Summer of Dragonflies

We have lived in the same place for over ten years, owned two properties across the street from one another and have managed our bit of the planet using organic methods and attention to details, like what plants need what conditions, when planning garden spaces and beds. When we first bought the property across the street, I had hoped to set up the Tipi, after getting a new cover for it. In the grand design, there were to be radial beds spreading out from the tipi. now, with ten years of life lessons, the center of the radiating beds should have left more space to the East and less to the West. Still, fixable; since much of went on back there was left to chance and the whims of a former tenant. This year is noteworthy because there are not just ten times more dragonflies than in former years, there are hundreds to thousands more dragonflies than in previous years.

While out, I often see them, rather than a few times per year, there is hardly a day that I don't see squadrons of them, or at least associations of them. I see different sizes and types, sometimes several near one another. I am optimistic that all of the things that I speak of in my blogs, the changing of the thought process of the average person is taking place.

My own footprint may seem small, at less than 1/2 acre (.177 hectare), but with the soil building that I have accomplished in just ten years, I have added hundreds of acres of surface area for microbes to inhabit, made them fertile, through composting, adding life giving carbon to this tiny shred of the planet and for over twenty years ECO-Tours of Wisconsin has been planting trees in the headwaters and building soils there too. Attacking both the lower reaches of the watershed as well as the headwaters, and all down in between, positive changes can be made, not only to local and regional climate shifts, but worldwide if we all learn to make carbon (char) and build soils everywhere.

These tiny seedlings dwarf a car now, providing habitat for all manner of critters and shade to help them beat the heat.

The dragonfly speaks to me of communication. We dart and flit from place to place, sometimes hovering almost imperceptibly over a moment or chance encounter, then we continue to spread the news that life is all around us and every spot on the planet is holyland. Spread the good news, people, abundance comes when we learn to dance with earth's spirits instead of destroying them in our quest to reap every BTU of fossilized carbon. Please lend your ear to the recent release of Todd Rundgren, Global. It is a great soundtrack for staying motivated in our efforts to save a place for humanity on planet Earth.