out of our compost heap.

 

Even more amazing than the vine growing out of my compost heap is the fact that a friend visiting last week discovered that I have veggies growing where the compost heap used to be located. This as-yet unidentified vegetable is growing alongside two very nice grape tomato plants.

I got some help with the harvest.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Last summer, our family was planning an epic road trip. I had mapped a route that would take us through Carlsbad Caverns, the Grand Canyon, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Juneau, Anchorage, Kodiak Island (with a pilgrimage to Spruce Island built in), then back through Denali, British Columbia, Nebraska, and back home to Texas. The only way we could make this plan work would be to camp out and eat out of a cooler.

The biggest motivation was to spend some time together as a family, cultivate a sense of wonder in the boys, and see the glaciers before they melted.

That trip didn't happen.

Curiously enough, when we did the math, it turned out that we could fly to Seattle and then book a cruise to Alaska for roughly the same price as covering the gas, groceries and campsite fees. While I didn't get to camp out or make my pilgrimage, we did get to see glaciers and a whole lot of other things that we wouldn't have if we had driven. Here's that story:

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For more details about our excursions, see my reviews at NCL.

Distractions

I took holiday most of this week to prepare for and attend Holy Week services. Thursday morning, the first day that our church had a daytime service, I got distracted and missed it. Here's what happened: I got up, took the boys to school, went to meet the farmer from whom I buy eggs, then I went to work. I knew that I was on holiday, but I had a project that had been nagging me, and I wanted to put it to bed. I thought: "since I'm on vacation, I have the liberty to focus on just this one thing." About 9:00 AM I realized that I was late for a Vesperal Liturgy that had begun at 8:00 AM. I dropped what I was doing and made it to church in time to hear father give the dismissal.

St. Isaac the Syrian, the namesake of my youngest son said, "This life has been given to you for repentance. Why waste it in vain pursuits?" Certainly my livelihood isn't a vain pursuit, but when I allow it to exceed the bounds of the time I've set aside for prayer and reflection, work can become a hindrance to my spiritual growth. While I'm confessing, I ought to add that it is probably pride that motivated the desire to work on the project. If I left well-enough alone, I might realize that I am not indispensable.

Even in writing this post I've been distracted half a dozen times since I first thought to put pen to paper (so to speak) Thursday morning. I recently read (on someone's blog? on Facebook?) a very helpful practice that I've adopted and which is the reason this post exists. When an idea worth holding onto pops into my head but would distract me from something more important (usually from my prayers), I ask the Theotokos to help me remember it.

In his excellent book, Great Lent, Fr. Alexander Schmemann gives a detailed explanation of the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.

O Lord and master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust for power and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King!
Grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother;
For thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen

Fr. Alexander identifies in an expansive understanding of chastity an antidote to distraction:

The exact and full translation of the Greek sofrosini and the Russian tselodmudryie ought to be whole-mindedness. Sloth is, first of all, dissipation, the brokenness of our vision and energy, the inability to see the whole. Its opposite then is precisely wholeness. If we usually mean by chastity the virtue opposed to sexual depravity, it is because the broken character of our existence is nowhere better manifested than in sexual lust--the alienation of the body from the life and control of the spirit. Christ restores wholeness in us and He does so by restoring in us the true scale of values by leading us back to God.

For several years now I have been pursuing what I think of as my own "theory of everything," a satisfactory and robust explanatory framework for my subjective experience. I think part of that impulse derives from an innate desire for this "whole-mindedness" that Fr. Alexander speaks of. I am still working toward understanding what Christ said to Martha, "One thing is needful."

It is difficult in modern American society to find that kind of focus. We have built an economy in which "the dollar is sacred and power is god." Even when I try to focus on that one needful thing, I find myself wanting for my boys to have an excellent education, to make brilliant contributions to the academy, to be financially secure so that I can finally devote my attention to preparation for an encounter with the Living God in the Eucharist. Instead of the other way around.

