By Sara Wright
Images Courtesy of Marilyn Phillips

Just a week ago I gave a talk at a conservation center about mycelial networks delighted by the audience’s enthusiasm. There were so many questions after the talk that a one- hour presentation turned into two. It has been ten years since I taught at the University of Maine and Central Maine Community College, and I have forgotten how much I enjoy teaching. It is also a relief to know that some people are genuinely interested in what goes on in the soil beneath our feet.
 
I am enchanted as I always am this time of year by what is happening around my house. My precious soil has been in the process of being nurtured by nature since late last summer when flowers bloomed, and plants and tree leaves began to wither and fall. With a broken hip I had no chance in November to heap up leaves and other detritus in my wild gardens or at my side door beyond whatever fell there naturally. Thankfully, one cycle of fall/winter neglect didn’t seem to matter.
 
For the last four weeks I have been tending my wild gardens, adding compost here and there to the hundreds of wildflowers that have already bloomed, are budding now, or just breaking ground. Amazed as always at how nature chooses to spread her ephemerals, I still gasp each time I peer at a new cluster that appears in the most unlikely place. Bloodroot and Solomons seal spiking skyward between the stones of my frog pond,  are two examples. With such a multitude of wildflowers at my door I am still bewildered by the invisible complexity of the mycorrhizae beneath my steps. Every leaf, bud or blossoming jewel is in some kind of relationship with the others around it. Oh, how I long to peer down beneath earth’s  leafy - brown skin to see just how these remarkable threads are connected and what they might be saying or doing…
   
 I feel so grateful that every ounce of soil in my garden, around and under my house (dirt floor) is feeding this network that supports all life. I imagine her crocheting her way across the earth. There are holes, big holes in that net that have been destroyed by mining, forestry practices, building, roads, agriculture, pesticides, and people who do not know that this mycelial network is literally the source of all life on land. A whole host of deadly threats are looming.

When I moved here (before commercial logging began) the trees and forests were lush and vibrant, full of wildflowers and wild animals. Even in those early years I did little but clear a small space in the woods. Later, after building my cabin I planted a flower, vegetable, and wildflower garden and added fruit trees. In recent years I have been doing more research in other forests because most of this mountain has been cut away, so my gardens have gone wild. Apart from gardens, from the beginning I allowed nature to lead believing that s/he knew better than I ever could how to care for this land. Today we call this practice re-wilding.

I also learned directly by paying close attention that nature will prevail as she recycles life through the process of living and dying. This planet is a miracle always in the making.
It's hard for me to realize that until I discovered the work of Suzanne Simard maybe 10 - 15 years ago I knew nothing about mycelial networks. However, I must add that I have always had the intuitive sense that all of nature is interconnected – above and below.
What do we know about the soil beneath our feet?
 
We know that for about 400 million years about 90 percent of all land plants have a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal networks (the other 10 percent are pathogenic). Both comprise mycelial networks. I don’t include saprophytes because they are breaking down the dying or dead to create new soil. I see saprophytes as working in service to nature, and they too are connected to fungal networks.
 
We know that we don’t know how these incredibly complex tubular root-like systems work, but we do know that without them life would cease to exist as we know it. 
 
“The symbiotic mycorrhizal networks formed by plants and fungi comprise an ancient life-support system that easily qualifies as one of the wonders of the living world” states mycologist Merlin Sheldrake.
 
Amazingly, mycorrhizal fungi funnel and store 13 billion tons of carbon in the soil every year. 13 billion tons of carbon – a third of the world’s carbon emissions. How can we not be paying attention?

Trees, plants, mushrooms (fruiting bodies of fungi) tap into the mycorrhizal fungal network, an impossibly complex informational highway. Some do this directly others indirectly. Some fungi have many partners, others just a few. Either way every living thing is connected to the entire web that seems to know what is going on everywhere at once. This idea is so mind-bending it sounds like science fiction.
 
