Life on the Vine

In October I read Gary Paul Nabhan’s book Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair . I've long wanted to read it to learn more about our woody neighbors. Mesquite trees are the predominate plant species on our property. We have easily 200 trees, quite possibly more, on our 40 acres. I haven't gotten to the stage of my nature journaling journey where I'm out there cataloguing them but that's not out of the realm of possible.  In the book I learned about the beneficial relationship between mesquite and ants and the less beneficial relationship between mistletoe and mesquite. I learned that what we see above ground, which can sometimes be quite shrub-like and less tree-like, can be a quarter of what exists underground. Scientific studies have found that a mesquite's biomass underground can be 4-5 times larger than what is seen above ground. Decades ago, an elder mesquite tree in Arizona was confirmed to have a root depth of 175 feet. The mesquite's bulky underground biom...

Saturday I finished the 2024 Read Harder Challenge with nearly two months to spare. It's the seventh year in a row that I've completed the challenge. Typically I try to read as many of my own books for the different challenges but this year I was only able to complete five with books I already own. I completed the rest thanks to my local libraries.  Here are the covers for all the books I read and the list of challenges is below.     2024 Read Harder Challenge Read a cozy fantasy book - A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers.     Read a YA book by a trans author - Being Jazz by Jazz Jennings.   Read a middle grade horror novel - The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf. Read a history book by a BIPOC author - Homecoming: The Story of African-American Farmers by Charlene Gilbert and Quinn Eli. .  Read a sci-fi novella - Very Far Away from Anywhere by Ursula Le Guin. While a novella and a book by Ursula Le Guin, who typically writes...