The ever-expanding influence of technology in our lives has made these distractions even harder to ignore. I purposefully do not use headphones, and I don't listen to the radio in my car, but I walk around with an electronic leash and an entire world of (mis)information in my pocket. We have the opportunity to be completely absorbed from the time we wake till the time we sleep by flashy, interesting, titillating, and mind-numbing audio and video. It is little wonder that our lack of concentration has become pathological and we now need medication to focus, to sleep, to not be overwhelmed in despair. As I've noted before, I think Marx only called religion the opiate of the masses because he had not seen television. In Spanish, the word fun translates as divertida. That same root for diversion begs the question: from what is our attention being diverted?

I read an article from NPR this week in which Jonah Lehrer describes how technological innovation has created an instance of cascading interventions. We are certainly served very well by our technologies, but it is when we become the servants of our technology that we have a problem. It has been in thinking about this relationship this week that I've come to understand what the Fathers mean by not being ruled by the passions. In our fallen state, with the image of God disfigured in us, we have to give extra effort to have a focused vision of God. Our lack of focus gives entree to the Deceiver to suggest distractions, but we do not have to be ruled by those suggestions.

The Church, our spiritual hospital, offers remedies for us when plagued by spiritual maladies. The instruction to pray, fast, give to the poor, read the scriptures, attend worship services and otherwise prepare ourselves for communion that might, from the outside, seem like an onerous burden turns out to be the disciplines needed to have a single vision of the life that Christ wants for us. The passage in John's gospel where Christ tells us that He has come that we might have a more abundant life does not (I believe) refer to material wealth. A life that is free of distraction helps us realize our life's purpose: communion with God.

May you be richly blessed as you complete your journey to the empty tomb!


The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. - Luke 11:34

Building a Keyhole Garden

Since my interest in local food has begun to develop, I've been taken with the idea of planting a backyard garden. I really like the idea, as my friend, Ed Funkhouser once described his family doing when he was younger, of going into the backyard and picking vegetables and eating them fresh for dinner.

The Party of the Shires has been a wonderful outlet for ideas on how to transition to a more locally-based economy, and from this group I have learned about hugelkultur, aquaponics, lasagna gardening and keyhole gardening.

The idea with a keyhole garden is to build a garden that centers on a compost heap. The only water that is put into the garden goes onto the compost heap, and the plants, which are planted around this, send their roots toward the water and nutrients in the center.

Keyhole gardens have proven to be drought-beating sources of nutritious vegetables in Lesotho and Texas. I had been planning to build a hugelkultur garden on a concrete pad in my backyard that at one time served as a dog run for a previous owner. This pad had become a junk collecting spot, and I would like to turn it into a useful space. Inspired by the notion of using found materials described in keyhole gardening, I (with the help of my son) started the process of building a keyhole garden in this space last night. The following photos represent about three hours of work. While I did not follow Dr. Deb's plan exactly (my garden is about 9' in diameter and currently has broken bricks, concrete, steel wire, dirt, green vegetation and dead wood--not in any particular layering--and I'm using the plasic compost bin I already had), it does tie together some of the benefits of hugelkultur and keyhole gardening. I'm hopeful that the organic material in this raised-bed garden will provide a great source of moisture through our hot Texas summer! And there's the added benefit that my backyard is now a lot cleaner. I still need to add some more height to the wall and add layers of cardboard and soil. Once I get ready to plant, I'll be referencing Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening.

Forgiveness Vespers

My stepdad recently sent me the following note in an email entitled "Forgiveness Sunday in Peru. Sort of...":

Each year, the town of Chumbivilcas, Peru, celebrates the new year with what to Americans might seem "Festivus"-inspired (from the Seinfeld TV show), but is actually drawn from Incan tradition. For "Takanakuy," with a background of singing and dancing, all townspeople with grudges from the previous 12 months (men, women, children) settle them with sometimes-bloody fistfights so that they start the new year clean. Said one villager to a Reuters reporter, "Everything is solved here, and after(ward) we are all friends." [Reuters via CBS News, 12-14-2011]

I quipped, "I wonder if that might not work better in some parishes?"

