day 365

Last day of the Water Year! Here we are in January '21 in front of Sulphur Springs.

day 363

With just two days to go, my closing essay for Water Year. About my "natal stream" and how it shaped me, including both the career I chose and the parent I became. And an expedition back there with my daughter and her friends. 

day 361

The kids in Sulphur Springs in 2010.

day 359

The sun is setting on Water Year! One week to go. A Lake Erie sunset.

day 357

Early morning in the Mekong Delta, in 2013.

day 355

In May of 2015 we could look out from our house and see steelhead in the Chagrin River. Here Luca is crossing the river on a log to get to where they were congregating.

day 353

𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗮𝘆!
My sister and I monitoring the water of Rollins Pond, New York in the Adirondack Mountains in 1972 - the year the Clean Water Act passed!

day 351

The calendar says it’s still summer but feels like Fall with a beautiful sunset on Lake Erie.

day 349

Storks and egrets along a tributary to Karnali River in Bardiya National Park, Nepal. This week Nepal's Supreme Court is hearing a case that will strongly influence whether the Karnali remains free-flowing or is dammed for hydro. Check out this blog post. 

day 347

Two days ago was the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie. Today is the 8th anniversary of this Backflip in Lake Erie. Paola's dad, Franco, doing a backflip at age 76 off of my dad's boat.

day 345

The Battle of Lake Erie (War of 1812) was fought 210 years ago today; nine vessels of the United States Navy defeated and captured six vessels of the British Royal Navy. Photo: Tall ships in Cleveland during 200th anniversary year of Battle of Lake Erie.

day 343

Delta Blues
Deltas are home to 500M people & are among world's most productive agricultural regions, but many are now sinking & shrinking (see blog). On a trip to Mekong Delta, my tour guide sang "American Pie" as we rowed a narrow channel. 

day 341

Yesterday was World Amazon Day! A photo of me in '95 (24 year old) in Bolivia, fishing in a tiny tributary to a small tributary to a tributary..etc..to the Amazon; during dry season fairly big river fish are found in these small channels. A handline with a chunk of meat and it hit.

day 339

This weekend marks 59th anniversary of US Wilderness Act Wren climbing above Dinkey Creek in (or just downstream of?) Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. The geographic uncertainty is because we were revisiting the 1st place Paola and I hung out and we we got lost then (1996).

day 337

Jimmy Buffett (1946 - 2023) loved and raised money for the Everglades, the Keys, manatees and coral reefs.

Picture if you can when the Everglades ran
From the Gulf Coast to Biscayne Bay
He's gonna give it back to the gators
(from The Ballad of Skip Wiley)

day 335

Took the dogs for a walk on a trail on the floodplain of Chagrin River today. Absolutely carpeted with late summer wildflowers and buzzing with bees.

day 333

Recreating the "pipe dance" scene from Kings of Summer.

day 331

Happy International Dog Day! Bean on a family creek hike.

day 329

Celebrating connectivity, part 3
A key action to restore river connectivity: remove aging dams. In this case, nature took the lead: major winter storm in 2011 removed century-old dam on Chagrin River in Gates, Mills OH. 

day 327

Celebrating connectivity, part 1
New paper out today led by Michele Thieme: actions to maintain & restore river connectivity to benefit people and nature. One action is floodplain connectivity photo: Floodplain of Yolo Bypass, March 2004.

day 325

The legend Buddy Guy on his farewell tour as a boat on Cuyahoga River passes the stage on Saturday. pm Tomorrow I’ll be on the Sound of Ideas and WKSU to talk about the flood that made rock & roll: the evolution of delta blues to Chicago blues to rock and Buddy Guy.

day 323

Water Iron Chef 4
The Water Iron Chef Challenge: find a water photo featuring a random "ingredient" from a World Day of X; today is Global Climbing Day. Wren's boyfriend bouldering above Sulphur Springs.

day 321

Water Iron Chef 2
The Water Iron Chef Challenge: find a water photo featuring a random "ingredient" from a World Day of X; today is World Eggplant Day. I give you..an eggplant riding a boat through rapids.

day 319

Can't believe the water years,
Have added to eighteen.
I had years to see it coming,
This one-way time machine...
Wren left for college today.
Last night got them to pose in the same place as this 2007 photo.

day 317

A small flood in the backyard river.

day 315

Happy Cray Week! Kids using red vine candy on a string to catch crayfish in an Arizona pond in 2009. A massive amount of crayfish. Unfortunately I later learned that northern crayfish are invasive to Arizona.

day 313

Today is Indigenous Peoples Day. A river cuts through Canyon de Chelly National Monument on Navajo Nation, one of most visited national monuments and the only one on land owned by a Tribal Nation. Canyon de Chelly is one of one of longest continuously inhabited landscapes of North America; rivers were, and remain, central to life in the Canyon. The photo shows both current and ancient land use. 
 

day 311

Meerkoetjes broedplaats = "Coot Breeding Ground." That's what the little sign says on the tethered makeshift float that holds a coot nest that is 50% trash and 50% sticks. Spotted in an Amsterdam canal. A bit rough around the edges, but also plucky and innovative.

day 309

Today is the 89th birthday of writer and poet Wendell Berry. His "The Peace of Wild Things" is one of my favorite poems: When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be...

day 307

A key component of Emergency Recovery Plan for Freshwater Biodiversity is improving water quality. The report just released from the Ohio EPA shows that it is possible at scale: dramatic improvement in water quality in Ohio large rivers; Floating Grand River: David Tickner

day 305

Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was born 179 years ago this week.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness?
Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
-From Inversnaid
Paola & Wren in Okefenokee.

day 303

Female mallard duck taking flight, Lake Huron (Ontario).

day 301

Wren is home from college for only about a month. Her friend is visiting and here they’re playing bocce (as highly effective ringers on our team battling for first place in the Chagrin Falls bocce league) with the near-flood stage Chagrin River in background.

