Most of my readers have figured out that I’m an avid gardener, but I’ve never shared my true motivation before. Sure, it’s because I like growing things, spending time outdoors, and getting my hands dirty, but none of those are the motivators–they’re the benefits.

What got me into gardening so many decades ago (and keeps me at it) was the realization that “doing business as usual” would eventually kill our planet. I don’t remember the book I read when I was a teenager that turned my thinking around, but I do remember that it caused an instant and permanent shift in my actions: I would do my best not to waste resources and to try to replenish what I took from the earth.  One of the ways that manifested for me was to get into organic gardening.

And the interesting thing about organic gardening, when you do it long enough, is that it begins to lead you down Alice’s rabbit hole.  You start thinking about how everything is inter-connected and inter-dependent. And you begin to see how easy it is to muck that all up.  And you want to start learning how not to do that. And then it jumps from the garden to everywhere else in your life. And then it just becomes how you want to live on the planet.

So as a gardener, I’d like to bring a little known but growing problem to your attention. (No pun intended.) While everyone has heard about  peak oil, peak phosphorus is probably our biggest global emergency. But you won’t hear many people talking about it.

(Thanks to Think or Thwim for gathering the following info together in one place.)

Here’s the problem.

Phosphorus is one of the most the important elements of life. It is a major component of RNA, DNA, and ATP (the molecule produced by photosynthesis that carries energy to the other plant cells – which in turn provide us with energy).

Of the nutrients used as building blocks for life, the following elements all have gaseous phases at the temperatures and pressures found on the surface of the Earth and are therefore easily redistributed through the air:

• Hydrogen
• Oxygen
• Carbon
• Nitrogen
• Sulfur

However, the following elements are solids or liquids and don’t move around so easily:

• Phosphorus*
• Sodium
• Potasium
• Calcium
• …64 more

In a natural ecosystem or on a traditional small farm, plants take these molecules out of the soil and air to build themselves. Animals eat the plants and use the same molecules to construct their bodies. When the plants and animals die, microbes return the molecules to the soil. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On the other hand, with our current industrial agriculture system the plants do their part and take in the molecules they’re supposed to, but then we ship them to a feedlot or city where they are consumed and decay far away from where they originated. The molecules of the elements easily transported by air are replaced relatively easily, but the molecules of solid and liquid elements won’t make it back to the field they came from for a long, long time.

Phosphorus is more sensitive to this imbalance than the others because it is 10 times more concentrated in the body than it is in the Earth’s crust. None of the others are more concentrated in living beings like that.

The phosphorus was originally put in the soil by weathering phosphate rocks. That’s still going on, but that process took millions of years to build up the reserves we used during the last century. To replace the missing phosphorus, we mine phosphate rock, grind it up, and sprinkle it on the soil for the plants to use as RNA, cell walls, etc. This seemed like a great idea when we figured it out 170 years ago. It continued to seem like a good idea all the way up until about 40 years ago when we started noticing two big problems with this system:

Big Problem #1

Phosphorus that doesn’t get used is washed away by rain into rivers and eventually into the ocean. Phytoplankton (algae) in the ocean are very happy with their newfound abundance. They grow fat and reproduce prolifically. The problem comes when they die. As the algae is decaying, the bacteria breaking it down use too much of the oxygen dissolved in the water, killing everything else in that area. Algae bloom near La Jolla

Big Problem #2

We’ve already used half of the phosphate rock available. According to a study by Patrick Dery peak phosphorus occurred in the US in 1988 and the rest of the world in 1989. Others think we’re still 30 years away from the peak, but it doesn’t matter who’s right. Either way, unless we change what we’re doing now, we will have depleted our supply of the central building block of life within a few hundred years of discovering it, and we do not know how to make more.

Chart from phosphorusfutures.net

Current uses of mined phosphate rock:

90% fertilizer.

5% animal feed supplements.

5% soft drinks, toothpaste, etc.

The Solution

Fortunately, the solution is easy. We did it for our first 100,000 years, and we’re the only creatures not currently doing it. The answer is eat, poo, and die in one place.

That doesn’t mean we all have to be farmers, but it does mean we need to become locavores. But certainly, if you can, plant food in your yard. Buy the food you don’t grow from local farmers. Look for pasture raised meat. Compost every organic material you can find. Recycle your own waste. When it’s time to die, have yourself planted in the ground without preservatives so that a tree can build itself out of the molecules you’ve been using. It’s time we give back–while we still have time.

Since my sense of humor and patience have already gone on to bed without me hours ago, no dawdling is allowed.

Kiera and Graidy know the drill.

Wink, still very much a puppy at 18 months, sees this as another opportunity to prolong the day.

He stops. I groan. He’s always stopping.

Wink has this idea that he should get all his exercise inside, running around the house like a madman. So he can spend all of his time outside, standing perfectly still, sniffing everything for hours on end.  I am not supportive of the sniffing tonight.  I enforce a strict ‘Walk and Poop’ policy because I’d like to get to bed within the same 24 hours in which I awoke.