All joking aside, Forgiveness Vespers is among the most beautiful services of the Church. By some trick of scheduling, I rarely manage to be with my parish for this important service, but I still recall the first Forgiveness Vespers I ever attended, at St. Joseph's in Houston while I was a catechumen. I remember watching in amazement as each member of the congregation approached the priest, Fr. Matthew; they made mutual prostrations and asked and gave forgiveness: "Forgive me, a sinner." "God forgives and I forgive." They began to line up across the front of the iconostasis and around the edge of the nave, each asking and giving forgiveness to each other: "Forgive me, a sinner." "God forgives and I forgive." Though I was something of an outsider, I was unmistakably drawn into the community by participating. I felt, very acutely, what it meant to be in communion.

I think that this rite of forgiveness and reconciliation is central to the evangelistic mission of the Church. Though I have not been present for Forgiveness Vespers, I do seek out members of my parish at the start of Lent to seek their forgiveness, but I've also begun to bring others into my practice of this rite. Last year I worked with two Catholic men with whom I often had conversations about religion. Because I knew that we shared some common understanding of faith, I sought their forgiveness. This year, I am working with a whole new group of people; I do not know the faith background of any of them. It has been a particularly trying couple of months, and our small group has begun to mesh very well. I did not feel as though I could leave this work "family" out of my practice.


While I refrained from making prostrations, I did approach each in turn and explain that as part of my Lenten practice I wanted to seek their forgiveness for wrongs, perceived or unperceived, committed against them. The response has truly been amazing, and I can't help but recognize in their embarrassed, dismissive, emotional and grateful responses some of my own feeling of being welcomed at that first Forgiveness Vespers that I attended.


Christ's salvific work certainly includes atonement, but (I think) that was more a concession to us than anything else. The beauty of the Orthodox Christian teaching about salvation is the emphasis on our reunion with God. The acts of reconciliation, forgiveness, and hospitality are truly vectors for grace because they anticipate and remind that the purpose of our existence is that union with God, and by His grace, extending that love to all.


I have been humbled not only by the response from my co-workers this year, but also by the enormity of the task in front of me. Forgive me my transgressions, as I forgive those who transgress against me. If I truly inhabited the task of working out my salvation in fear and trembling, there would be no end to the seeking of forgiveness. Perhaps that is the lesson.

Why Local Food? Where Do I Find It?

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." - Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food

I'm putting this post up as a reference to the local food resources that we have discovered near our home. My first foray into local food was when a friend, Susan, gifted me with a bar of goat's milk soap and suggested that I might want to buy eggs from the farmers who made it. Since then, we've bought eggs and goat's milk soap from the Osth Family Farm. We were members of the HomeSweet Farm CSA (community supported agriculture) for a short time, but it was a tough time to acclimate to eating seasonally because of my wife's pregnancy. We have visited the monthly market day that HomeSweet Farm hosts since then, and recommend it as a great family outing.

Eating seasonally has been one of the most rewarding aspects of eating locally. It is hard to understand how much food we eat regularly from other places (and how that might affect one's carbon footprint) until you see what is available from local farms at any given time. Becoming attuned to seasonal foods has also helped me dig into Shirism (and Distributism), which has been another recent interest.

My interest in eating local, in-season, whole food has been fed by several sources which I can recommend:

• Michael Pollan's books: The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food
• The Weston A. Price Foundation
• The documentary Forks over Knives
• Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats
• Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection
• What's In Your Milk? 

Osth Family Farm
http://www.osthfamilyfarm.com/
As noted above, we buy eggs, goat's milk soap (our favorite scents are Wellness and Patchouli Citrus), and occasionally vegetables from the Osth's. Our boys also really enjoy visiting the farm and learning where food comes from!

Cox Family Farm
http://www.coxfamilyfarm.com/coxfarm/index.php (on Facebook)
We  have begun buying vegetables from the Cox's. Our friend, Fr. Cassian Sibley, works on the farm and introduced us to this CSA opportunity. As of this writing, the vegetable shares are full, but eggs are available, as is some grass-fed beef. We look forward to the day when milk shares will be available again, too!

HomeSweet Farm
http://www.homesweetfarm.com/
I am fond of HomeSweet Farm, but as it is almost an hour away, it is really too far to be truly "local." Nevertheless, their monthly market day is unparelleled for access to great local products like cheese, wine, poultry, and cajeta! Farmer Brad is also a great educator about local food; his blog is a great way to delve into this subject.

