A further reminder of the power of positive thinking!
So much for fine ambitions! I’m recalling a post I published just one week ago; yes 7 tiny days past! That was the post that I named ‘Staying positive – the test.‘ Where I opened it, as follows:
Where hope and inspiration meets the cold world of reality!
Yesterday’s post Don’t frighten the horses was all about reminding me that fear is a very bad motivator. I promoted the Transition message, ”If we can’t imagine a positive future we won’t be able to create it.”
This small chastisement comes on the back of yesterday’s post where I had a ‘big dump’ of feelings about some of the madder aspects of our so-called modern life.
Then later on in the day, I just happened to come across a flurry of positive stories that I wanted to share.
First, here’s a scan of the assessors map of our property, near Merlin, OR.
NB: The blue line is the course of Bummer Creek, that historically has had a year-round flow, albeit a low flow during Summer months. The rectangular green area to the West of the open land was a tennis court, now removed. The main house is 200 feet West of that tennis court area, completely hidden by surrounding trees. It is a beautiful place for us and all our animals!
The first positive story was as a result of watching that TED Talk by Marla Spivak. Jean and I thought that as we have well over 4 acres of open grassland, let’s see what we can do to attract and assist our local bees.
Jean and I are supporters of Oregon Wild and a quick call to them about assisting local bees elicited this:
Hi Paul,
Nice speaking with you this morning. For your inquiries on how best to attract bees to your acreage, I would recommend the Xerces Society, a local Oregon group with a Pollinator Campaign. They have a lot of great info on their website, and you could also give them a call at 855.232.6639.Also, Representative Earl Blumenauer here in Portland has been a big advocate for bee conservation and recently introduced the Save America’s Pollinators Act if you’re interested in bee conservation activism.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
It was then an easy step to contact the Xerces Society, that very helpfully produced the following advice:
Hello Paul-
Thank you for calling the Xerces Society with your questions today. We have many resources available to landowners who wish to conserve pollinators and create habitat on their land. Here are links to several of our resources:
Attracting Native Pollinators
Pollinator Habitat Installation Guides
Regional guidance on site prep, planting, and management for pollinator habitat. We have guidelines for creating pollinator meadows and flowering hedgerows. Each guideline has an appendix with regionally appropriate bee magnet plants.
http://www.xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/agriculture/pollinator-habitat-installation-guides/
Pollinator Habitat Assessment Guide and Form
Use this guide to assess the currently habitat available to pollinators on your property and how to protect and enhance that habitat.
http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/PollinatorHabitatAssessment.pdf
Pollinator Conservation Resource Center
Regional information about plant lists, habitat conservation guides, and more.
http://www.xerces.org/pollinator-resource-center/
Conserving Bumble Bees
Specific guidelines for land managers for conserving and managing good quality bumble bee habitat
http://www.xerces.org/bumblebees/guidelines/
I hope this information is helpful! Feel free to email or call me with additional questions about conserving pollinators.
Best,
Finally, John Hurlburt emailed this, and I use it to close the post.
One Way or Another
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
Albert Einstein
Learning from Dogs 
Are you considering beekeeping, Paul?
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Yes, once we have fully understood what changes we have to make to attract the local bees.
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Plenty of wild flowers, hedges, a mess of wilderness, no fungicides, no insecticides, etc…
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Funny you should mention hedges. Because that idea came to me much earlier on this morning. Thanks.
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Good luck on this future activity.
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Einstein was a wise man!… another quote of his I like is
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Loved seeing your Ariel view, And Bees are so important, did I tell you we have had two bees nests in our gardens.. One at home in the rockery this summer and one in the allotments under the shed…. Great we have seen more Bees than last Summer here… And tons of Butterflies 🙂 who left yet more tons of caterpillars! whom will be spoken of in my next post once I get caught up
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Oh, that’s a great connection. However, since writing this post we have found that one of our neighbours is vulnerable to bee stings; can go into shock – forget the medical term. Xerces advised that it is the honey bees that are more likely to sting, not the wild native species. So we won’t install any hives for honey bees.
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Such a shame, but I can see a relieved neighbour! 🙂 the bees in both gardens were of the Common Bumble Bee variety and its been a great summer here, so we spent lots of time sitting in the garden and were not bothered by them one bit, as they buzzed straight in and out and on their rounds… We allowed our two and a half year old granddaughter to play in the garden and just instructed her not to go near the nest area, And all were fine, the ones in the garden now seem to have gone, I read up and it appears that this sometimes happens .. But we were thrilled to have them share our space 🙂
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