Our lives depend on the food we eat. But beyond that, what we choose to eat has political and an environmental impacts.

We all need water. There is no possible life on earth without water, the energy from the sun, a fertile substrate for plant life, and our oxygen-rich atmosphere. I put water at the top of my short list of essential needs, a resource many of us can provide for ourselves. Having a safe water source—for drinking first and foremost, then cooking, irrigating and bathing—is a beginning of taking control of our lives.

In the past month we have had two days with partial sun... for a few hours. The rain began in November... unseasonable rain. Rain that jumped the banks of our streams and the river which bisects our valley. Rain overflows the drainage ditches and pours over the road, cutting deep trenches. Rain sits on the newly planted fields of grain in the plains. It is only because we are in the mountains that we are not flooded. This is climate change... happening now.

Trees are the ideal permanent solution “for extending agriculture to the hills, to steep places, to rocky places, and to the lands where rainfall is deficient.” They create a resilience and sustainability which could never be achieved without them. 

Wherever we are we can start over. The winter solstice is about completion. The following dawn brings new beginnings.

I don't have exclusive rights to viewing absolute beauty because I live in the country. The moon is shining, the trees are announcing the change of seasons everywhere. No matter how little we have or how crazy our lives, we all are enveloped in an impressionist painting if we just look up

If the forests play an essential role in the water cycle, this gives urgent importance to saving our old growth forests and restoring those which have been demolished or degraded.