Brazos Natural Foods
http://www.brazosnaturalfoods.com/ (on Facebook)
A local grocery dedicated to supplying nutritious, whole, local food.

Brazos Valley Farmer's Market
http://www.brazosvalleyfarmersmarket.com/ (on Facebook)
Provides a way for the local community to easily access locally-grown food.

Brazos Locavores
http://brazosgrows.org/brazos-locavores/ (on Facebook)
Also provides information about finding local food, including which restaurants in the area serve locally-grown food.

Howdy! Farm
http://www.localharvest.org/howdy-farm-M37733 (on Facebook)
CSA run by Texas A&M students and faculty.

For those that are not in the Brazos Valley, check out what resources might be available to you locally at Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org/.

Second Guest Post Up at St. Lydia's Book Club

My second invited post at St. Lydia's Book Club is up.

When Melinda first asked for a guest post, I wasn't certain if she wanted to hear about my creative process since that seemed to be the theme of her previous guest post, or if I was free to consider a more esoteric subject. So, I wrote both and Melinda liked both. The first, One Thing is Needful, was published first and I was gratified by the generous response.

This one, Reverse Perspective, doesn't begin with the same kind of narrative hook. While the read might be drier, I think I'm even more pleased with this piece of writing because of the focused nature of my reflection. Give it a read and tell me what you think.

Fightin' Texas Aggie Bonfire

Overnight here in Aggieland, we will commemorate the loss of 12 young men and women whose untimely deaths are forever etched in the collective memory of Aggie faithful. 

Pulling material from the old Tomes site again, here is a letter I wrote the day after Bonfire fell in 1999 and a reflection I wrote when I put this on my site a couple of years later. It has now been 12 years since Bonfire fell and as Stephen King might say, the world has moved on since then. The most marked change has been how students relate to one another on campus. I can't exactly place the difference, and I can't attribute the change all to the loss of Bonfire from campus culture, but I do know that the change I've notice dates from the disappearance of this tradition from campus.

Since I wrote these, I think that my understanding of the symbolism of Bonfire has changed, too. I think that it was an instance of rhetorical violence that got grandfathered into our modern consciousness in the name of "Tradition." Given the visceral reaction I've heard from others who have no context for Aggie Bonfire as anything other than a lynching, this isn't a tradition that could have evolved in our era, and I don't know that that is a bad thing. Like the 12th Man tradition at Texas A&M, I cannot separate the love I feel from revulsion at an ugly history.

Here.

02.17.01

The following is an email response to a friend. SG wrote me after hearing of Bonfire’s collapse, and my response to him is the only way that I was ever able to capture my feelings on the catastrophe.

Even after a post-traumatic stress briefing and a year-and a half the subject still hurts to think about; it probably always will. I will probably always feel guilt for a number of reasons: for not being at work, for not being on stack, for never having taken part in stack, load, or cut…

Today, after my classes, I walked to work instead of driving. I walked across the polo fields, but had towalk well to the side because the feeling was that I was walking on holy ground. The reason why is easy to understand, shortly after I wrote this letter, Tim Kerlee died, becoming the twelfth person to lose his life due to the accident. If you are not an Aggie that might be of little significance to you; here in Aggieland, that final touch concreted Bonfire ‘99’s collapse as a mythic occurrence.

There will be other bonfires, but there will never again be Bonfire. Daily, articles in the Batt (the campus paper) talk about the administration’s idea that contractors can cut, stack, and build bonfire so that students can watch in safety. I guess this is the same sort of thinking that made them want to trademark the Bonfire image. They’ll never really understand it though until they realize that Bonfire is nothing without the spirit of the student body behind it, fueled by our Burning Desire.

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 08:57:59 -0800 (PST)

From: Jon

Subject: A Sad Day....

To: DearStallGuy@yahoo.com

SG-

Thanks for your call yesterday; it means a lot that you thought of me. I was on campus, but not anywhere near the stack when it fell. I know several who were out there earlier, or who were supposed to be out there but for some reason or another weren't there when it fell. I also know a paramedic who was on duty at the site when it happened.

