Coyote Crossing

This is what happens when it rains in the desert

Ya got yer desert trees, most of ‘em legumes, like this ironwood here.

There’s very little usable nitrogen in the soil in the desert. Plants need nitrogen for crucial metabolic processes, chief among them making amino acids and proteins. Without

Now available as a t-shirt

Available here.

Larger image viewable … (continues)

Up to the elbows

My friend Susan posted a photo on Facebook this week of herself planting a tree in her Minnesota town, part of a campaign to plant a thousand of them. It’s a sweet photo. She squats at the base of the tree, one begloved hand on the ground as if to

A chance to get involved in managing the California Desert

[BLM Press Release]

BLM Seeks Nominees for California Desert Advisory Council

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) California Desert District is soliciting nominations from the public for six members of its California Desert District Advisory

A six-word open letter to the Environmental Movement

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Green: Over-Rated

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Desert Skies: 2011 Calendar

Given that my last photo calendar was a critically acclaimed success, with sales in excess of a dozen copies, I’ve decided to put one together for the coming year, which I am given to understand has been designated “2011.”

I’ve decided to collect

“We need to not be the environmentalists who say NO to everything.”

Ken Salazar and Arnold Schwarzenegger formally approved Chevron’s Lucerne Valley Solar project and Tessera’s Imperial Solar Two project today.

The Sierra Club took no action to prevent the second — despite the site’s being intact habitat for the

The Playa Isn’t Lifeless

[A preview of a piece I wrote for the upcoming El Paisano.]

What landscape could be more sterile than a playa? Dry lake beds in desert valleys seem as devoid of life as any place on Earth. Playas are the desert boiled down to its essentials: the

Court Removes Protections From Desert Bald Eagle

Bald eagle chicks. USFWS photo.

[From CBD:]

For Immediate Release, October 1, 2010

Contact: Dr. Robin Silver, Center for Biological Diversity, (602) 799-3275

Court Removes Much-needed Protections From Desert Bald Eagle, Species’ Fate Now

A few things on Friday

1) I have been reminded (via a Facebook post by the Center for Biological Diversity’s Great Basin guy Rob Mrowka) that I’ve been meaning to point you all in the direction of Chance of Rain, a wonderful blog on western water and related politics by

Jacumba

A thousand feet from the border fence. A thousand chorus frogs sing in Boundary Creek. The air is cool, a moist tang of sulphur from the spring.

A bright planet settles toward the mountains in the west. Jupiter, we guess, and we watch Orion

Rock squirrel, rock art

At Grapevine Canyon, Newberry Mountains, … (continues)

New Nevada Wildlands Website

From Graham Stafford in Reno:

I have just designed and built a new website at http://www.nvdesertmtn.org.

Nevada is a large geographical state. Its the 7th largest and the 35th in population. I sometimes feel, because of the large distances

Desert Writers 1: Nabhan, Meloy, Childs

A few days ago in a thread on Facebook I idly mentioned the possibility that I might just make a short list of desert writers whose work I’ve admired over the years. People responded enthusiastically to the idea, so I actually had to put that list

Unexpectedly ancient

I’ve posted this photo a few times. I’m posting it again now. What jumps out at you when you look at it? The light? The alpenglow on Clark Mountain in the background? The rocks, the Joshua trees? The blurry cholla?

Right now, for me, it’s the

Why Joshua trees are shaped the way they are

The first time I awoke in the Mojave I was cramped uncomfortably into the passenger seat of my girlfriend’s Honda in a roadside rest area on Route 58 near Boron. It was not yet light. I had agreed to drive her car from Los Angeles to the Bay Area

Open

There are still places in the desert where one can look out at many miles of landscape with no obvious human intrusion. True, you might have to face a certain direction, or carefully hide the railroads and evaporating pans you know are there

Ashen in the Desert

There’s a scene in the 1998 film Passion in the Desert that does not appear in the Honore de Balzac short story on which the film was based. The short story focuses on the relationship between a man and a leopard: the film takes an entire act to

Protecting the Mojave Preserve

I’ve joined the Board of Directors of the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, a “friends of” group whose mission is to “preserve, protect, and promote the unique natural beauty, ecological integrity, and rich cultural history” of the