The web transports carbon, water, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients using billions of root-like hyphae to reach the plants and trees that need to be fed. The networks also move in many directions at once reversing directions without warning.

To witness this latter phenomenon microscopically is incomprehensible – my mind cannot take it in. I ask as Merlin Sheldrake does, “What are they doing”? 
 
A simple example of how some fungal highways work is to help a ‘mother tree’ send nutrients to her seedlings and to other species even when s/he’s dying (Suzanne Simard et al).

Only about 10 percent of the mycelial networks are being protected, although (SPUN) a scientific research organization has been founded to begin to map mycorrhizal fungal communities around the globe to advocate for their protection. Unfortunately, this kind of field work will take years and years.

What can we do in the meantime? We can  allow unused fields to go wild to support pollinators, plants, native grasses and wildlife, curb mowing lawns and large formal gardens (or any garden that becomes too big ). We can change commercial logging practices, update the continued insistence (obsession?) upon using antiquated forestry techniques which are still considered to be the ‘experts’ when ongoing field research indicates these present methods are destructive to wildlife, wildflowers, humans and underground networks, scatter cut logs instead of piling them up, create small areas of brush so anaerobic bacteria can break down the nutrients in dead or dying trees, compost kitchen remains, use organic manure etc. I won’t restate the obvious when it comes to pesticides and herbicides or mitigating climate chaos. I don’t even know what to say about our bizarre fixation around getting rid of invasives, except that I think it should be clear by now that nature will endure. Like it or not humans are not in control.  

What I have learned over a lifetime is that if we want to support earth’s living skin, as with any other genuine conservation measure, we must learn to walk lightly over the land as Indigenous peoples once did and continue to do today. What this means practically is that bigger is not better and control is not the answer. If humans could leave the rest of nature alone S/he will eventually address the imbalances that are intensifying with each year. However, I am talking about nature redressing imbalances in Earth Time not human time, so I don’t expect much agreement here.

Another way of saying this is that we could do less not more to ‘improve’ and ‘help nature’, making the choice to return sentience and sovereignty to the one that birthed us. Perhaps only then can we learn how critical relationship becomes when dealing with non -human beings. We save what we love.

To close I return to the beginning, the mystery behind mycelial networks and the glorious season of spring. Even as the wildflowers and new leaves emerge and I succumb to awe, the conservationist in me remains focused on the mysteries present in the soil beneath my feet. If only I could become a worm or an ant for even one day!

Happy graduating, everybody who's graduationing
​Zach Hively

Congratulations, graduates of the class of the current calendar year. This is a time of celebration, for it is the first time in living memory when no one in my immediate family is graduating from anything.

But you are! And that’s great! I’m certain your families, out there in the audience, don’t mind pretending to be happy sitting through all these speeches by strangers with vague and questionable relevance to your class. Instead of spending their day watching all the Godfather movies in a row, your loved ones are enduring this multi-hour ceremony just so they can hear your name mispronounced for an approximate total of 1.1 seconds.

Do not underestimate the dedication this takes. With you graduates all dressed the same, your families cannot even bide their time by commenting on your classmates’ poor taste in leggings, which really should seldom ever be worn as pants. Seriously. If you learned nothing else in this specific program or course of study, please, please recognize that you would be better off wearing chain mail made from beached kelp than leggings as pants. That look is nearly as unfortunate as jeans worn so low that they are technically denim socks, as the youth did in my day. Either this latter fashion blunder has blissfully gone out of style, or else I have just stopped leaving the house.

I mean, who wouldn’t want graduate-level inspiration from this guy?

Leaving the house. That is what you graduates are doing, in the metaphorical sense. And maybe even the literal sense, if this isn’t a kindergarten graduation. A word of advice as you step into the big wide world:

Actually, never mind. I was going to intone something Deep and Meaningful, something using a preschool-sized finger-paint handprint as an extended metaphor for how you will always continue to grow and learn, even though you’re leaving school precisely so you can stop growing and learning. It was going to sing such phrases as Next Chapter and Be True to Yourself. It was inspired.