All these people are looking at life in a different manner today. I am too. I spent 8 hours yesterday working perimeter security at the Bonfire site. Even after seeing the stack on its side, it's hard to comprehend that 9 young men and 2 young women gave their lives for what, I am confident, they felt was the ultimate symbol of our school's spirit and traditions.

When the stack fell I was asleep outside G. Rollie White Coliseum, Waiting to pull tickets for the Texas (read - t.u.) game. Earlier in the evening, I had the privilege to hear Ryan, the OCA (Off Campus Aggies) Brownpot, give an extemporaneous talk about the organization and hierarchy of Bonfire, I learned more in 20 minutes from Ryan than I have in four and a half years of being an Aggie. I have never taken part in the construction of Bonfire, and probably never will have the opportunity to do so.

Ryan, though he's invested a great deal of time and effort in this great Tradition, may not get the chance to build another Bonfire either. Bonfire will not burn this year to honor the students’ deaths. This is only the second time in 90 years that it didn't burn. The first was in 1964, when the students disassembled the stack log by log and didn't burn Bonfire that year in honor of JFK. This is the third time that the stack has collapsed; the two previous collapses were due in part to wet ground, and there were no injuries.

Because this tragedy, as well as other factors, there is rumour thatBonfire may never burn again. If that turns out to be the decision made I can accept that the University can not allow itself this kind of liability anymore; I will be thankful that I have had the opportunity to see it burn.

On the other hand, I'd like to see it burn this year too. It sticks in my mind that Christopher Breen, Christopher Lee Heard, Jerry Self, Jamie Hand, Michael Ebanks, Miranda Adams, Chad Powell, Nathan West, Bryan McLain, Lucas Kimmel, and Jeremy Frampton gave their lives to build this Bonfire. Their ultimate effort is to be quenched in a great smothering hug of sympathy and grief. In my heart of hearts I wish that we could push to get the thing rebuilt in a matter of days like they did in '94 and burn it in their honor.

My feelings oscillate from grief, to disbelief, to joy. Somewhere in the middle of all that there is a moral. I don't know that I can pull it out. I don't think that alone I should be able to. I think that there is something inherently collective about this tragedy. I think that is the way it will be remembered by many. For me at least, this tragedy has been bigger than life, a thing so immense in its scope that I can not encompass it. Why can't it be real? Because eleven college students shouldn't die in a horrible manner in the middle of campus in a town so small that it wouldn't exist without the school. I realize then that they didn't die in seclusion. Their end has been broadcast to every corner of the globe. It has become a mythical thing, and will grow ever grander and more distant with the passage of time.

So we go on. We will exult in these students bravery though they weren't intending on being seen as valorous. We will praise their sacrifice though they didn't intend to lose anything but a few hours of sleep. Now their slumber is undisturbed. We will grieve as a family as only Aggies can. We will attend the ceremonies, read the papers, see the pictures, console each otherand help each other along. Those of us who have the luxury of doing so will secretly be thankful that it wasn't us, or our friends or loved ones. Those who dealt with the tragedy first hand-- whether through their survival, the loss of a child, or boyfriend, or girlfriend,or best friend--will remember the good sunny things about their dearly departed, except in the dark of night when a memory so poignantly painful stabs their heart and won't let them sleep.Whether or not Bonfire ever burns again, this will be a watershed moment in this school's history. Should there be more Bonfires, they will be different, and in being so, not the same. Nothing can be the same. Though Bonfire has fallen three times, this will be the time Bonfire fell. This will define some people's lives.

My hope is that it makes me examine the long-term impact of my actions. Depending on your particular hegemony, that can mean a number of things, but I hope that you do the same. This morning in my Meteorology class(no, classes were never cancelled) my professor gave the motto of the Catholic University he attended. I do not remember the Latin, but translated it read, "Do what you do!" Do what you enjoy. Do it well. Do it regardless of the consequences. Live, laugh, love, dance, cry, experiment, party, drift. Just do it to the utmost of your ability and do not stop until it is complete and you are completely satisfied.

"From the outside looking in, you can never understand it. From the inside looking out, you can never explain it"

"We are the Aggies, the Aggies are we. True to each other as Aggies can be."

