#1 Native Bee Enjoyer🐝🐝🐝

My journey in forest mapping has brought up a lot of these questions. It's not just learning the names of plants, it's also learning about their growth environments and what makes them different. Some plants are indicators of a specific forest type. It's learning about the relationships between different species; some of them like to grow together. I have to look at the history of the forest and the structural features of it... etc.

My practice is very localized and I am extremely fortunate that the tales that I grew up with happened in places with similar nature to where I live and I count that as a blessing. This is the bais of this post [and of the entire screaming well honestly] and I don't claim that this is apply able to everyone but this is my method and I wanted to share it.

The plant l'll be talking about as a case study is hedge bedstraw or glad walstro in dutch.

When nature journaling l do a few steps that are always the same:

When l find the the plant / animal / fungus i log it on my phone l use a local version of inaturalist to do this most of the time but sometimes I'll write down the name if I didn't manage to take a picture.

I will draw it in a way that helps me remember it. What stands out to me what observations can I make about it myself. In order to do this i've gotten into more botanical terms for fun but you can do without honestly. The point of the drawing is to actively look at the plant and to be able to rechonize it next time I see it.

I look up the plant in botonist sites, the site I use is strictly for identification purposes and has detailed descriptions which I often find contain something I missed that I can tgen never unsee. I will then go back in and add it. Either by notes or by edditing the drawing this is where I also write down the edibility of a plant.

I will then look up the plant in an etemology data base and a story database. These databases are local to me and I will write down what I find about associations or stories they're mentioned in. I also do some general searches and read the Wikipedia for the plant. I also include family associations here.

Now for an example with the hedge bedstraw:

To me the most striking point is that the little white flowers have four points and four little stems at each corner it also has a stem in tge middle essentially the flower has 9 parts. Now tgat number is important to me so I note it down in my drawing. Then I look at the structure and where the leaves are placed. Each split in the stem has like a ring of leaves and there are no leaves in other places. These observations will help me rechonize it next time.

Now I start writing down wether it's edible or not. In this case it is and the roots are actually potentially a dye source. I don't forage for food a lot but these notes are always fun to make to me. I note that it's family of anotger plant. And then I note where it's name came from and that it was used as bedstraw the dutch name specifies this to cratle straw. I note the connection to child birth and sone sources on it being associated with protection of childeren.

Now this is where we get to the upg part. I associate child birth and protection of childeren with vrouw Holle. Therefore I note that this plant might make a good gift to her. The plant also has some snow associations and so I write that down too. Strengthening the connection a little bit.

Now with this plant my upg is mostly working on connections that had already been documented but in other cases the upg can be based on where a plant often grows, what it looks like, if it attracts certain animals and what those animals are connected too, did i find it together with a bunch of other plants? These are among the questions I ask myself that help me develop upg about the plants that live around me.

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

oh wow the glass-tower office buildings we constructed when we thought air conditioning and central heating would never have downsides...have downsides?

and we're still building them?

while the Victorian house museum where I work, with thick walls and small windows and big wooden shutters stays ~10 degrees above (winter) or below (summer) the outside temperature for days on end with no help at all?

uh. okay then

“A gift to the Elder” – Maria Khymynets (2022)

And if you went on strike? And if you formed a union? And if you wanted to resist, like the indigenous peoples did? Some boys with a blood-red cap, the Cardenales, criminals taken from prison, would come and kill you, in broad daylight if you were striking, in the middle of the forest if you were alone. Many books tell about hacheros yelling one last long sapucai before killing themselves, because they couldn't stand it anymore.

Who were the owners of this terrible company? English. In the La Forestal HQ in the north of Santa Fe, a beautiful mansion (I understand that it is now a ruin) while the workers lived in mud huts with roofs of palm leaves, every day, the Union Jack was hoisted over Argentine soil, and of course, at five o'clock it was tea time, while all the tannin, loaded on barges and on railways worked by Argentines but owned by the British, went to Europe, and the wealth, of course, to London.

My grandfather lived through the last of this. Perón already came by that time, with worker's rights, unions, rural schools and clinics, the nationalization of railways... Nevertheless, he still had to hunt to eat and work from a young age at the machines of the company, as the company was leaving the country and couldn't even bother to pay a pittance to its workers. It eventually closed most of its operations and came into Argentine hands. But don't think it was because the English had a change of heart. They just found a better source of tannin, the acacias in their African colonies. God knows what crimes they committed there, if this is what they did in the territory of a 'sovereign' country.