But I have sat through plenty of speeches given by folks who thought they were inspired. And all I remember about them is how bored I was. No one wants to be here; luckily, the person who invented graduation ceremonies also invented alphabetical order. That way, the Aarons get to skip out early, and entire Youkilis families can take a nap until at least the Willises. Or they would, if they could. But they can’t.

I realize you graduates take naps for granted. Someday, as adults, you will have to attend graduation ceremonies in which you are not personally graduating. Then you will learn that the folding chairs and bleacher benches in these places are really uncomfortable. Unlike you, who have had lots of recent practice napping through social studies class, your families cannot fall asleep on a tile floor or a writing desk or an anthill. They are out of napping shape.

Graduates, you must treat your naps with the rigor and respect of an Olympian. The swimming and running kind, not the curling kind. The ability to fall asleep anywhere, at any time, and to wake up reliably before dinner requires more dedication than you could ever imagine. Once you fall out of practice, once you dull your abilities, once you succumb to the pressures of the waking world ... it’s lights-out for naptime.

Or should it be lights-on for naptime? I don’t know— and that question has kept me wide awake for hours, entire minutes, that I would have rather spent napping. But I got lazy with my naps. Scientists say I could have developed higher alertness, enhanced memory, improved performance, less stress, and other superpowers just by crashing out. Instead, I am nap-flabby. Take a long, hard look at me, graduates. I am what happens when you adopt a lax training regimen.

So when you leave here today, by all means, celebrate. Go to dinner with your families, and then party with your friends. Sign yearbooks, hug each other, and swear you are going to stay in touch, even though, in reality, you will get really good at passing each other in the grocery store while pretending to examine the nutrition labels on boxed mac & cheese. Exhaust yourself, so that when you get started on your future, it begins with some killer zees.

You’ll keep taking those naps if you want to really Be True to Yourself in the Next Chapters of your life. Let nothing stand between you, your pillow, and a healthy lifestyle. Got a commute? Squeeze one in during the bumper-to-bumper. Got religion? Snooze through the eyes-closed parts of the service. Got ambitions? Don’t chase them down half-dozed. Got family? Make sure that they never, ever graduate from anything, ever.

If you made it this far, you must like something about my writing style. Lucky for you, this is actually an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Call Me Zach Hively Because That Is My Name. There’s loads more nonsense like this, if you want to stock up on gifts for next year’s graduating class. (Eat your heart out, Dr. Seuss.)

By Sara Wright 
​
I sit under the snowy crabapple as fragile flower petals drift one by one to the ground, covering my hair in white butterflies, soon to become the first mulch of the year. Our Lady is always nourishing new life…
 
 The hum of a thousand bees is deafening – bumblebees - glorious golden rotund bodies swarming from one tree to another with so many relatives – everyone seeking sweet nectar. 
 
The scent is beyond description - intoxicating – a poignant perfume lasting only a few days and keeping me rooted to my bench every single morning to soak in the sweetness under impossible heat. Heavily polluted air is thick and metallic but here I inhale a plethora of fragrances so intense they drown out poisoned air. 
 
One rose breasted grosbeak is hidden in the deep vermillion of the fruit tree that bears his name. No wonder he sings his heart out. A red eyed vireo’s musical trill provides striking counterpoint even at noon. Phoebes chirp as they gather feathery mosses for their nest above my door. I gather more and add strands of my hair depositing both gifts on the ground in front of their flowering crab situated just outside my door. In moments both treasures are gone, swooped away by nesting parents 
 
The Flower Moon has just passed and many spring wildflowers have come to crown the Queen of the May who is dressed in her glorious cherry, apple, pear, crabapple finery. Swaying wild grasses hold spikes of lavender, blue, and purple ajuga, periwinkled mrytle is festooned with liny gold bees. Violets of every conceivable shade cover the ground along with astonishing neon yellow dandelions. Solomons seal arc so gracefully bending pendulous bells to the ground. Chartreuse and lime paint a ground cover named charlie, a sinuous serpent creeper that slithers across the uncut grass seemingly choosing every direction at once. No mow sparks endless creativity.
 