day 299

It’s Mangrove Day! Mangroves are the stars of nature based solutions and ecosystem based adaptation but in many places, to function, mangroves need rivers. Luca exploring mangroves in Mexico (Wren in background) in 2010.

day 297

Garter snake, Lake Huron.

day 295

Some type of bluet damselfly along north shore of Lake Huron, Ontario. It seems to be resting on the carapace (leftover skin) of a larval damselfly (this adult was flying around, not just emerged.)

day 293

Spent four days in a tiny cabin on a 0.6 hectare (1.5 acre) island in Lake Huron. Lots of views like this from front porch: clearing at sunset after brief rain, and a single boat passing in front of Dawson Island in Lake Huron, Ontario.

day 291

Luca fishing Chagrin River in 2013. For inter-species equity, Wren keeps her face underwater for as long as Luca has the fish out of water.

day 289

It's World Snake Day!
Here's a beautiful juvenile cottonmouth (or water moccasin) in the Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia - swam right by our canoe.

day 287

Change along a river: from a dam and mill in 1870 to free-flowing today. At left: Bullard & Sons mill which is now our backyard. At right: Paola & Birch in river where dam was. Bullard was national market leader in butter molds. 

day 285

Big Jump 2
Luca does his Big Jump for Living Rivers, North American style, into Enfield Creek below Enfield Falls in Robert Treman State Park, Ithaca, New York (photo from 2015).

day 283

Riparian forest flanking streams in arid Canyon de Chelly, Arizona illustrates
water quotes from two scientific greats:
Water is the driving force of all nature -Leonardo da Vinci
Where there's water on Earth, you find life as we know it -Neil deGrasse Tyson.

day 281

African Fish Eagle in the delta of the Tana River, Kenya, in 2011.

day 279

Hard to believe, Part I.
Hard to believe this little guy is spending the summer working in New York City. Four-year old Luca floating in Chagrin River in summer of 2006.

day 277

Workers broke ground on the Ohio and Erie Canal on 4th of July 198 years ago. At 308 miles, it connected the Ohio River to the Great Lakes and catalyzed the economic growth of Ohio. A photo of Paola and Luna on along an old canal in Cuyahoga Valley in April 2007.

day 275

On this day 44 years ago the Chagrin River was designated "wild and scenic" under Ohio's Wild and Scenic Rivers program (the world's first legislated system of protected rivers). 71 miles are designated, including places my family loves to visit.

day 273

Willie Dixon was born 108 years ago tomorrow. "Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the...Chicago blues" Dixon wrote "Fishin' in My Pond," which I realize is metaphorical but for Water Year these photos worked.

day 271

For International Pride Day we are celebrating rivers & rainbows. Iguazú Falls in Brazil. Between Argentina (Cataratas del Iguazú) and Brazil (Cataratas do Iguaçu), this is the largest waterfall system in the world.

day 269

55 years ago Ohio became perhaps world’s first government to legislate system of protected rivers: Ohio Wild & Scenic Rivers preceded US W&S by 10 months. Upper Cuyahoga designated W&S on this day 1974. Photo shows Cuyahoga acting wild: channel migration and meander cutoff.

day 267

Summer solstice a few days ago was also International Yoga Day. Here's Paola doing some yoga on a Lake Erie beach in 2009. Wren seems impressed.

day 265

Today is World Rainforest Day. The river systems with the most fish species flow through rainforests. Here is a scanned photo of Alex Wang, me and our guide Samuel crossing a stream in Meratus Mountains of South Kalimantan in 1993 (photo from Dave Allen). The Meratus Mountains are covered in montane rainforest & South Kalimantan is known as "land of 1000 rivers" for all the streams and rivers that flow from those mountains.

day 263

Over the weekend it was Sustainable Gastronomy Day. The relationship between diets & rivers: 1. diet choices affect water & rivers 2. healthy rivers are essential to our diets. Intergenerational knowledge transfer: preparing walleye in a cabin by Lac du Fils, Quebec.

Diet choices affect rivers. How we produce food is biggest consumer of water globally (by far) and one of primary contributors to water pollution. For example, the Colorado River is drying up and irrigating feed for cattle is almost 60% of all water used. To see how your diet choices affect water (and the climate, land, and biodiversity) explore the WWF Diet Calculator. And rivers are essential to our diets. Rivers are engines of food productivity, directly supporting nearly 1/3 of food produced on the planet. Check out our Rivers of Food report to see how rivers are essential to global food security.


 

day 262

Today is Juneteenth and June is Black Music Month. As the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art podcast says: "All music is Black music" and that is certainly true of rock. A thread on the Black music roots of rock - and the role of a river flood. Rock Hall on Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio.

When the Levees Broke: the flood that made rock and roll. In 1927, an epic flood on the Mississippi River killed hundreds & wreaked massive property damage. But in its wake of destruction, that flood created rock ‘n’ roll. To be fair, rock ‘n’ roll, like the Mississippi, is a seriously big river, one with many tributaries that converged to form its still-shifting channel. But one of its tributaries — and perhaps the essential one, with a gritty, longing, shuffling beat. Still pulsing unmistakably within the bigger river — sprang forth from the black mud that covered the whole Mississippi Delta when the swollen river finally slunk back to its banks in the late summer of 1927. The flood reexposed the deep racial fissures that the Delta society had worked hard to either smooth over or wish away. In the wake of the ugliness and economic upheaval, a river of rural Black people began moving north from the Delta.

day 260

Happy World Crocodile Day to all who celebrate. American Crocodile in the Tárcoles River, Costa Rica; photo taken from "Crocodile Bridge."

day 258

Smoky Mountain National Park was chartered on this day in 1934. Family visiting Smokies in 2010, a picnic along Big Creek.

day 256

William Butler Yeats born this day in 1865 and won a literature Nobel 100 years ago.
I see my life go drifting like a river
From change to change; I have been many things
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill
-Fergus & the Druid

day 254

Wren and a friend walking in Sulphur Springs 8 years ago, in South Chagrin Reservation of Cleveland Metro Parks. This is about a mile downstream from where the same creek flows through the backyard of the house I grew up in.

day 252

Happy Pride Month 2023! Rainbow at Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls) in Zambia.

day 250

Today is Global Running Day! This is a photo of WWF freshwater colleagues running at Mosi-oa-Tunya (Vic Falls) in Zambia, running in support of Mina Guli in 2019. This was a few years before her Run Blue campaign: running and water.

day 248

Mallard and ducklings in a wetland of Cape Fear River, North Carolina.

day 246

Happy World Bicycle Day! A fish investigates if it's true that "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" (Irina Dunn). River Limnat, Zurich. I visited the WWF Schweiz office in 2018 and they took me for some Limmatschwimmen for lunch! I snorkeled with fish (and a bike).

