Earthworms

Lifelong pals Schober and Findlay are funnier than any roomful of humans put together. KDHX fans will recall their weekly escapade avalanche, St. Louis Brain Sandwich, where a Branschweiger Hut, cheeseballs, The Good Fathers, and timeless tunes like "Never Swat a Fly" helped fix the uniqueness bar for this station from our on-the-fly get-go.

When their conjoined brain left (a yawping hole in) the KDHX airwaves in 2015, a new weekly meetup spawned literary ambitions, drenched in laughs. We Never Got To Be Zombies - Fifty-One Years of Fiddling with Fate is the new memoir output of this duo's commitment to making life lighter.

Their curlique'd CV covers time in the military (can you say "Discipline?"), the movies, on the verge of Catholic priesthood, St. Louis Chase Park Plaza's professional wrestling ring and many more looney niches.

How is this environmental podcast content? How Not! Who can't use a hearty ha-ha to lube the works that keep one doing Green Stuff in this era of humankind (sic). THANKS, Jim and Jay!

Earthworms favorite number from the Colin Sphinctor Band: River Des Peres Song. gives you an earful of Jim Findlay. Jean Ponzi lives in the R des P watershed; this is my neighborhood river.

Music: Agnes Polka, performed live at KDHX by Chia Band

THANKS to Jon Valley, engineering this Earthworms edition Related Earthworms Conversations:

Joe Mohr - Enviro Poet and Cartoonist (Nov 2015)

Community Radio: Purpose, Values, Insider Insights (Aug 2015)

The New Territory: Traversing the Literary Midwest with Tina Casagrande (May 2017)

Cheers to 30 Years of KDHX with Jeff Ritter, First Voice On-Air (July 2017)

In the woods of west St. Louis County, a haven for birds of prey has been healing injured raptors and forging bird-to-human bonds of caring since 1986. World Bird Sanctuary is one of North America's largest facilities for the conservation of birds.

World Bird takes their talons on the road, generously! For this visit to KDHX, Liberty the Southern Bald Eagle and Jett the Kestral brought along Roger Holloway, WBS Deputy Director, and Field Studies Coordinator Tess Rogers. Liberty didn't have much (that you can hear) to say, yet he contributed splendidly to this Earthworms conversation, focused around our region's annual Eagle Days education events.

Events in Clarksville, MO, and on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge bring out visitors by the hundreds, despite January cold, but you can enjoy viewing eagles almost anytime during winter months along the Mississippi River. Open water this far south draws Bald Eagles downstream for abundant fishing, giving chill-friendly humans spectacular nature observation time.

Be sure to visit World Bird Sanctuary SOON, and again if it's been awhile. You can catch "Wings Over Water" and other bird shows they provide at events around St. Louis, and beyond.

Music: Clean Water and Raven Song, performed live at KDHX by The Raptor Project, house band from World Bird Sanctuary.

THANKS to Jon Valley, engineering this Earthworms edition

Related Earthworms Conversations:

St. Louis Legendary Bird Man: Remembering Walter Crawford (Jan 2015) Wild Bird Rehab: Supporting Songbirds with Joe Hoffman (Sept 2017)

Bluebirds! (June 2019)

Camera Traps: Tools for Conservation (Aug 2016)

It's just before sunset in Forest Park, a nature haven in the City of of St. Louis. A man in a parka, toting backpack full of recording equipment, strides into a wooded copse he knows well. He listens, waiting, but not for too long. An owl calls.

Mark H.X. Glenshaw has made this kind of trek most days since December 2005. His habits of observation are a personal passion, and a source of inspiration to many who join his Owl Prowls.

The Owl Man of Forest Park shares recent stories of Charles, a male Great Horned Owl he has been observing now for 14 years, and of Charles mates Sarah, Samantha, Olivia and now Danielle. He gives park owls these names, but that's his romantic nod to the Great Horned Owls he loves. His citizen science is meticulous, passionate, persistent and generously shared. You can join him!

Music: Abdiel, performed live at KDHX by Dave Black

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Natives Raising Natives: People and Butterflies (May 2017)

Purple Martins, America's Most Wanted Bird (May 2016) Bears! with Laura Conlee, MO Dept of Conservation Biologist (2018)

Missouri Coalition for the Environment has celebrated 50 years of environmental advocacy, legal work, education and policy-making in 2019. It's been a gala year of recognition well earned, with plenty more to do.

This conversation with Heather Navarro, MCE Executive Director, caps the year with Heather's perspectives on the work, processes as well as outcomes. Heather's service extended to public life when she was elected Alderwoman of the City of St. Louis 28th Ward in 2017.

Some of what she's proudest of at MCE? The organization's robust capacity-building Internship program and concerted work to integrate racial equity awareness and practices into MCE's everyday action.

A series of recent KDHX Earthworms conversations salute the work of MCE, with both personal and professional BIG THANKS for opportunities to serve our shared goals. Onward, into a new decade of Green action!

Music: Washboard Suzie, performed live at KDHX by Zyedeco Crawdaddies

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer from Sierra Club

Related MCE Earthworms Conversations:

Citizens Pocket Guide to Enviro-Action with Caitlin Zera

Tosha Phonix: Organizing Food Justice, Growing Community

Known & Grown STL: New Brand Grows Capacity for Local Food

Superfund Site, Water Action Updates

Water Issues: Meddling, Muddling, Advocacy

Kay Drey: A Lifetime Engaged on Nuclear Issues

Known world-wide for his science-informed nature writing, Richard Louv has defined Vitamin N (what all humans need to imbibe more of) and Nature Deficit Disorder, what kids today have and can (this matters!) recover from.

