Stories about the ways water moves through natural and human-constructed landscapes... what we can learn from it and how we can use old and new ideas to understand, appreciate, and sustainably use this resource.
Showing posts with label darkestplaces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darkestplaces. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Madrona Marsh: a Postage Stamp of Nature in Torrance
I've been posting a series of blog posts about Torrance, California, the city where I grew up. Most of them revolve around trying to find nature, wildness, and forgotten, unmanicured spaces in this a of suburban sprawl. Yet, I'd be remiss not to dedicate a post to Madrona Marsh, a small patch of nature right in the center of Torrance that was spared from development, and became a refuge for me as I was attending high school in the 1990s.
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Monday, February 13, 2012
In The Darkest Places: an Ecosystem in an Abandoned Industrial Lot in Torrance
This post is part of a series of posts I am creating about finding nature and beauty in the town where I grew up. For more background info, see the first post in the series.
The ability of life to survive and thrive in harsh environments is stunning and incredible. Many offer examples of 'extreme' environments that teem with life, such as deserts and the Arctic. Instead, I offer a place that is in many ways even harsher - and that has given life much less time to adapt to it - and still supports an ecosystem struggling to survive.
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The map above could be a scene from many places in coastal California. The white shrub is almost certainly a flowering coyote brush plant. Around it is a disturbed landscape, but certainly not a heavily-manicured suburban expanse.
Now, please begin zooming out using the map above. As you do so, take note of natural features you see.
The ability of life to survive and thrive in harsh environments is stunning and incredible. Many offer examples of 'extreme' environments that teem with life, such as deserts and the Arctic. Instead, I offer a place that is in many ways even harsher - and that has given life much less time to adapt to it - and still supports an ecosystem struggling to survive.
View Larger Map
The map above could be a scene from many places in coastal California. The white shrub is almost certainly a flowering coyote brush plant. Around it is a disturbed landscape, but certainly not a heavily-manicured suburban expanse.
Now, please begin zooming out using the map above. As you do so, take note of natural features you see.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
In The Darkest Places: Life in a Torrance Ditch
For most of the last week, I have been visiting family and friends in Torrance, a suburb of Los Angeles and the place I grew up.
I have a love-hate relationship with California, but my feelings about Torrance have always been more straightforward - there are some people there who are incredibly important to me, but Torrance itself I have always hated.
There isn't much gained in hating a place though, especially one I will end up visiting again, so during this visit I decided to "get curious", as one person has advised me; to try to understand WHY Torrance is how it is, how its past influences it, what wild plants and free water are hiding in the cracks and forgotten places of the present, and what is possible in the future. During my latest trip I found several interesting things, which I'll be writing about in a mini-series of blog posts called "In The Darkest Places"
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