JOn

River Restoration: What's in a Name?

I spent the better part of the past week in Phoenix, AZ with colleagues from around the country at the 46th Annual Conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). Since serendipitously falling into the field over 8 years ago, I have had the privilege of taking part in what I believe to be one of the last bastions of classical liberal education in the modern university. My ruminations on what Honors education is, exactly, is a subject for another post. Suffice it to say for now that Honors is a laboratory for teaching and pedagogy, and concepts like experiential learning found their start in Honors.

NCHC's trademarked experiential learning pedagogy is City as Text™(CAT). CAT, in the context of the annual conference, gives participants the opportunity to "read" a place through the buildings, signs, and people in that place (those interested in reading up on this pedagogy can find more here and here). In Phoenix, I got to be part of a select group piloting an expansion of the traditional CAT method. Instead of an informal exploration and chance interviews with inhabitants, the organizers arranged meetings for us with city officials to get more information about city infrastructure. My assignment: the Salt River Restoration Project. Here is the report my group prepared for the CAT closing:

We met with Karen Williams, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Phoenix, and Wendy Wonderly, Coordinator of Environmental Programs. This experience was amazing! Karen and Wendy were incredibly hospitable. They even arranged to do a driving tour of the Rio Salado project after their presentation to us; we wouldn't have had a chance to see the project otherwise. Their passion for this project showed and is likely responsible for its success.

Rio Salado sign. Copyright 2011 - Matt Butera

The Salt River is dry. Originally it was a river that supported tremendous agricultural production. The Hohokam people built a network of irrigation canals, some of which are in use today. In the early 20th century a series of dams were constructed to concentrate and divert water for agricultural irrigation. Because of this the Salt River stopped flowing. River water now is primarily dedicated to municipal use, accounting for nearly 95% of Phoenix's water.


As a dry riverbed, the Salt River became a source for gravel and sand. These mining efforts were accompanied by using the river as a dump. Development along the Salt River course in Phoenix has been dedicated to heavy industrial use and low-income housing. Many in Phoenix consider the river a dividing line between affluence in the north and poverty to the south of the river.


In the 1960's a professor at Arizona State University challenged his class to walk the riverbed and think of how to revive the river. A county-wide ballot issue in 1987 to tax property to fund restoration efforts failed to pass anywhere except in Phoenix. In 1992, the expanded charge of the Army Corps of Engineers to include ecological restoration provided a means to pursue restoration. Karen has been the public face of these efforts for 15 years. The restoration cost was $100M, 65% of which came from federal funds, 35% of which was raised locally, including voter-approved bond issues in 2001 and 2008. Ed Pastor, one of the students in that class at ASU in the 1960's and now an Arizona congressman, has helped continue to find federal funding for the project.


Because water will never flow in the Salt River again unless the dams are removed, the project will never be self-sustaining. Phoenix Parks and Recreation has partnered with the Audubon Society to make a place where the public can learn about the restoration and enjoy the benefits of this natural resource.

Rio Salado. Copyright 2011 - Matt Butera

My note about removing the dams was not off-hand; one of the questions I had prepared before we got to City Hall was, "the term 'restoration' seems to indicate restoring the river from some deficit state to a steady state: at what point does this stop being a 'restoration' and become a 'preserve'?" Another simpler way to ask this question might have been: "how will you know when your restoration efforts are successful?" I'm glad I asked the question the way I did, though, because of the answer I got: Rio Salado will never be self-sustaining. In this sense, Rio Salado is less a restoration and more of an elaborate re-creation. Given the political and environmental pressures at work in Arizona, I'm happy that we have the re-creation at least.

I asked Wendy what chance she thought that something like the Elwha River Restoration in Washington state I had read about last month. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any indication that the political will to mount such a project exists. How amazing would it be, though, to see the desert like this again? (Arrakis, anyone?)

Arizona watershed map - 1850-2000. Images from the presentation given to our CAT group. A substantially similar presentation is online at http://www.sw-green.com/powerpoints/RioSaladoOct2008.ppt

Our CAT Exploration Group (I'm behind the camera) with Karen and Wendy.

 Photos courtesy of Matt Butera. See his Flickr feed for more.