What is the value of an intact ecosystem? Why should somebody who is struggling to make ends meet in their land management change what they're doing? When will they reap the rewards and in what ways? Or what do they risk losing if they don't begin to pivot to more ecologically sound practices? This is the second post from my Appalachian Biodiversity series. Read or listen to the first post for greater context Episode 36 Appalachian Biodiversity.

READ POST https://www.katymorikawa.com/benefits-of-healthy-ecosystems/

LINKS:

The Nature of Nature by Enric Sala

Many sources: EPA, U.S. Forest Service, Sala, Martin and Watson, Malhi, et. al, etc. including as noted throughout the post https://www.katymorikawa.com/benefits-of-healthy-ecosystems/

This episode is based on a presentation I made to Sustain Floyd on Appalachian Biodiversity. It was my pitch for them to take on conservation and ecology issues here in Floyd, Virginia. I'm still recovering from the research required to make it. As I work to break it into manageable sized posts, I realize why I have not had the time or energy to post anything since August: The presentation contains at least five posts worth of content! So, this is only one portion of the full presentation. It covers Appalachian biodiversity as a whole and offers a broad overview of the ecological stakes. More episodes in the series coming soon.

READ POST >> https://www.katymorikawa.com/appalachian-biodiversity/

LINKS: 

See the full slideshow presentation embedded in the blog post or online https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQCKHhqDKLbRyLXFGYjxkbtiKLesCp49uXQgRtyE6vRIxEjl0Huzd3fvlI6cPPCfDnr5pbHIhz1Xe_-/pub?start=true&loop=false&delayms=5000.

TNC’s Priority Landscapes: Conserving the Appalachians: Hope in a changing climate https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/priority-landscapes/appalachians/

TNC's Resilient Lands Mapping Tool https://maps.tnc.org/resilientland/ (Use password shown in the password box eg. Indigenous Land Password)

Doug Tallamy's Homegrown National Park https://homegrownnationalpark.org/

Benefits of Healthy Ecosystems https://www.katymorikawa.com/benefits-of-healthy-ecosystems/

Another pest/ally surprised me this month and has drawn me further into the life webs: bats! Cut to the chase: I'm building a bat house this winter. Or buying one and putting it up. Fingers crossed. We need to get a small population of bats out of our eaves. Michael is planning to seal up the crack they're getting into after they vacate for the winter. I'm going to find and apply deterrent fragrant oils. And I'm going to set up a better bat house--because bat populations are declining, and we have them, and they are keeping down the mosquitos that should have been eating me alive with all the rain we had the past month in our moist woods! This one has heavier consequences than the carpenter bees. I need to get this right, because...having a bat infestation is no joke! But they were also magical, during our encounter and I want to try. Along the way, I discovered a new bit of magic about some of the trees in our forests: sweet birches.

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/out-hunting-in-the-evening-light---with-bats/ LINKS: Sweet birch, Betula lenta on wildflower.org https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=BELE  Betula lenta at Native Plant Finder https://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder/Plants/398 Merlin Tuttle's "Selecting a Quality Bat House" https://www.merlintuttle.org/selecting-a-quality-bat-house/  8 Scents that Bats Hate https://pestpointers.com/scents-that-bats-hate-and-how-to-use-them How to Build a Bat House (YouTube video) https://youtu.be/WPlkXifGJ9M Shop bat houses at BatBnB https://www.batbnb.com/shop Bat hanging guide https://www.batbnb.com/hanging-guide Bat house FAQ https://www.batbnb.com/faq Big brown bat. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:33, August 30, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_brown_bat&oldid=1101798043

Extinctions and endangered species are on my mind this week. Who have we lost? And what are we poised to lose? The monarch butterfly flutters top of mind, but so too the Franklin tree, the wood bison, and a small spotted cat I believe once used to hunt the forested mountains of Appalachia: the ocelot.

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/remember-the-ocelot/

Earth.org. (2022, January 4). 7 Most Critically Endangered Species in North America. Retrieved August 18, 2022 https://earth.org/endangered-species-in-north-america/.