No better city for Water Year to feature for World Bicycle Day than Zurich. The WWF Schweiz
office was full of bicycles and the city full of people walking and biking to the Flussbad Oberer Letten for open swimming.

day 244

A thread on rivers and reefs and how land degradation can harm reefs, with the impact delivered via rivers. While sediment from rivers is essential to maintain deltas, and sediments & nutrients promote productivity in nearshore habitats, elevated sediment levels can negatively impact reefs.

The photo is of a river discharging sediment into coastal areas of Puerto Rico that support reefs. Sediment can smother, abrade, shade, & inhibit coral recruitment (e.g. shift toward algae). Managing land to reduce excess erosion can be essential for both rivers & reefs!

day 242

Tennessee Valley Authority was founded 90 years ago this month. TVA had huge influence on its region & global water management. A thread on this influence, through the lens of the art that TVA influenced. A photo of Luca looking at fish in Big Creek (Smokies NP) in Tennessee River watershed in 2010.

day 240

Luca and his friends playing some sort of game in the Chagrin River.

day 239

Rachel Carson was born on this day 116 years ago. Her Silent Spring raised the specter of a world with toxic water and birds silenced by eating poisoned insects, but she had another book perhaps even more relevant for today. See the photo of a Carolina Wren feeding babies a fishing spider. 

Carson also wrote "The Sense of Wonder," an invitation to adults to rekindle a relationship to rocks, water, bugs and stars they may have had once but lost somewhere along the way. Introducing a child to that lost world is the surest path back. She wrote: "A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.

I should ask that each child should receive a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years.

The sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from our source of strength." -- Rachel Carson, "The Sense of Wonder." While Silent Spring was a letter to the world that changed the world, The Sense of Wonder feels like a letter written to you.

day 237

Sunrise on Mississippi River in New Orleans CCR may have written the song, but Tina Turner gave it wings. And a jet engine. 

Big wheel keep on turning
Proud Mary keep on burning
Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river

day 235

Happy World 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗹𝗲 Day! ⁣ Photo of Wren holding a baby Cantor’s giant softshell turtle in Cambodia in 2013, part of a Conservation Organization recovery project for the turtle. Check out the New York Times blog: Hope Amid the Dams and Dangers.

day 233

Ramps season has just ended. A photo from 2016: Wren washing, in a small stream, ramps we’d just collected.

day 231

Today is Endangered Species Day.
According to he EPA: "More than one third of threatened & endangered species live only in wetlands, & nearly half use wetlands at some point in their lives." Sunset in Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (CA).

day 229

I started Water Year in response to becoming empty nesters. I've had this image (on the left) of empty Great Blue Heron nests in a rookery, symbolic of kids taking flight. But the thing about Great Blue Herons & rookeries: they come back in spring. On way to pick Luca up at airport..

day 227

Today is Luca's 21st birthday! Here's a photo of him from April, 2014 fishing for steelhead in the Chagrin River. Everything I know about fishing, I've learned from Luca!

day 225

World Migratory Bird Day 6 
Today is 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗠𝗶𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗗𝗮𝘆! A great egret in a cypress swamp. Find the link to a cute video of a spoon-billed sandpiper’s incredible journey. Will Spoonie make the finish line?

day 223

World Migratory Bird Day 4 
Fulvous whistling ducks in the Tana River delta, Kenya. Here's a short video celebrating migratory birds: "Flyways to Get Them Home."

day 221

World Migratory Bird Day 2
A great blue heron in the Chagrin River (NE Ohio). Great Blue Herons undertake long-distance migrations (e.g., from Great Lakes down to Central America & Caribbean) and depend on rivers, lakes & wetlands to hunt.

day 219

With passing of Gordon Lightfoot, I was reading up on Edmund Fitzgerald: the boat traveling with the Edmund Fitzgerald through the storm-the last to communicate with him and the boat that searched for survivors-was the Arthur Anderson. I remembered this photo I took in 2010 (Huron OH).

day 217

Last weekend was Merle Fest, an incredible music festival in North Carolina. Wren and I have gone since 2014, but, now away at college, this is first year without her! We always camp at Sewerfest on grounds of a wastewater treatment plant, a real celebration of water infrastructure!!

day 215

Singer, songwriter & activist Pete Seeger born 104 years ago today.
To My Old Brown Earth:
Guard well our human chain,
Watch well you keep it strong,
As long as sun will shine.