I am poised, a lady in waiting for relief. 
 
And then they come!
 
The Thunders.
 
 Rumbling sky gods split and sever dead air in hope. Many fruit trees have weeping leaves that droop under a brutal noonday sun. Cracked brown earth opens her slumbering eyes. Earthworms driven deep in this intolerable heat, hide among delicate mycelial threads who are funneling nitrogen potassium, water, minerals and other nutrients to those that need them… Tree roots are singing songs to this tubular informational highway lightly hidden underground.
 
 Ah, and so it begins, the deluge, sheets of silver hitting the ground in a fury… the sound of ionized water slapping roof and tree sooths my aching head still pounding from metallic air and merciless heat.
 
 I become this storm all senses on fire with longing. Presence. Rain, a blessing for all, even the flowers bend their heads in prayer. 
 
During breaks in the torrent                                                                                                                                          hummingbirds zoom in to the feeder. One chickadee appears from a tangle of fruit tree branches, grabs a seed and disappears Another follows suit. 
 
After the Thunder gods move on a female rain begins (as Indigenous folks say) falling in time with fluttering petals, crimson, rose, burgundy, pale pink, mauve and pearl. How gently all spiral earthward. 
 
Too soon the storm is over, but the Mayflower Queen has reigned in flowery splendor for a week that ends in a nourishing watery reprieve. She will soon retire for another year after the last blushing pink crabapples fade ending the Celebration of the Trees in this hollow on a waning moon. And leaving the earth to celebrate more stars, spiked jewels, and impossible fragrances for another month The solstice fire may burn 

Republished with Permission from John Fleck

(Note: Leave notes in comments)

Two key takeaways from Monday’s (May 13, 2024) Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board meeting:

• El Vado Dam, crucial for managing irrigation, municipal, and environmental water through New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande valley, will be out of service indefinitely – for many, many years.
• The vague structure of alternative storage options, using other existing dams, is beginning to take shape.

El Vado, built in the 1930s on the Rio Chama, has been out of service since 2022 for rehabilitation work by the US Bureau of Reclamation’s dam safety program. Challenges in fixing it have sent Reclamation’s engineering team back to the drawing boards. Work was supposed to be done by 2025. It’s now clear that the dam will be out of service for the foreseeable future.
Without the ability to store some of each year’s spring runoff for use in late summer and fall, the Rio Grande through Albuquerque is at the mercy of summer rains, without which it will dwindle to near nothing every year unless or until El Vado is fixed or we sort out alternative storage arrangements.

More on this part – the status of trying to fix El Vado – in a separate post to come later (once I write it I’ll add a link here), because the more important bits at Monday’s meeting involved the first cagey public discussions about what we will do in the meantime.
(Inkstain is reader supported.)

EXPLORING WATER STORAGE ALTERNATIVES FOR THE MIDDLE RIO GRANDEThe always quotable Socorro farmer and MRGCD board member Glen Duggins offered a simple plea: “Just give us somewhere to park our water.”

Much of Monday’s discussion – sometimes explicit, sometimes in coded language – focused on this question.

If you look at the monthly reservoir storage graphic from Reclamation printed as a handout for Monday’s meeting (printed as a handout for every meeting), you’ll see there are two other reservoirs flanking El Vado upstream and downstream, and they have enough empty space in them to make up for most, if not all, of El Vado’s now unusable ~180,000 acre feet of capacity.

• Abiquiu Reservoir currently has ~100,000 acre feet of available storage space
• Heron Reservoir has ~300,000 acre feet of available storage space

But the details of using them for this new purpose, storing Middle Valley irrigation and environmental water, which is different than the purposes for which they were built, are staggeringly tricky.