Ocelot. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:44, August 19, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ocelot&oldid=1101969778

Wood Bison Restoration at Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center https://www.alaskawildlife.org/wood-bison-restoration/

Bison Bellows 52-week series by The National Park Service Biological Resources Division in Fort Collins, Colorado https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bison/bison-bellows.htm

National Park Service. (2017, November 6). Bison Bellows: Back Home on the Range. Retrieved August 19, 2022 from The National Park Service website https://www.nps.gov/articles/bison-bellows-1-7-16.htm

Franklin Tree, Franklinia alatamaha https://arboretum.harvard.edu/plant-bios/franklin-tree/

Last year, the Siberian American shaman, Jade Grigori, gave me a key shamanic teaching: that when you seek to heal yourself, you must heal the Earth, because we are the Earth. This short essay revisits some of that original conversation from May 2021, and shares some insights from my own issues with physical pain and its surprising responsiveness to my campaigns to cut down the Asian bittersweet vines strangling our woods.

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/when-you-heal-the-earth-you-heal-yourself

Jade Grigori, Curator of the Sacred https://jadegrigori.com/

Supporting native pollinators can be so much more than planting monarda and milkweed! It can be more than trying to create a wildflower meadow. It can be targeted at your own favorite species or cast a very wide net. This is a collection of high quality trees, shrubs, and flowers for supporting native pollinators in Virginia and Appalachia, for creating a unique garden, or just beautifying the roadside along your property (because most of them won't need any watering or care).

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/native-pollinator-trees-shrubs-and-flowers-for-virginia-and-appalachia/

LINKS (all links can be found in blog post):

Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center (North America)

NRCS Pollinator Conservation Resources https://plants.usda.gov/assets/docs/NRCS_Pollinator_PLANTS_Nov2021.pdf

36 Deer Foods Every Hunter Should Know https://www.fieldandstream.com/story/hunting/deer-foods-every-hunter-should-know/

Asters and goldenrod resources https://edgeofthewoodsnursery.com/asters-and-goldenrods and more info https://www.pressrepublican.com/opinion/cornell-ag-connection-asters-and-goldenrod-late-season-native-perennials/article_5b81d072-2603-5a51-814d-c8baaf608f4d.html and on goldenrod https://amcdv.org/goldenrod.html

Robin Wall Kimmerer https://commons.bluemountaincenter.org/goldenrod-and-asters-my-life-with-plants/

Inamine, H., Ellner, S., Springer, J., Agrawal, A. (2016). Linking the continental migratory cycle of the monarch butterfly to understand its population decline. Oikos. Retrieved July 31, 2022 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/oik.03196

Appalachian flowers with pictures: https://amcdv.org/octember.html

Permaculture Orchard https://www.permacultureorchard.com/

YouTube Channel for Stefan Sobkowiak (Permaculture Orchard) https://www.youtube.com/c/StefanSobkowiak

Passionflower how-to article: https://www.tyrantfarms.com/find-id-harvest-grow-eat-passion-fruit-maypop-passiflora-incarnata/

The journey to create more wild beauty on our property and help conserve Appalachia is full of twists and turns: learning the Latin names, absorbing the The Nature Conservancy's evaluation of Appalachia, “alongside the Amazon Rainforest and the Kenyan grasslands as one of the most globally important landscapes for tackling climate change and conserving biodiversity,” remembering the abundant landscape enjoyed by First Nations peoples, working with the NRCS to try to understand the ecology on our property, the Natural Communities Classification of Ecological Groups and Community Types, The Nature Conservancy's resilient landscapes mapping tool, removing invasives (including Asian bittersweet, stiltgrass, and fescue grass), the monarch butterfly's addition to the Endangered Species List, planting to support the monarch and other native pollinators, and the dedication to keep looking out at the long view while I dig in the soil at my feet.

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/straining-to-see-the-appalachian-forest-for-the-trees/ 

See my Pollinator Plants for Virginia and Appalachia https://www.katymorikawa.com/native-pollinator-trees-shrubs-and-flowers-for-virginia-and-appalachia

LINKS (See post for for all links):

The Nature Conservancy: “Priority Landscapes: Conserving the Appalachians.” https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/priority-landscapes/appalachians/. 

Virginia Native Plant Society’s list of Native Plant Nurseries: https://vnps.org/native-plant-nursery-list/. 

The Natural Communities of Virginia Classification of Ecological Groups and Community Types https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/natural-communities/. 

TNC's “Natural Highways and Neighborhoods: Conserving a Network of Climate-Resilient Lands.” https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-priorities/protect-water-and-land/land-and-water-stories/climate-resilient-network/.

TNC's Resilient Lands Mapping Tool: https://maps.tnc.org/resilientland/.

