I just can't afford it.

That was always my excuse not to buy organic foods. My budget will never be able to support those who farm organically. It can barely support all the food we go through as it is!

Now that I've spent the winter in Bakersfield, and watched all the cropdusters in the air, my thought has turned to "How can I afford to not buy organically grown foods?" The volume of pesticides/herbicides I've seen sprayed is pretty amazing. And not in a good way. So, what's a mother to do when her heart and head want one thing, but her budget demands another?

Garden. Yep, garden. I've been working on a small garden for a couple of years. It's not much, but I usually get a few tomatoes and zucchinis. This year, though, I'll be getting strawberries, chives, green beans, and hopefully some corn, too! These plants will be free: free from pesticides and herbicides. I compost most of my vegetable matter, along with egg shells and shrimp tails, throughout the year. I have to improve the soil in my yard, it's very pebbly and not well-developed since I live on the side of a mountain. I do occasionally add synthetic fertilizer, but it's in pellet form, so doesn't adhere to the fruits.  I don't need herbicides; I have a weeding tool and two good hands. I haven't needed pesticides yet. I hope I never do.

Everyone can garden. There are so many different products out there for indoor or small scale gardening! I haven't tried any of these, so please don't take this list as an endorsement, it's just what I can think of at the moment.  There's the topsy-turvy, the countertop herb and lettuce gardens, and countless websites about urban gardening. With so many resources available, truly anyone can have a garden.

Not only do you gain the benefit of knowing what is on your food, but gardening is inexpensive. At a time when food costs just keep going up, I am glad to find a way to make them head back down. Think about it: Four average-sized on-the-vine tomatoes are $2.99/lb. At ~2 lbs, that's almost $6! Those same $6 can be used to buy seeds and a container, or a plant already started.  Instead of 2 lbs of tomatoes, you can easily harvest 6 lbs or more, potentially much more if you choose seeds.

If you want to add global benefits, start with transportation costs. You don't have to drive to the store. As more people grow their own tomatoes, fewer tomatoes will be produced, and fewer trucks drive to the market. Fewer pesticides are sprayed, with lowered airtime for the dusters, and fewer chemicals will be produced in the first place. If you compost as well, that means less waste heading to the dump, and again, fewer trucks.

See? Gardening in your yard or on your balcony or in your kitchen is a very "sustainable" thing to do. It's the ultimate in local foods. Just walk out your door, and go pick something yummy.

Doing Good Work

 What a week.  Just in the last couple of days, a new challenge popped up at work.  With all the rain the project area received, it was not surprising to have water ponding in the natural areas.  At first, though, the major challenge was simply not to get the equipment stuck.  However, as most of the area began to dry (there's been sunshine for a whole week!) we started to notice that many pools or puddles remained.  Suddenly, we realized that those that remained were likely not just due to wet conditions, but probably should be classified as "vernal pools."  This was new, and opened a huge can of worms.

Vernal pools, along with other types of wetlands, require a 300' buffer around them, inside of which no equipment may penetrate.  This put enormous restrictions on where drill points could be placed, as well as travel lanes to get to them.  So, Monday morning we began moving points.  TOC and its contractor were not very happy about this.  Some people tried to convince us it wasn't that important.  They wanted to be sure the drills could keep working, since they are production-based.  However, we knew that not only did we need to make this decision for the safety of our backsides, but also for theirs.  Vernal pool and wetland mitigation is not cheap.

By Monday afternoon, we had moved all the points necessary to finish the day's assigned production.  Someone who had earlier tried to get us to lower our standards finally said, "Good work, Bios.  All the drills are running."  It sure was nice to hear.

Birds I've Seen

Having been inspired yet again by Mr. Greg, and the numerous birds I've been seeing here in watery Bakersfield, I decided to post a list of the various species I've seen lately.  These are all from home (somewhere in Los Angeles) or at the project site, north of Bakersfield.



Long-billed curlew, Numenius americanus

Black-necked stilt, Himantopus mexicanus

Mourning dove, Zenaida macroura

Red-crowned parrot, Amazona viridigenalis

Greater road-runner, Geococcyx californianus (he was sunning himself)

Burrowing owl, Athene cunicularia

Anna's hummingbird, Calypte anna

Loggerhead shrike, Lanius ludovicianus

Western scrub-jay, Aphelocoma californica

Northern mockingbird, Mimis polyglottos

Vesper sparrow, Pooecetes gramineus

Western meadowlark, Sturnella neglecta

Great blue heron, Ardea herodias

Great egret, Ardea alba

Snowy egret, Egretta thula

Black-crowned night heron, Nycticorax nycticorax (I've seen several juveniles, too)

Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos

Northern pintail, Anas acuta

Northern shoveler, Anas clypeata

Cinnamon teal, Anas cyanoptera

Northern Harrier, Circus cyaneus

Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

Swainson's hawk, Buteo swainsoni

American coot, Fulica americana

Killdeer, Charadrius vociferus

The links all go to the Cornell Ornithology Lab website "All About Birds."  This is a fun site with lots of FAQ's, some great photos and video, and various sounds from lots of birds.  Check them out!