And this our home,
Keep pure and sweet & green,
For now I'm yours
And you are also mine

day 213

Today is 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗗𝗮𝘆! This group enjoying sunset on Lake Michigan seems very aware that the Lakes generate over $50B/year for recreation and provide drinking water to 40M people from 20% of world's freshwater.

day 211

River Art 12
Henry Church Rock along the Chagrin River in South Chagrin Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks. Church was a blacksmith, spiritualist, and artist. He carved the images in the rock around 1885.

day 209

River Art 10
Lake Erie as a Rothko painting (No. 11, 1963). The thread shows original photo, sunset on Lake Erie in June of 2012, no changes except for cropping, & then series of Rothkos based on different cropping. 

day 207

River Art 8
Left: The floodplain of the Pripyat River, Belarus (Google Earth). Right: "Gothic" by Jackson Pollock (1944). The Pripyat meanders & dances across its floodplain. A note from Pollock indicates Gothic was inspired by Picasso's "Three Dancers."

day 205

River Art 6
Temporary art installation "Wasp's Nest" by Ron Shelton along Chagrin River. Made from discarded kitty litter containers & detergent bottles; intended to express our over-use of plastic & the problem of plastics in our rivers, lakes & oceans.

day 203

River Art 4
Happy birthday Rome! The eternal city has a start date: 21 April 753 BC. Today is 2776 AUC; Ab urbe condita, "from the founding of the city" Paola's dad & the 1:250 scale model of ancient Rome in Museum of Roman Civilization, with Tiber winding through thread.

day 201

River Art 2
Kennedy Center: Raiz Campos is a brilliant graffiti artist from Brazil whose work depicts people and nature of the Amazon basin. Here is a jaguar-the most 'aquatic' of big cats-painted on a mat woven by indigenous people from fibers of a floodplain plant.

day 199

Today is 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗕𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝘆! River corridors provide essential habitat for bats with riverine productivity an important source of insect food. Mexican free-tail bat colony, Yolo Bypass, floodplain of Sacramento River.

day 197

Happy World Art Day! Rivers have long inspired art and today, art can inspire action for rivers. Kennedy Center's River Run Festival celebrates the intertwined inspiration of art & rivers. This coming week I'll feature art from the Kennedy Center. Check out my blog post about art and rivers.

day 195

Crossing to Safety Today is 30th anniversary of the passing of Wallace Stegner, a writer of a non-fiction water classic (Beyond the 100th Meridian) & novels with beautiful writing Kids crossing Wiley Creek (2008), a creek that's always a challenge to cross. Wiley Creek is a tributary to the Chagrin River. In summer you can walk through the creek; winter and spring it can be a challenge. Not sure what happened to these boulders from 2008 - sometimes we had to wade, sometimes large wood is used that spans the creek. I'm re-reading Stegner's Crossing to Safety right now, a story of friendship, career, family, & how those change with aging and the passage of time. It reads a bit differently at 52 compared to when i first read it at 28...

day 193

One of my best wildlife photos: matriarch of the Salmon River wolf pack on Vancouver Island. Just kidding, it's International Pet Day and that's Birch crossing the Chagrin River. 

day 191

Just got back from a weekend visiting Wren at college. Here's a photo from five years, Wren kayaking on Indawgyi Lake, Myanmar, one of the largest lakes in Southeast Asia.

day 189

I’ve managed to post a water-themed photo for 188 days straight & then realized it’s ten to midnight on day 189 & I better find a photo on my phone. So here’s clouds & their shadows on Lake Erie from two weeks ago. I have good excuse…it’s my birthday

day 187

Free-flowing rivers are Born to Run. I saw Bruce Springsteen in 2009. I had just started writing about conservation & wrote one of my 1st posts about what we can learn from Springsteen. Luca posed for the photo. 14 years later Luca & I are going to Springsteen tonight!

day 185

Our 1st civilizations arose in river valleys as people learned to plant crops in rich soil left behind from centuries of floods. More than crops emerged: so did art & culture. The Kennedy Center celebrates that story with RiverRun Festival. RiverRun is a festival celebrating "the world’s rivers, the cultures they have spawned, & their role as life-sustaining and art-inspiring arteries that course through our planet."

day 183

Setting the nets, Mekong River, Laos. Rivers are central to the food, culture and art of people all over the world. On Tuesday, the Kennedy Center kicks of the RiverRun festival. The River Run festival celebrates "the world’s rivers, the cultures they have spawned, and their role as life-sustaining and art-inspiring arteries that course through our planet."

The Mekong will be featured on April 7. "In Mekong: SOUL, Emmy Award®–winning musician Vân-Ánh Võ, composer Jonathan Berger, & the Apollo Chamber Players tell three powerful and multi-sensory stories about life on the Mekong River of Southeast Asia."

My take in Forbes on the long history of rivers inspiring art and how, at this crucial time, art can inspire action for rivers. Art, Culture, And Food: A River Runs Through Them
 

day 181

It's Opening Day for baseball, one of the sure signs that Spring is here, or at least trying hard to get here. Luca working on his fastball along the Tiber River in Rome, 2010.

day 179

On day 179 of Water Year we mark 179th anniversary of founding of Chagrin Falls, OH in March, 1844. I've been taking photos of the High Falls on Chagrin River for 16 of those years, showing its changing beauty over the seasons & also...hydrological variability.

day 177

Happy 99th birthday to Hocking Hills State Park - the most visited park in Ohio. The first purchase of land for the park was in 1924; somewhere I read it was on March 26, but can't find that again! Waterfall at Ash Cave.

day 175

It's National Puppy Day. But what kind of world will this puppy grow up in? A world with healthier rivers & wetlands due to the Freshwater Challenge launched yesterday at the UN Water Conference!

day 173

On World Water Day we celebrate people who run for rivers because rivers run for people. We celebrate the work to keep rivers connected & to repair & reconnect where we can & we celebrate the power of water to help us stay connected to each other & to what matters.

day 171

Day 5 of biggest World Water Run ever. It's also World Frog Day! Among all aquatic animals (<500 g weight division), I'd guess frogs are the fastest runners. Join Mina Guli & 1000s of people (& frogs) across the world for World Water Run.

day 169

Day 3 of biggest World Water Run ever when running in Rome in 2018. Clearly a running photo, but how is it a freshwater photo? Those are the Baths of Caracalla behind her; built around 210 CE, they were Rome's 2nd largest public baths, fed by the 91 km Acqua Marcia.

day 167

Today is Day 1 of the biggest World Water Run ever (Mar 16-22). Add your voice (and kms!) to global call for action next week at the UN Water Conference. 4 years ago, the WWF freshwater Africa team was running for water at the Mosi-oa-Tunya (Vic Falls). 

