Wetlands are considered one of our Earth’s most productive ecosystems.  The Chesapeake Bay watershed and all states involved not only add to that productivity, but more so this precious ecosystem hangs on their support.  In 1963 JFK coined the well-known phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats”.  Likely, and sadly more pessimistic I fear a lowering tide grounds all boats.

As leaders, academics and advancing professionals we find ourselves deep in the pages of many authors.  Most of our books are disciplinarily technical or informative on haw to maximize the products and teams around us.  But, every now and then we need a break.

With the autumnal shift we look on change as a natural transformation from season to season, shifting from summer to fall, triggered by the internal metamorphosis of our ancient tree friends who transition the color of their own skin from lively green to the splendor of oranges and reds.

How, on a human scale do these issues impact us and are there more basic initiatives in addressing the problem which should be acted on first?  One simple example is eating local.  Food is fresher, money stays in the pockets of your neighbors who grow or sell the food and we use less carbon shipping produce across the country or worse - in from another countries. 

Not too long ago I read a story of the third-century monk St. Antony of the Desert.  It related him as being approached by a philosopher and apparently probed about the abilities to live in such baroness, and more so without books.  How could one grow and expand without these needed works of knowledge?

Names must be the one or two words that carry more weight than any other words we use. My guess is that this is as universal as the emotion of love.

With many years of horticultural experience, with lots of theological debates, with a hand full of applicable classes I have clearly identified the fruit from the Tree of Life.

We have become a rather mobile species, exponentially really. With each invent of mobility time decreases while the expansion of distance increases.

The landscape come March is a great blank paper where for the recent three months we have watched the unfolding of a vast mosaic cast with blankets of colors.  The ebb and flow of nature’s art shifting from early, to mid, to late spring translucently flooding into summer.

The sea through complexity and multidimensionality transform the serpentine top of a wave into a rhythm of seas snaking under us.  Shapes that don’t sit still but that lift us and drop us.  Beyond three-dimension into the fourth dimension of time, where shape and views change with every cloud above our head and puff that tickles the surface, dancing away in dendritic wrinkles on a smooth waters top.

Results can’t be measured on a spreadsheet but only in a smile. Life doesn’t exist to support work but work exists to support life. Living is the priority.

I work in the Department of Agriculture at a university with a large farm and dairy.  We also happen to be located in a county with agricultural land use well over 50%.  Much of the county borders rivers, lakes and streams.  So much so that the word I hear is, “no body of water is more then a mile apart.”

I sail inside my home, door crashing as the starving turmoil of air and rain thrash my family’s small abode. Outside the trees slowly moan, harmonizing with the whistling wind that spins, nipping at the cottage walls.