Ethics, and whatever happened to right and wrong being easy?

Remember when we were little, and knowing right from wrong was easy?  Pushing your way onto the slide: wrong.  Sharing the last cookie with your friend: right.  See?  Easy.  What happened?

The other day, I got a call from my supervisor letting me know I should report for work the following day.  (Our schedules are somewhat unpredictable.)  "But," he said, "you need to know that 'The Oil Company (TOC)' has decided to continue working, outside the B.O.'s recommendations."  The B.O. is the biological opinion agreed upon between the federal and state governments and TOC before the project began.  The B.O. states that when the area receives more than 1" of rain after Nov. 1 (the project area got 5 inches in December alone.  That's the whole year's worth, and not even in the rainiest month!), the biologists must monitor reference sites for germination of plants that are endangered or threatened ("listed plants".)  Once these plants have germinated, the project is supposed to stop until the plants have flowered and then new avoidance measures will be put into action. 

Here's the dilemma, though.  We can't tell which plants have germinated.  We can see the mosses and the grasses, none of which are in the listed plants.  However, we can't identify any of the cotyledons that are popping up.  So, TOC is going to keep going as if nothing is growing yet.  What do we do?  If we say, "Sorry guys, we disagree and will not help you until they flower," then they'll find someone else.  We lose our jobs.  Not only that, but if someone is willing to do it for them, what else will they be willing to compromise on?  Will they cut other corners?  Or do I say, "I'll agree to keep walking with you, but that's it."  Does that weaken my standards?  Am I flip-flopper?

I got an inkling of how important my job is last week.  I met a woman in the elevator at the motel where I stay after a 10-hour day.  "Do you work for the oil companies?" she asked.  "Sort of," I said.  "I'm a biologist that makes sure they don't run over any critters."  Her eyes widened and she asked "Do they get punished when they run over something?  What happens to them?"  I explained that per the agreement, they are given a quota that they are allowed to "impact," but that anything over the quota will result in a fine.  Just before I got out of the elevator, she said, "Keep up the good work."

That's the dilemma.  Am I doing good work if I keep working?  Or should I step aside and let someone else keep going, not knowing what else they'll give up along the way.  I won't say what my choice was.  I want to hear your thoughts.

America the Beautiful

We just returned from a 2-week trip across the country.  Well, to Missouri and back, anyway.  We saw snow, rain, slush, and a little sunshine now and then.

We Americans were certainly blessed with beautiful views and places to build our homes.  Williams, AZ has stately conifers covering mountains short enough to climb on a day hike.  Tucumcari, NM is in the middle of vast plains and prairies.  They've been broken up with barbed wire fences, but the view is still amazing.  The Missouri Ozarks -- a place I know well -- has gorgeous rolling hills, secluded glades, and the dense woods I grew up playing in.  In southern Oklahoma, a series of lakes reflect the setting sun.

I feel privileged to see these places.  Let us appreciate them, and others like them.  

Green. And why I need it.

I grew up in a very green place.  Well, except for in August when the grass has all died.  I didn't understand when visitors, often from the West, would exclaim "It's so green here!"  Now, I live in the west and I have come to understand not only their amazement, but my need for this color.

I LOVE the outdoors.  Mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, prairies, all of it is beautiful to me.  As I sit on beautiful Catalina Island, surrounded by a glassy ocean, it has finally occurred to me why green is so important.  I need to know that there is undeveloped land.  The ocean is beautiful, but as of yet, we haven't figured out a way to exploit its real estate.  Everything else about the ocean, well that's a different story.  So, living in the mountains around Los Angeles has meant that I am surrounded by millions of people.  And where there is green, there aren't any houses.  This is refreshing to me.

It is so important, in fact, that when we were looking to move about 18 months ago, I knew that I needed a house with a view of the mountains.  As lovely as an ocean view would be, I need the mountain view.  I need to know that we have not yet claimed every square inch of ground for ourselves.  I need to see it.

My favorite color is blue.  But I need green.