day 165

Journey of Water 10

Today is the Day of Actions for Rivers. This Journey has focused on water as an essential resource that comes from nature. But too easy to think of water as *just* a resource, a commodity measured by volume. In the form of a river, diverse other values emerge. Rivers aren't just flows of water, they are also flows of sediment; silt & sand carried by rivers build & maintain deltas, home to 500 million people & crucially important agricultural regions. Rivers build land, crucial for adapting to climate change; Amazon & Nile deltas. Rivers that remain connected to floodplains are vitally important for reducing flood risk. Through their water, sediment, nutrients & habitat, rivers directly support nearly 1/3 of all food produced on the planet. Oceans have 10,000 times more water by volume...but rivers & other freshwater habitats have more fish species! Oceans have 10,000 times more water by volume...but rivers & other freshwater habitats support about 40% of all fish production (capture & aquaculture combined). And of course river water is essential as a resource that can be measured by volume, providing drinking water to 2 billion people. Photos show a river in Catskills, part of NYC water system that provides drinking water to nearly 10 million people. Today is also International Butterfly Day, so let's remember that rivers aren't just important for aquatic species, they also provide habitat and movement corridors for terrestrial animals, from butterflies to elephants. Rivers and muddy waters create land. But rivers and Muddy Waters also created rock and roll. The Mississippi flood of 1927 was a major driver of the Great Migration of black people from rural south to cities such as Chicago. The delta blues also traveled north and...in Chicago, the delta blues got plugged in and became the Chicago Blues (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf & others). Rock ‘n’ roll is a big river w/ many tributaries, but its true heart may be the primal beat & yearning soul of the electrified Delta Blues. All of these values of rivers--food source, resource for risk reduction & climate adaptation, biodiversity powerhouse, cultural foundation--are described in our report Valuing Rivers.
 

day 164

Journey of Water 9

The jourey of water is not just source to sea. Like me flying back to Ohio from NYC, water also makes a round trip, flying sea to source in the form of clouds and landing as precipitation - as I could see from airplane window taking off from NYC.

day 162

Journey of Water 7

Broodstock oysters that support aquaculture on Long Island, NY. If they don't evaporate, the journey of most water molecules on land ends in the sea. Clean freshwater flowing into bays & estuaries is essential for productive coastal fisheries. 

DAY 160

Journey of Water 5

Glass eels (aka babies coming from Sargasso Sea) collected at a fish ladder on Richmond Creek, Staten Island, part of NYC Water Blue Belt which combines nature based solutions for stormwater management with restoration & public access to nature.

DAY 158

Journey of water 3

New York City water starts in "forever wild" forests & well-managed land, flows to reservoirs & then down 100s of miles of tunnels & aqueducts to reach the taps of nearly 10 million people &, crucially, every day, millions of bagels & pizza crusts.

DAY 156

Journey of Water 1

Our journey started high in the Catskills of NY. This crystal clear stream will be in New York City faucets in a few months. It's the largest unfiltered water system in U.S. Why? Dedication to healthy land, soils & forests at the source.

DAY 154

Today is World Wildlife Day. Rivers aren't only important for aquatic wildlife, they also provide crucial habitat and migratory corridors for terrestrial wildlife, such as these elephants following the Zambezi in Zambia

DAY 152

7 Wonders of the Water World -  #8 Your Local River

Turns out that if you count up the 7 wonders of the ancient world, you get to 8. So the 7 wonders of the water world also has 8, and the 8th is whatever stream, river, pond, lake or wetland near to you.

Day 150

7 Wonders of the Water World - #6 Freshwater systems of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).

Freshwater systems are crucial for terrestrial wildlife! KAZA features iconic freshwater systems & amazing wildlife, which depend on the water. At 520,000 km2, KAZA is roughly the size of France and 50x the size of Yellowstone National Park, spanning territory across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It encompasses iconic water features: the Okavango Delta, the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls.

Day 148

7 Wonder of the Water World: #4 Springs, caverns & groundwater of Texas

Freshwater is essential but often hidden and overlooked! Groundwater provides 55% of water used in Texa; like much of the world, that groundwater is declining, threatening supplies & unique ecosystems.

Photos are from Jacob's Well near Wimberley, Texas. Artesian spring in karst geology of Texas hill country; cave is 40 m deep. Flow was once so strong it pushed 2m into air & never went dry. Due to regional water extraction, flow much diminished & has gone dry 5 times since 2000.

Day 146

7 Wonders of the Water World: #2 Iguazú Falls

Rivers are awe-inspiring! Rivers provide water, but they can also take your breath away. Between Argentina (Cataratas del Iguazú) and Brazil (Cataratas do Iguaçu), this is the largest waterfall system in the world. The name Iguazú comes from the Guarani or Tupi words "y", meaning "water", and "ûasú "[waˈsu], meaning "big".

Day 144

Anthony Hurford proposed a "7 Wonders of the Water World" series. I'll try with hese caveats:

1. rules of Water year + has to be my photo, so wonders limited to where I've been
2. just my brainstorm = not definitive; offer your list!

Starting tomorrow on Day 145

 

Day 142

Don't call it debris, ChatGPT! I asked ChatGPT about trees & stream habitat.

GPT: Trees provide large woody debris etc
Me: Isn't 'debris' a pejorative term?
GPT: You are correct, how about large woody material?

Photo of wood & complex habitat, Chagrin River, Ohio, USA

Day 140

Tourists at the confluence where two rivers form the Irrawaddy in Myanmar, just above canceled Myitsone hydropower dam.

IRENA report just called for doubling global hydropower, which would have devastating impacts around the globe - and is unnecessary. See what a doubling of hydropower would mean, including damming the Irrawaddy, in my Twitter thread

Day 138

It’s World Hippos Day! Hippos in Zambezi River, Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia, 2009.

My first time seeing hippos in wild - or any of the big wildlife of Africa; just incredible to see.

Day 136

A green heron in the mangrove forest of Sian Kaʼan Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. Photo taken in 2010 on a trip w/ my sister and her family; my kids & their cousins found jaguar tracks in forest near our little cabins.