So we’re outside, and he’s stopped–again–and I’m about to start whining.  But he doesn’t lower his head to the ground to sniff.  He looks around.

By this time, Graidy and Kiera, having bored of Wink’s shenanigans, retreat through the dog door. I presume they’ve gone upstairs to seek out the warmth and comfort of their dog beds.

I look around. I notice that it’s started snowing. I’m surprised. There wasn’t any snow expected in the forecast.

Everything is so quiet.  The snow is quickly blanketing the ground and dampening the ambient sounds, so that all Wink and I can hear is water running in the stream in back.

Wink looks up to the sky and continues to look up for what seems like a very long time.  I look up, too.

The snowflakes are huge, and fall gently toward us.  They look silver under the porch light, and they seem to go on, straight up, for miles and miles.

Beyond the snow I can see stars.

I look back down at Wink.  He’s still looking up, and I watch him take it all in.

Finally he turns to look me straight in the eye as if to ask,  Snow and stars together — isn’t it amazing?  What is this universe we live in?  How did we get here, and why are we here anyway?

Out loud I say, “Nobody knows, Wink.  People have been trying to answer those questions for thousands of years — but at the end of the day, nobody knows.”

He smiles in the way that dogs do.  Isn’t it wonderful?

“Yes, it is.”

I sit down on the deck next to him and pull him to my side. We both look back up.

Cait takes a moment to tighten up her laces.

Even though the ice is 5 inches thick (thick enough to safely drive a car on) and we have a long-line rope on the fence post, I still wind up checking on them from time to time.  My old EMT safety habits die hard.

What I quickly saw was that they had company. Can you see their eyes glowing up on the ridge?

I wondered how long it would take the girls to notice.  Cait usually has a sixth sense when there are critters around.

Ah, there– they’ve both caught sight of them.

What they can’t see (because of the floodlights) that I can see is that these are our five deer.

Pow-wow to decide what to do.

When in doubt…  move on out!

Both girls and deer have scared each other off.

Hmm, that ice looks inviting…  I think I’ll go for a spin.

A friend described it as sort of like a big outdoor rug,  the decorating element that anchors the room — in this case, our outdoor room.

And I’d have to agree, though I’d put it a little differently. It’s the gravitational pull of our property that draws all living things to it. For its calming, meditative effect. For it’s nourishment. And for the opportunity it provides for good old-fashioned fun. You can’t come here and spend any time outside without your eyes and body turning toward it. It’s kind of magical that way.

But back to the old-fashioned fun part. We love to skate. And sometimes Mother Nature supports that objective, but just as often she doesn’t.

You see, the first freeze is critical. Many factors have to align. It has to be below freezing for several days. It has to not snow until the ice is at least 3 inches thick. The first snow has to be dry, because if it’s wet it softens the ice as it falls, which creates a crust on the ice, which is bad.  Temperatures have to stay below freezing after it snows or we won’t be able to keep the pond shoveled. If it all doesn’t happen just right, it can doom our chances to skate on our pond for an entire winter!

So we all held our breath when we got our first snow before the ice had formed. Not typically a good beginning, because ice that forms from snow is bumpy, crusty, inconsistently thick, and therefore not really safe.

As the snow continued to fall throughout the day at not quite freezing temps, and the pond started forming a slushy crust, we all found ourselves checking the ongoing ice status– even the dogs.

Then, lo and behold, the temperature precipitously dropped. The winds blew. And the ice formed. And…

it was perfect.

For us, this is more exciting than Christmas morning!

Once the sun came up, this is what we saw this morning.

There are actually five, all total, though it’s hard to see the fifth one. Two families of three and two.

Pretty scene, isn’t it?

And I’m glad my bumper crop of grapes is not going to waste.

Yep, I watched as they plowed through my back fence, sauntered through the back yard, and right over to my little grape vines to help themselves to the extras.

Pretty as they are, and as bucolic a scene as they paint, they bring deer ticks with them. Deer ticks are the carriers of Lyme Disease. We don’t need any more Lyme Disease around here. And what you can’t see from these photos is that they’re only about a meter away from the dog fence.

Because Graidy is ridiculously near-sighted, and the deer were down wind, he hadn’t caught on to their presence. Time to point out that we had company.

Since these deer know they have a safe haven on our 10-acre sanctuary, they needed a little encouragement to high-tail it. As you can see — we’re still at low tails here.

After a little more encouragement, the mama turns to look to see if we mean it.

We mean it. And off they finally go.

Now I’ve got to go find where they broke through the fence and repair it. Until the next time…

Life in the country.

The tradition is to make our way around each department — shoes, pants, tops, etc.– until, at the very end, we come to the fancy dress section.  This is where the fun begins.

You see, Cait has always loved playing dress-up and still does.  So the first time we came upon the glittering racks of evening wear, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. When it didn’t occur to her that there was anything wrong with “just trying on the dresses,” I squashed my initial impulse to say no and instead said, “Sure, why not?” She had a blast, and I must admit so did I. Ever since, we’ve always saved time for the gowns and party dresses.

