Dear Friends,

Root Festival did not celebrate the fourth of July by burning American flags. Instead, we took the day off and went to see Clyde in Fort Hall, Idaho. Clyde was very generous with his time and ceremonially presented root diggers to people who’d bought themselves those tools but hadn’t attended the "Dance of All Nations" where the other root diggers had been presented.  After visiting Clyde we went to the local cemetery to plant onions, bitterroot, and breadroot. We paid special attention to the grave of Buffalo Horn, a Bannock Shoshone who led a war over the Camas Prairie.  (also see Broken Promise and Bannock War) In 1878, the settlers let their pigs graze in the camas prairie and seriously damaged it. This enraged some of the Bannock Shoshones, who started killing settlers in response. Buffalo Horn fought for the life way of his people all over what is now Eastern Oregon, until he died.

After our independence day, we continued to gather seed until we had many, many gardens worth of breadroot seed to spread across the west. For the second week of July, Root Festival traveled down to Northern Nevada. We visited with the Boies family, some cattle ranchers who are getting serious about sustainable practices and are very supportive of what we do – thank you for your help, Boise family!

We drove through Nevada’s beautiful landscape to find where it had burned the year before. What we saw planted or left in the burn was sagebrush, crested wheat grass, and cattle. Not a very diverse ecosystem, so we planted bitterroot, onions, two different kinds of breadroot, and native blue grasses from Idaho. The place we camped at, Tabor Creek, was fenced off from cattle – I wonder if deer can cross the fences or cattle guards to get to the creek? By Tabor Creek we found three different colors of ripe Nevada currants – gold, red and black. We also found patches of highly invasive and totally useless cheat grass. I relished the feeling of gardening as I ripped out cheat grass and planted looksh or coush breadroot seeds.

After the planting in Nevada, all us coyote-types dispersed like seeds in the wind. Many of us met up back at Wolf Creek, and were there to “represent” during the two new gatherings hosted there. Both of the events were centered on healing the Earth. Planting back is a great tool for that work, and there are as many perspectives on it as people who’ve done it. So, the more coyotes present to talk about this practice, the clearer view people can get of a complex landscape.

I also learned more about what the sanctuary’s land is in need of these days. The aggressively invasive Spotted Knapweed is infiltrating all the open spaces there. This plant emits toxins that kill off the plants around it, and then it releases hundreds of seeds. Knapweed is so nasty, you even have to wear gloves to tear it up from the ground – the toxins in the plant are known carcinogens. These plants take over fast, and most noxious weed advice would include noxious herbicides repeated year after year to be sure the plant won’t come back. Buck had a better idea – dig up the knapweed already there, then transplant bulbs like onions and lilies that multiply from being disturbed. This way, if it comes back in a spot we already worked on (it most likely will), we can go back and dig it up again. I think this is a great way to avoid putting chemicals on the sanctuary and still be proactive about this weed, since it will only be harder to get rid of later. We did this with onions during the permaculture skillshare that was held at the gathering, but there’s still a lot of knapweed left to deal with.

By now the bulk of the berry season in Idaho is coming to a close, but the berries in Western Washington are just coming ripe. The huckleberries remind me how fun and exciting life is, the thimbleberries remind me how juicy and sweet it is, too. I wish every one of you a merry berry season!

Thanks to all the people who’ve helped me out so far, and thank you especially to the folks who have provided financial support!

Love,

Sophia/Lauren