Day 134

Wren studying benthic ecology, Chagrin River 2013 Today is International Day of Women & Girls in Science! Check out this inspiring video from WWF Science: interviews with WWF's Women in Science sharing why they love being a scientist.
 

Day 132

Five years ago, Luca on a boat leaving Shwe Myitzu Pagoda, the "floating pagoda" of Indawgyi Lake in Myanmar, one of the largest lakes in Southeast Asia. My blog post in Forbes about Indawgyi Lake, fisheries and hydropower in Myanmar.

Day 130

Jacob's Well near Wimberley, TX. Artesian spring in karst geology of Texas hill country; cave is 40 m deep. Flow was once so strong it pushed 2m into air & never went dry. Due to regional water extraction, flow much diminished & has gone dry 5 times since 2000. Efforts are underway to protect recharge zones and manage water, but the surrounding region is undergoing dramatic growth. Fish swimming near surface are mostly sunfish, but deep in the cave are cave-adapted crustaceans and the Fern Bank salamander (Eurycea pterophilia) This report prepared for@txst has great info and photos.
 

Day 128

Fly on, little wing.
Jimi, Stevie

Stevie Ray Vaughan statue along Lady Bird Lake (the Colorado River of Texas) in Austin.

Day 126

Birch crossing Wiley Creek in a blizzard. She turns 12 this month, still tough as nails.

Day 124

Today is birthday of 2 great writers of powerful reflections on rivers: Langston Hughes (1901 -1967) and Jason Isbell (b. 1979).

Hughes wrote "A Negro Speaks of Rivers" when he was 17 after he crossed the Mississippi while traveling from his home in Cleveland Ohio to visit his father who was living in Mexico. Published in 1921 in The Crisis, it marks start of his literary career. 99 years later Jason Isbell  wrote "Rivers," a beautiful merging of various strands of American river songs, a confluence of the tributary of somber songs, rivers as crime scenes & disasters, with a tributary of celebration, of rivers of healing & solace.

Day 122

Luca @ an ice wall near Chagrin River in 2008. Just rocks today at the end of January, 2023. Other worrying signs, including snowfall in Ohio is near record lows; only 9 inches so far for Cleveland compared to an average of 28 inches that normally falls by late January. And Great Lakes ice cover is also near historic lows. Ice covers only 0.06% of Lake Erie, typically it's 50% covered this time of year. New York City just broke record for latest measurable snowfall (previous record was January 29, 1973) and will soon break record for longest stretch without snow (332 days, set in Dec. 2020) - and no snow in 10-day forecast...

"Enjoy the weather but worry for the climate" - Jesse Jenkins.

 

Day 120

A saddle-billed stork flies low over the Zambezi River in Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia (taken in 2009). A huge wading bird: can reach height of nearly 5 feet (150 cm) & feeds on aquatic prey such as fish, mollusks, frogs, and crustaceans.

Day 118

Last night was Burns night, so a toast to Robert Burns (b. 1759) - the national poet of Scotland and called by some "nature's bard" for his frequent use of nature imagery

Among the heathy hills & ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds.

Full poem, "Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch-Ness," at this link

The image of whisky bottles was from Singleton Whisky from Glen Ord distillery in Muir of Ord, Scotland.

Day 116

𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻! Some of the best education kids can get is time in nature; streams & rivers are some of the most effective classrooms. Luca nets a crayfish while Wren observes those they already caught. Photos are from 2009; a decade later, they both worked stories of time spent in rivers into their college application essays. Note...no crayfish were harmed during the 'lesson'.

Day 114

Snowy Sunday along the Chagrin River.

Day 112

Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be
And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go
Wooden Ships, David Crosby (1941-2023)

Ship crossing Lake Geneva @ Montreux

Day 110

55 years ago, Ohio became perhaps the world’s first government to legislate a system of protected rivers: Ohio Wild and Scenic Rivers preceded Federal Wild & Scenic legislation by 10 months. Grand River was the second protected river, 49 years ago this week.

This is Luca kayaking on the Grand last summer.

Day 108

Happy 19th birthday Wren!

Dropped her off at airport this morning as she heads back to school & the nest - after a month bursting at the seams - is empty once again. Photo is Wren 10.5 years ago in the Chagrin River

Day 106

With heavy rain, its bank do fill,
As the river churns and flows.
When it snows it’s prettier still,
Yet the channel is locked and froze.
But hard rain overtaken by winter chill,
Then you can see both flows and fresh snow.

Chagrin River in Chagrin Falls OH

Day 104

Flooded Yolo Bypass (2004). Bypass is 60,00 acres of floodplain connected to the Sacramento River, which conveys floodwaters during biggest events, such as what is hitting California now. "Extreme events" are #2 on World Economic Forum's list of biggest global risks. Floodplains can help!

Bypass also provides productive habitat for native fish & birds. Juvenile salmon grow faster on the bypass than in the river. But wait, there's even more... The Bypass also provides groundwater recharge, "capturing" some of the floodwater flowing towards he sea & storing it for later use. Also provides wildlife habitat (including the largest colony of Mexican free-tailed bats in California), hunting and recreation, and open space in rapidly urbanizing area.

Day 102

My Dad turns 80 today! And my daughter turns 19 in a few days.

Here they are approximately 19 years ago in the beautiful canyon of the South Yuba River.

Day 100

Kids playing in the Mekong River in a village in Laos upstream of Luang Prabang (2012). The Mekong Monitor recently tweeted images showing construction underway on the Luang Prabang dam, which would turn this stretch of river into a long reservoir - and have major impacts downstream on people and nature.

Day 98

Today is National Bean Day! And while I think they probably mean the legume, I'll take this chance to showcase my little dog, Bean, in some big water. Here he is riding a raft on Lake Erie.

Day 96

5 yrs ago we took a trip down the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar and got to see cooperative fishing between river dolphins & fishermen (& women). Read by blog in Forbes on the river dolphins & how the renewable revolution can reduce hydropower risk to the Irrawaddy - and its most iconic species.