A place for my thoughts, and my first ramble

I decided I needed a place for my thoughts on nature, environmental issues and conservation after being inspired (yet again) by a long-time mentor.  This blog will serve as an outlet for all the science-y things that don't belong on our family blog.  It is also the beginning of my online professional persona.  Anything that isn't my own opinion will be properly cited so that you can read and interpret for yourself the same information from which I drew my conclusions.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved being outside.  I don't love humidity.  Or bitter cold.  But, I am still drawn outside.  I leave my windows open as much as possible.

I didn't always love science, though.  In fact, until I had Mrs. Judy Stout teach me life science in 7th grade, I hated it.  She was the one who showed me what was amazing in the world.  Up until that point, my teachers didn't like science, so I didn't either.  We took turns in school studying from our science book and our health book.  Health was incredibly boring, so I equated the draw of science with the draw of health.  There was none.  Then there was Mrs. Stout.  She clearly loved science, and let it show.  In doing so, she changed my life.

Why is it that science gets the shaft?  Sadly, too few of our nation's elementary school teachers like or even understand science.  Students are not oblivious to this fact, so they tune it out as unimportant.  On top of the personal indifference toward science of many teachers, the new emphasis on reading and math as indicators of student learning and achievement simply pushed science curriculum from the back burner to next to the stove, trying to steal a little warmth where it can.

Further compounding the problem is the general dumbing-down of education.  I only have experience with textbooks in California, and only through the 4th grade, but I have been sorely unimpressed.  The 4th grade books seem to be the worst so far.  I'm going to also include the California Social Studies(1) book here, because it covers quite a bit of geology and geography, since those topics tie in so much with California's history.  Both of the books for 4th grade are severely lacking in explanations.  For many phenomena, there is simply a description, rather than a definition or cause stated.  So much in these books is vague, it is a wonder that any student comes away with a clear understanding of the topics at hand. An example from the science book(2): "Minerals are natural, nonliving substances that make up rocks."  Is there anyone out there can tell me what a mineral is, besides simply describing where you might find it, just by using this definition?  I thought not.  And from the social studies book: "California's coast has a mild climate because the Pacific Ocean warms the air in the winter.  It cools it in the summer."  This is fascinating!  So, being near the water means the weather is nice?  I wonder how that happens.  The book never says.

As a TA in the biology department at a Cal State, I saw the students who learned from books like these.  The result is not pretty.  In the three courses for which I taught the laboratory portion, I gained new insights into the poor state of education in California.  Some examples: a pre-med student was determining the gender of the fetal pig he was about to dissect.  His conclusion? "Our pig is a female.  It has nipples."  I looked at him and asked, "Do you? Come up with a better diagnostic."  Another example: I was instructing a class on various types of plankton.  Plankton are not exactly easy to picture, nor are the numbers of plankton in the sea.  I tried using the white cliffs of Dover, England, as an example of the vast numbers of coccolithophores that the sea supports, but all I got were blank stares.  I was shocked that not a single student had any idea what I was talking about. 

The state of science education is of particular concern to me.  I see too many examples of improper decisions being based on faulty science, or the mis-understanding of good science.  "Green living" is exploding in popularity, but most people don't understand the effects changes that they make are/will have.  Biofuels are a perfect example of this.  No one argues that fossil fuel consumption is harmless, but so few understand the impact biofuel production has.  Corn is a very harsh crop; it depletes soil quickly, and the stalks provide little nutrients even when they are left to be plowed into the soil.  Additionally, the rate of return on energy put into biofuel production is less that that of conventional fuel production.  Frustratingly, the CO2 emissions are not vastly different between the two, either.

This is not to say we shouldn't try to come up with new methods, products, and fuels.  However, the poor understanding of science (not to mention statistics!) leads to bandwagonning and then cynicism when an idea turns out not to be the golden egg.  In fact, the only way to come up with new solutions to old problems is to fully educate our children.  Without an understanding of the basic science as well as the old solutions, there is no way a person will be able to form a usable, testable hypothesis.

I don't know all the answers.  I may not know even one answer.  I do know that we are short-changing ourselves and our students by not expecting them to be able to understand complex concepts.  If they are presented in appropriate ways, even young students can understand how the Pacific Ocean keeps California warm.  I want to get involved with the textbook committees in California.  The students here deserve so much more that what they've been given.



1)--. 2007. California vistas: our golden state. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill: NY, NY.
2) Hackett, J.K., R.H. Moyer, J. Vasquez, M. Teferi, D. Zike, K. LeRoy, D.J.T. Terman, G.F. Wheeler. 2008. California Science, 4th Grade. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill: NY, NY.