Abiquiu
Abiquiu Reservoir, built in the 1960s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Rio Chama as part of a massive federally funded project to protect the Middle Rio Grande Valley from flooding, is huge.

In 1981, Congress authorized a change in use to allow imported San Juan-Chama water to be stored in Abiquiu – up to 200,000 acre feet. (It requires an act of Congress.) Subsequent to that, the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority got a storage permit from the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (Storage requires a state permit, I hope you can see what I’m doing with the parentheticals.) to store its SJC water in Abiquiu. Then in 2020 another act of Congress did something I’m a bit confused about that allowed native water storage, not just San Juan-Chama water, and maybe more than the 200,000 acre feet, I think (Note: Another act of Congress required.) And then the Army Corps of Engineers had to rewrite its water operations manual, which nearly four years later is just now being completed. (It requires not only an act of Congress to change the purpose of use at Abiquiu, but also a lengthy Corps process to rewrite its rules.)

My Utton Center colleagues are far smarter than I about these institutional nuances – Utton has long worked on the legal plumbing – but I wasn’t about to wake them up at 6 in the morning, so you’re stuck with me.

So yes, there is space in Abiquiu for us to park our water. But the rules tangle is of Gordian proportions.

Heron
Upstream, Heron Reservoir sits on a tributary to the Chama, built in the 1970s to store water imported beneath the continental divide from three Colorado River headwaters streams. It seems ill-suited for storing Rio Grande water.

It currently holds ~100,000 acre feet of imported San Juan-Chama project water, with room for another ~300,000 acre feet. (Note bene: I’m rounding all the numbers off here to one or a few significant digits.) The trick here is to hold the San Juan-Chama water in Heron and then do a series of carryover accounting and maybe native water swaps that I can’t begin to understand, let alone explain, in order to kinda sorta use Heron as well.

THE NEGOTIATIONSOne of the reasons the discussions about all of this at yesterday’s board meeting were kinda vague is that the three parties crucial to cutting the Gordian tangle – MRGCD, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority – are in negotiations about what sort of parenthetical agreements might be needed to make it all work.

They need space to sort out thorny incentive problems – the interests of the municipal water utility to protect and manage its own municipal supply will be key. In this regard alone, it my be in the water utility’s best interests to help. Low late summer river flows, which are inevitable without storage, force the utility to switch to groundwater pumping to get water to my tap. As a result, the aquifer recovery, of which we are rightly proud in Albuquerque, has stalled.

Also key will be the broader community interests of flowing ditches and a flowing river, which while not directly related to ABCWUA’s water supply nevertheless may be things the water utility’s board members – city councilors and county commissioners – care about.

The typically blunt Duggins was unusually cryptic at Monday’s meeting, but I infer this is what he was talking about when he said: “We’re neighbors. I don’t understand why it would take a year or two to get papers signed.”

By Zach Hively

Sometimes, I like to offer a glimpse into the inner workings of a poem, or provide a bit of story around the margins.
This week, though, the poem is here. Just like the flowers are, right now, in northern New Mexico. And beauty does not always emerge gently.
Here you are:

Desert Flowers
 
It's a good year
for wildflowers
 
but not
for metaphors
 
about gentle rains
and deep roots
 
or patient seeds
biding their time.
 
These flowers
do not unfurl,
 
groveling and grateful,
where they may.
 
They claw
without claws,
 
scrabble
without toes,
 
fight tooth
and nail
 
without--
you know--
 
just to explode
themselves,
 
bleed swagger
with every violent
 
scrap of hard-
claimed, luck-
 
granted cloud.
They burn.
 
They burn,
and no one
 
asks them
"why here?"
 
because
where the hell else
 
and desert flowers
don't need
 
to talk back, don't
need to punch
 
your throat or
break your heart
 
to dig their roots,
bide their time.

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