Day 94

152 years ago this week, floodwaters were still receding in Rome from the "Great Flood" of December 29, 1870. Luca standing below the line marking the flood height on wall of Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which also shows other historic floods.

All across Rome, plaques and lines marking the height of historic floods can be seen...
https://www.prphbooks.com/blog/tiber
 

Day 92

Let's raise a glass to rivers in 2023!

Happy New Year!

Day 90

Ten years ago today, first swim in the Mekong. Read my blog post in the New York Times on the beginning of that trip.

Day 88

10 years ago, on our family trip down Mekong, Wren and I saw the sad sight of an Irrawaddy dolphin that drowned when tangled in fishing lines (I wrote an NY Times blog about this). Recent deaths of 3 more of these critically endangered river dolphins in Cambodia highlight need for urgent action on freshwater ecosystems and species. There were only 89 river dolphins in 2020 so immediate action is needed to halt “recent increase in illegal fishing activities in dolphin conservation areas”. Here's another NY Times blog of mine on WWF-Cambodia's effortst to protect and restore river doplhins.

 

Day 86

Merry Christmas! First photo was before the big storm and cold temperatures hit the US. Here’s one afterwards - from yesterday. Both photos are of the Chagrin River in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

Day 84

On the first day of rivers, My true love gave to me... A kingfisher in a thorn tree.
Two river dolphins. Three crocodiles. Four baby gators...
Five waterfalls. Six salmon spawning. Seven Ibis feeding...
Eight water striders. Nine storks a flying. Ten hippos wading..
Eleven bee eaters flapping. And twelve ducks a rising!
 

Day 82

Happy Winter Solstice for the northern hemisphere as the sun sets into the longest night of the year - but each day will be longer starting tomorrow. Frozen falls of a tiny tributary of the Chagrin River (NE Ohio)

Day 80

Victoria Falls, Zambia. Massive floodplains & wetlands upstream of the Falls act like a sponge, slowing wet season flows and ensuring dry season flows for downstream hydropower. My new series on Nature-based Solutions for water & climate challenges in Africa starts today.

Read it here in Forbes - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffopperman/2022/12/19/waterways-to-resilience-a-series-on-nature-based-solutions-for-water-and-climate-challenges-in-africa/?sh=5611ce2c7a95

Day 78

111 years ago this week, the National Association for Preventing the Pollution of Rivers & Waterways called for cities to treat sewage before dumping it in rivers. My daughter, Wren paddles on the Potomac; before cleanup it was called "too thick to drink but too thin to plow...”

Modern wastewater treatment for the DC region began in the 1950s and since then the Potomac has become a recreational and aesthetic resource. Although, like many older cities, combined sewers still lead to sewage flowing directly into rivers during heavy rainstorms. Investments and projects still underway to deal with that remaining challenge.

Day 76

Congratulations to Argentina for making the World Cup final. Aquí están las Cataratas del Iguazú - Iguazu Falls on the Argentine side, part of the largest waterfall system in the world.

Day 74

Please picture me
In the trees
I hit my peak at seven feet
In the swing..
But I, I was high in the sky..
Are there still beautiful things?

Lyrics by Taylor Swift, whose birthday it is today. And the photo is a 7-year-old Wren swinging over Lake Erie. Read my essay in New York Times on Taylor Swift and nature
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/opinion/taylor-swift-grammys-nature-lyrics.html

Day 72

Today is International Mountain Day. Mountains matter for many reasons, including they are often the birthplace of rivers. Here a stream begins its journey by flowing out of a lake high in Rocky Mountains, Colorado

Day 70

The Great Lakes Compact went into effect on this day in 2008. Here's Luca & a buddy boogie boarding on Lake Erie eight months later. The Great Lakes hold 6 quadrillion gallons - about 20% of all the freshwater in the world. The Compact is between 8 states that border the lakes.

The compact is the means by which the states implement their commitments under the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement, which also includes Ontario & Quebec.

Day 68

121 years ago this week, in his first address to Congress, President Teddy Roosevelt stressed the crucial value of water & forests, adding: "The water supply itself depends upon the forest."

Luca & Wren in Austin Creek, California - just two tiny kids on a huge forest log above a river

Day 66

O Jogo Bonito. For The Beautiful Game here's a photo of 3 beautiful things, which evoke today's game at the World Cup between Brazil & South Korea - Iguassu Falls, Brazil with an "88" butterfly with colors of the Korean flag: black, red, blue & (sorta) white.

Day 64

With the US men's football team playing the Netherlands today in the 2022 World Cup, here’s a canal in the Dutch city of Utrecht in February 2020. Utrecht is the closest city to the WWF-Netherlands office.

Day 62

A Carolina wren, a songbird commonly found along streams.
"To you, I'll give the world
To you, I'll never be cold
'Cause I feel that when I'm with you
It's alright, I know it's right
And the songbirds are singing"
By Christine McVie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-krIa41I_NI

Day 60

The 2022 World Cup is in a very dry place so here is a 2018 photo of the WWF Freshwater Practice gathering together for our global meeting....in a very dry place: Wadi Wurayah, one of only places with flowing water in the United Arab Emirates.

Day 58

Ohio and Michigan share the greatest rivalry in US college (American) football. They also share Lake Erie. Michigan might have beaten Ohio yesterday on the field but the Lake Erie shoreline score is: Ohio: 500 km, Michigan 52 km.

Day 56

US plays England today in the World Cup! Reminded me of my trips to London. So here's a photo of the River Thames on an unseasonably warm February day in 2019 (another "enjoy the weather, fear for the climate" kind of day). Go USMNT!!
 

Day 54

Luca & his little helper after a big day walleye fishing in Quebec, 2015. Three reasons for the photo: 1. Luca is home for Thanksgiving 2. The First Thanksgiving relied on an abundance of food from lakes and rivers 3. Canada is in soccer World Cup for 1st time in 46 years!