Virginia Department of Forestry Certified Prescribed Burn Manager Program: https://dof.virginia.gov/wildland-prescribed-fire/prescribed-burning/certified-burn-managers-program/

Quality native seeds: ErnstSeed.com, Roundstoneseed.com, PrairieMoon.com.

Xerces Society. (2018). Monarch Butterfly Nectar Plant Lists for Conservation Plantings https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/publications/18-003_02_Monarch-Nectar-Plant-Lists-FS_web%20-%20Jessa%20Kay%20Cruz.pdf.

If you care about flowers for the pollinators, supporting ecological biodiversity, clean water and air, healthy soil, low-maintenance landscaping, or climate change, native plants are you allies! This is a bit of background, a look at invasives, and some how-to's.

READ BLOG POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/why-native-plants-matter

LINKS: 

Wild Plant Culture podcast (Episode 1): Leslie Sauer on Ecological Restoration https://open.spotify.com/episode/4VBZVbFYZZF04zKR0M7bCt

Plant NOVA Natives https://www.plantnovanatives.org/

Plant Virginia Natives https://www.plantvirginianatives.org/

The American Chestnut Foundation https://acf.org/

"In defense of stiltgrass" by Nomad Seed Project https://www.nomadseed.com/2019/03/in-defense-of-stiltgrass/

Wood Thrush Natives https://woodthrushnatives.com/

TOOTHPASTE LOWDOWN: https://gimmethegoodstuff.org/safe-product-guides/toothpaste/

Burt's Bees has a fluoride, sodium lauryl sulfate, and TSP-free toothpaste https://www.burtsbees.com/product/charcoal-%2B-whitening-zen-peppermint-toothpaste-fluoride-free/192539000481.html as well as a recycling program where they will go so far as to send you a free shipping label to ship the tube back to them!! https://www.burtsbees.com/content/oral-care-recycling/oralcare-recycling.html

As I dove head first into love with the wild world, I’ve become aware of a longing. Where this longing comes from I am not sure, although surely it has a sturdy shelter in my own heart. It is fed by the magical interactions you encounter when you slow down and listen deeply to the wild world with an open mind. I find myself longing to create a more diverse native ecosystem on this piece of property where we built our house, to coax more wild beauty from this place--and to do it without landscaping, without agri-forestry, without a fence (at least, without a permanent fence).

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/to-coax-more-wild-beauty-from-this-place/

Stefan Sobkowiak on Building Your Permaculture Property, Episode 19 (the megafauna and giant beaver segment starts at 55:10) https://open.spotify.com/episode/6iBVR29NqNH6kwefE7Lp1A

Stefan Sobkowiak's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/c/StefanSobkowiak

Backstory Episode #0133: Untrammelled: Americans and the Wilderness (the Forest "Primeval" segment is first) https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/untrammeled3/#segment-the-forest-primeval

USDA’s NRCS https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/

The Natural Communities of Virginia Classification of Ecological Groups and Community Types https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/natural-communities/

The Ohio PawPaw Festival https://www.ohiopawpawfest.com/

Primal Life Tooth Powder https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NWVWHY6

Now Xyli-White Toothpaste https://www.amazon.com/NOW-Solutions-XyliWhite-Refreshmint-Toothpaste/dp/B000MGWIE8

I took a tour of Spikenard Honeybee Sanctuary this weekend, and so that is part of the magical mystery tour. But deeper still, there is a living landscape opening up beneath my feet as I step, as I am called, (even enchanted!) back outside into the living world, remembering things like native ecologies, principles of permaculture and biodynamic farming, imaginal dances with nature, and even the longer geologic spans of life's evolution on this planet. I believe we are headed back to the Garden, a new Eden, bringing our tools and technology along the way. But more on that in the time to come as I experiment with the ideas unfolding around me -- I can't wait to discover what there is to discover! 

READ POST/TRANSCRIPT: https://www.katymorikawa.com/the-magical-mystery-tour/ 

TOURING SPIKENARD FARM HONEYBEE SANCTUARY

If you missed the tour, don’t feel envious! They open their doors to the public for free tours throughout the growing season, usually on the last Friday of the month. This is the upcoming schedule:

LINKS: Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary https://spikenardfarm.org/  

Stefan Sobkowiak's video on How Wasps Saved My Orchard https://youtu.be/g6G9UFgHkCs 

Sustain Floyd https://sustainfloyd.org/ 

OTHER BREADCRUMBS: