Earlier this week Heather and I walked the Marsh Trail in Middleton. It is a short trail from the parking lot, up from Avery’s. The highlight was the display of lady slipper orchids. I sent some photographs to Edward for inclusion in this blog.
This week, too, I finished reading Myths of Geography (see previous post, Day Trip). The book has eight chapters. Richardson offers a subtitle for each chapter.
1) How many continents are there?
2) Why walls don’t work?
3) What is a country?
4) Why taking back control is not what it seems?
5) Wealth, health or happiness?
6) Or how Putin unleashed the revanchist monster?
7) Why all roads don’t lead to China?
8) Seeing beyond the colonial cliches.
Reading this book took me back to graduate school at the University of Western Ontario (1969-1972), bringing to the foreground memories of Bill Bunge and David Harvey (enjoy my post Biogeography).
There are also memories of field work on vegetation patterns on Castleguard Meadows, off the Columbia Icefield.
At the end of each Summer, we would take off, on road trips to Boulder, Colorado or to the Alaska panhandle, before classes started again at UWO, London, Ontario.
It is not possible to read Richardson’s book without reflecting on the present global conflicts between USA, Russia and China.
At home base, we are busy transplanting: strawberries and tomatoes.
Acknowledgements
Edward created the orchid mosaic. Heather shared the transplanting.
Ernest Blair Experiment 