Day 52

On World Fisheries Day remember that freshwater fisheries provide food for 200 million & livelihoods for 60 million people. Luca with novice monks at a fishing camp at Khone Falls on the Mekong river near the Laos-Cambodia border.

Day 50

Today is World Toilet Day. This is a riverside latrine in a rural village in western Sichuan, China back in 2005. China has made dramatic progress in providing access to improved sanitation. But the world is still way off track and major progress is still needed in much of world: globally, 3.6 billion still lack access to safely managed sanitation.

Day 48

Nature-based Solutions featured for climate adaptation at COP27. Floodplains are NBS with multiple benefits: flood-risk reduction, habitat (e.g., for Sandhill cranes), ecotourism (to see Sandhill cranes, below). Wren shows not everyone loves multi-benefit floodplains!

Day 46

It's Nature-based Solutions (NbS) Day at the Water4Climate pavilion at COP27. 11 years ago, Luca & I recorded a video for The Nature Conservancy on  on how forest soils absorb water to reduce floods & increase water quality (next tweet). Has been seen 13,000 times, including by his 9th grade class, much to his Chagrin!

Day 44

Yesterday was Neil Young's 77th bday, one of best singers at integrating nature in lyrics:
Blue, blue windows behind the stars
Yellow moon on the rise
Big birds flying across the sky
Throwing shadows on our eyes
Leave us
Helpless, helpless, helpless

Photo of my kids in North Ontario 2009
 

Day 42

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. (the leaves are gone)

Day 40

Holding a juvenile chinook salmon reared in an enclosure on floodplain of Cosumnes (CA). Not quite Zeb Hogan with a Mekong giant catfish. But shows how reconnecting floodplains = bigger and more fish (helping to reverse nature loss and bend the biodiversity curve upwards), healthier wetlands & less risk for people. And that's how the photo at the top right links to three global conferences (see Day 39).

Day 38

75 years ago this week, Marjory Stoneman Douglas published "The Everglades: River of Grass." That same year the Everglades National Park was established. This is a scan of a 1998 photo that I took while slowly paddling away from huge gator encountered in a mangrove tunnel.

Day 36

Critical Ramsar Convention on Wetlands COP14 is underway. Over last 20 years, WWF has helped countries protect wetlands totaling an area roughly twice the size of Spain! Here’s a Marsh Wren in a wetland along Roanoke River.

Day 34

More on Tonle Sap - a huge lake in Cambodia that fills each year from the Mekong river. This looks like a sunset photo of wetland vegetation? Well it is sort of..those are tree tops! Each wet season, the area of the lake increases by 3-5 times while is depth rises by between 2-8 m. I took this photo from a floating research station where I spent the night in 2013.

Day 32

Fall at the Falls. Chagrin Falls on the Chagrin River (northeast Ohio). The town of Chagrin Falls was built based on water power, with 11 dams & multiple factories along the river (including my backyard). Now only 2 remain.

Day 30

Happy Halloween! A mayfly emerges from the Chagrin River. Here Wren clearly had been rummaging through the costume bin as she decided that ruby slippers and fairy wings were the right combo for a hike.

Day 28

Double-Decker Falls of the Chagrin River in the South Chagrin Reservation, near sunset. I've been visiting this spot since I was a little kid. Have a relaxing weekend.

Day 26

Luca & I near Horseshoe Bend of Colorado River back in 2009. More than 300 river miles downstream is Hoover Dam. On this day in 1936, its hydropower turbines first generated electricity. At 2 GW, it was the biggest hydropower dam in world until 1948. Now its power generation is dropping due to drought.

Day 24

Happy World River Dolphin Day 2022! I took these photos of Irrawaddy Dolphins in the Mekong in 2013 on a trip down the river with my family. See my article in the New York Times about these extraordinary dolphins and that remarkable trip.

https://archive.nytimes.com/scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/a-vital-river-drained-of-wildlife/

Day 22

Today is 71st birthday of The Nature Conservancy, where I got my start in freshwater conservation. Here are my 2015 TNC Freshwater team colleagues in Utah above the Colorado River at sunset.

Day 20

Today is a rainy, chilly fall day and the Chagrin River is running high.

Day 17

A temple and bridge over the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar.

Day 15

WWF's Living Planet Report 2022 shows greatest decline in species populations is among those that depend on freshwater habitats, incl. fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Overall, there has been an 83% fall in freshwater species populations since 1970 - basically over my lifetime. You can download the report at: https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-US/

The photos is one I snapped of a Juvenile white ibisin Corkscrew swamp in Florida.

Day 13

BREAKING: Living Planet Report shows vertebrate population's have declined by 69% on average since 1970. Monitored freshwater populations have dropped by an average of 83%, largest decline of any species group. Here's a photo of mine of a Gharial in Nepal

Day 11

In a waterfall in the Chagrin River (northeast Ohio). My son, Luca, is now two inches taller than I am.

Day 10

Today is World Mental Healhty Day.

Research supports that time in nature improves mental health; "blue spaces" such as rivers & lakes are particularly effective. More parks in cities is key for equitable access.

Day 8

It's World Migratory Bird Day (October 8). Rivers, floodplains and wetlands are the crucial stopovers for migrating birds. Here's a photo I took of a Chinese pond heron along the Mekong River in Cambodia.

Day 6

Getting unstuck and underway. Men pushing a passenger boat off the bank of the Mekong River downstream of Huay Xai, Laos, December 2012.

Day 4

This project was prompted by my wife and I becoming empty nesters this year after our youngest child headed off to university. But on #WorldAnimalDay I'm reminded that we've still got canine kids at home. Here's Birch in the Chagrin River, making the point that animals love water!

Day 2

The Water Year's timing might appear idiosyncratic, but it actually makes total sense. Here in the western US, it starts when the rain starts to fall in Fall (or autumn for those of you reading this outside of North America), flows into winter when the snows come, runs off in spring and is used in summer - helping to plan how best to manage this essential but scarce resource.

But this diary project also celebrates another scarce resource: time with kids. Like fishing with my son in Dinkey Creek, California.