Richard Louv's new book is Our Wild Calling, How Connecting with Animals can Transform Our Lives - and Save Theirs. In this anthology of stories, science and solutions, he invites us to dwell in and create Habitats of the Heart, and live a Reciprocity Principle. His work forms a vision alternative to dystopian despair, using poetry and practicality.

Since his landmark publication in 2007 of "Last Child In The Woods," Richard Louv has become an international spokesperson for the value of humans connecting (and re-connecting) to Nature. Earthworms is honored to share this conversation with you!

Music: Taproom, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet from Sierra Club, Earthworms engineer Related Earthworms Conversations: Ralph Nader on his Fable "Animal Envy" (Nov 2016) Joe Mohr, Poet and Enviro-Cartoonist (Nov 2015)

Resources: Check out and subscribe to eNewsletters of BiodiverseCity St. Louis and the Missouri Environmental Education Association. Even if you don't live near KDHX, you'll find good stuff you can use in these well-crafted missives.

Here in St. Louis, few of us deal with is, most of us rarely see it, and hardly any of us have ever been ON it. But the Mississippi River is a force here. And on Earth, as our planet's fourth largest watershed. Missouri Historical Society tell's this river's story in a new exhibit, Mighty Mississippi - that lives up to its name!

Hear the story behind this 5-year exhibit project from David Lobbig, Curator of Environmental Life at MHS. David has lived it, from the tough choice among artifacts to the messages this landmark work aims to convey, Mighty Mississippi conveys a torrent of human and natural history. Then go see the exhibit!

Photos from MHS: (top) Exhibit logo; Harper's Weekly illustration of St. Louis Mississippi River 1800s waterfront; Mississippi River facts; (bottom) David Lobbig and Amanda Bailey, MHS Exhibits Register, install a 1,000 year old salt pan; river trash sculpture by Libby Reuter; frozen Mississippi in 1905.

Mighty Mississippi is open to the public through April 18, 2021, in Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. Admission is free.

Music: Cadillac Desert, performed live at KDHX by William Taylor

THANKS to Sasha Hay and Jon Valley, Earthworms engineers

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Barge-Based Trash Basher Chad Pregracke (May 2017)

River Des Peres Watershed with Theo Smith (August 2018)

Invest in Infrastructure, Nature's and Ours - Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (April 2017)

See Water: Watershed Cairns, Artist Libby Reuter (April 2016)

What's the latest from Climate activist Brian Ettling? He's been at this work since 2012, specifically working toward U.S. legislation through the Citizens Climate Lobby, and speaking up about it!.

Brian catches up on his work as Chair, Climate Reality Project in Portland, Oregon - climate out there bit different than in STL - with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi. A LOT of interactions, as we plug away at IMPACTS.

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms volunteer engineer, enviro-action professional with Sierra Club Related Earthworms Conversations: Climate Communications at Saint Louis Zoo (Sept 2019)

Grow Solar St. Louis and Metro East (August 2019)

Ecology is still relatively "new" to circles of scientific respect, but Indigenous peoples world-wide have grown scientific, creative and functional expertise from ecological understanding, as long as humans have been around. What can we learn from this today?

Ecologist Alejandro Frid works and learns in circles of science, Indigenous cultures and environmental activism in British Columbia. Perspectives and experience shared in his new book Changing Tides, An Ecologist's Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene (New Society, 2019) make this Earthworms conversation one worth hearing, sharing and seeding into our world views.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms' audio engineer

Music: Artifact by Kevin MacLeod

Related Earthworms Conversations: Native Science with Dr. Daniel Wildcat (October 2018)

Photographer Neeta Satam: Documenting Himalayan Climate Change (March 2018)

Environmental problems make a lot of news, but solutions are in the works in many places too. Where thinking around a whole system is taking place, ideas-in-action deserve a listen!

Beth Porter, Climate Campaigns Director for the DC based non-profit Green America, digs into making solutions work, toward a green economy. The Earthworms conversation focuses on Porter's recent extensive research into recycling - her book Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine sorts out the recycling system - and on Green America's Cool It! campaign to transform refrigerants from climate-whacking HFCs to options that will keep cool both our stuff and our planet.

Green America works to harness economic power - the strength of consumers, investors, businesses and the marketplace - to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Music: Butter II, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case

Related Earthworms Conversations: Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (March 2018)

Bin There, Do This! STL Recycling Update (June 2018)

From her focus on Food, Tosha Phonix embodies the transforming nature of her namesake for the communities she serves. As Food Justice Organizer for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Tosha is growing connections between environmental and social justice efforts in powerful, insightful ways. Word from her: she is so dope.

Tosha Phonix talks Jean Ponzi as part of a series of Earthworms conversations honoring MCE's 50 years of service to Missouri humans and our environment. She's rooting her ideas and connections to communities of color into the work of the MCE team, at a time when Earth needs all of our diverse human contributions more than ever.

"You need to believe in community to allow a community to solve its own problems," she says. "And if you protect people, people will protect the Earth." Listen up to learn and be inspired by much more, including Tosha's accelerating experience with Women's Earth Alliance.

Music: Dirty Slide, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet of Sierra Club, Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations -

Known & Grown STL - New Brand Boosts Capacity for Local Food (June 2019)

Urban Agriculture Guide: A Tool for City Farmers (June 2016)

Leah Clyburn: Organizing to End Environmental Racism in St. Louis (Oct 2019)