I’ve enjoyed this rainy Earth Day, typing up notes for work with a cat tucked under one arm and a dog under the other. Fortunately, the Earth Day Outdoors Fest we are attending at Warwick County Park is scheduled for next week, when the weather is likely to be better.
In the spirit of Earth Day, a few words about resource use and management. Most of our management on Natural Lands Trust preserves involves getting two things accomplished out of each one action. Hazard trees that need to be removed are made into paneling for the barn and wood chips for our trails. It’s a process of moving something that is located where it isn’t helping to some place where it might. Most brush is left where it falls, but if there isn’t space for it, we move it or transform it in a way that solves the problem where it was and solves another problem where it is going.
Luke DiBerardinis made the stepstool in the library out of a Norway spruce that stood in the yard at the Lodge house on the preserve but that had declined. A few years ago Natural Lands Trust’s arborist Tom Kershner cut it down—I remember the day well, but I can’t find the pictures I took of the event. We painted the log ends to keep them from checking, and stored the log until we found the right use for it. Luke based the design on a Shaker stepstool with a post added to help one balance on it. Even the library shelves are red oak that came from hazard trees at Natural Lands Trust preserves.
On a similar subject I recommend the book Nature’s Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies, a short volume of essays edited by Kenny Ausubel. The title does not imply that nature needs to be operated upon, but rather we have a lot to learn from nature in how we might better operate our own affairs. It covers—among many other things—biomimicry, bioremediation, natural capitalism, and the magic, or wonder of nature.