The rules are that she’s allowed to try on any dress that catches her fancy — no matter how gaudy or age-inappropriate. And since there will be no purchase, I keep all editorial comments to myself. Thus, great fun is had by all.

She’d gone through several dresses, when she pulled out a shimmery black and metallic green number. It was interesting trying to get her into it because there was no zipper, but lots of laces. So we pushed and we pulled and we tugged.  And she lost her footing and wound up tumbling backward on the dressing room floor.

With her hair tussled over her face, the dress up around her neck, and her legs and arms in the air, she held the pose and blurted, “Dead Dung Beetle!”

I’ll be darned if that’s not exactly what she looked like! We both cracked up laughing so hard that it took a few minutes to compose ourselves.

All the while, my daughter was still trying to wrestle herself out of this ridiculous dress. Once she finally emerged, she sighed, looked at me with a grin and said, “Stick THAT in your Happy Box!”

Indeed, that was eminently worthy of the Happy Box, and got immediately and safely tucked inside.

Other items that have made it into my Happy Box this week:

Because the animals have been rising earlier and earlier and some like to eat right away while others prefer to wait until the sun comes up, I’ve had to devise a way to keep track. Hence the White Board on the dog food closet. This way, on the off chance that one of us can manage to get a little more shut-eye, the other will know who’s going to legitimately be looking for breakfast and who’s going to try to trick us into a 2nd feeding.

So, the sign– Wink has been off his food this past week because he hasn’t been feeling well; he’s contracted Lyme Disease. (I’ll post my current regiment on Lyme treatment next week.) I hadn’t had any luck trying to get him to eat this morning. So seeing this sign left by Andrew was definitely cause for celebration.

Cait never got around to planting her Sunflowers this year, so I’d reconciled myself to going without the special cheer they bring. But I’d also mentioned previously about getting to live vicariously through my “gifts and guests” this growing season.  Looks like a few stray seeds made it to the ground last year and lo and behold…! Mother Nature — ain’t she a beautiful thing.

And speaking of Mother Nature… Our pond is an ongoing source of delight for us nature buffs around here. Every year, along with the regulars (our Great Blue Heron, King Fishers, wild turkeys, sundry other birds, muskrats, deer, coyotes, foxes, et.al.)  it continues to attract an ever-widening circle of wild life.  Its most recent tenants are this little duck family.

Oh yeah, and last but never least! The garlic harvest is done! : )

AND it looks like I’m going to have a bumper crop of grapes this year!

What have you placed in your Happy Box this week?

And let your cares float away on the wisps of whispering breezes.

Works for me every time.

Our Great Blue Heron is on the hunt for his lunch.

He seldom misses.

He’s snagged himself a nice fish.

Oh, there’s something else fishing there along the side of the pond!

Is it our Fisher (a weasel)?

Nope. I’d recognize that fluffy tail anywhere. Looks like Finn’s found some good hunting by the pond too.

Kiera and Wink are hunting for a safe place to get away from the thunder.

25 mg of Benedryl is enough to get Kiera (48 lbs) through the storm in one piece.

I’ve been on the hunt for the last of my Spring flowers.

They brighten up my day under the overcast skies. It makes working in my outside office all the more divine. Wish you could smell their fragrance wafting through the air.

But my ever helpful Graidy is happy to do the sniffing for you.

Are you on the hunt for anything special to help get you through your day?

PS Does anybody know how to take pictures so dogs’ eyes don’t have that glow-in-the-dark look?

PPS The Operant Conditioning post Part2 will be up next week.

What I wasn’t anticipating was what happened next. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, I saw a ribbon of colored light dance across from one end of the sky to the other. It was accompanied by a singular swishing sound.

Not only had I never seen the Aurora Borealis before, I’d never even heard about the phenomena. It made the hair on the back of my neck and arms stand straight up. The show went on for hours and  I was spell-bound. It was an oddly spiritual experience. And I’ve been lucky enough to see several displays since.

So when I opened the email from a friend in northern Canada, and saw this photo and her description of her experience, I had to smile. Getting to see the Aurora Borealis sure is a spectacular reminder on a very elemental level of the wonder of the universe.

If you’re ever offered the chance to go somewhere where you can see them, it’s well worth the effort.

And if you’ve never heard of them before and don’t know what they are, the aurora borealis, or northern lights, are beautiful, intricate, and rapidly changing colored lights that shoot across the night sky. They typically only occur in the extreme northern and southern latitudes when solar wind particles collide with air molecules in the upper earth’s atmosphere.

Displays can vary in intensity from a glowing curtain of greenish yellow lights, to a spectacular, multi-colored fusion stretching across the sky.

If you’re fortunate enough to find yourself in the right place with the right conditions — far enough north (or south) on a clear cloudless night, close to the new moon, and away from town lights –maybe you, too, will be gifted with the light show of a lifetime.