A Savanna Life in a Technological World

The View from Meadows, Brooks and Groves

Fire and Public Land Policy Creating Yet Another Ecological Tragedy

Fire and Public Land Policy Creating Yet Another Ecological Tragedy

These fires are not ‘natural.’   Let me be more precise. When these fires burn through areas with relatively high ecological health, areas that exhibit many of the characteristics of the ancient savannas that once covered the globe, then the fire will not be too […]

Why “I Don’t Hate Mob Grazing” is a Mostly True Statement. With Caveats.

Why “I Don’t Hate Mob Grazing” is a Mostly True Statement. With Caveats.

People are most confident when they don’t know what they are talking about. Well, maybe they are second most confident when they don’t know what they are talking about. They are most confident after many years of hard trials, new insights applied with persistence and […]

An Ecological Defense of Stress (and Money and Reproduction) PT 1

An Ecological Defense of Stress (and Money and Reproduction) PT 1

I traded a neighbor, an arborist, a quarter of beef for some tree work. Throwing branches on a fire is a good way to chat and we started talking about our respective businesses. He said he made a conscious decision a long time ago to […]

Ditches and Green New Deals, Part II

Ditches and Green New Deals, Part II

No one knows the best, most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations while still making the average person better off. How do I know? Because no one has ever done it. This includes us eco-grazers, by the way. But it especially includes the central […]

On Ditches and The Green New Deal

On Ditches and The Green New Deal

I want to talk about the Green New Deal. But I am going to talk about it through the lens of ditch cleaning in western Oregon agricultural land.   That’s what I want to talk about but I feel like I somehow I have to […]

Help. I’m too Closely Connected to My Land.

Help. I’m too Closely Connected to My Land.

In my ecological education, I have been the student, my mortgage the master. A hard, hard master. Many people in our society have a land relationship like a sexless marriage. No connection. Ships passing in the night. But what about those of us who have […]

Ranching vs Hunting-Gathering, Part I

Ranching vs Hunting-Gathering, Part I

We were born into this world with an expectation. Natural selection gave it to us. Our world is very different than the one we expected. This distance is a canyon that gets perceptibly wider and deeper all the time. It grows by sudden big events […]

I Have a Red Pill, an Antidote for that Other Red Pill You Took

I Have a Red Pill, an Antidote for that Other Red Pill You Took

On the twentieth anniversary of the movie The Matrix, I might have to remind you that the movie was about a main character given a ‘red pill’ that allowed him to see the truth, that humans were controlled by a bunch of robots which created […]

Vegetarianism and Veganism (Part 1 I’m sure)

Vegetarianism and Veganism (Part 1 I’m sure)

I would never tell someone what they should eat. I consider propaganda of that nature to be intrusive, condescending, and dangerous. Trying to modify someone’s diet is a pernicious form of colonialism, or an abrogation of ones liberty as a free individual. That being said […]

The Ecology of Suffering (and joy, I guess)

The Ecology of Suffering (and joy, I guess)

Buddhist teaching says that life is suffering. That overstates the point a little bit (for a good reason) but it is true. Buddhist teaching goes on to say that we suffer because we ‘desire.’ There I disagree. I think there is a much more fundamental […]


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Heavy Fuel Loads, The Fires in Ventura County, and the Brave New Normal

Heavy Fuel Loads, The Fires in Ventura County, and the Brave New Normal

With the fires in Ventura County, I think we can call it official; our heavy fuel loads have come home to roost. A week ago I could convince myself, while drinking a beer and listening to rain patter on the roof, that the fires that […]

Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks

Friends and Family, The three of us Chisholm-Harts are spending our Thanksgiving eve thinking about what we are grateful for. Obviously all of you are top of mind.  We are settling into our temporary digs in Petaluma, Abel is busy practicing his walking and Hanna […]

We Lost Our Stuff in the Fire. What Did We Gain?

We Lost Our Stuff in the Fire. What Did We Gain?

On Monday the 9th, in the first round of wildfires in Sonoma County, the tiny handmade house that my wife and I have lived in for the last six years burnt to the ground. We were married in the front yard. Our one year old […]