Summer 2003

The day starts early for forester Jim Villeponteaux. Long before sunrise, he piles chainsaws, pruning saws, propane torches, and other tools into a 1985 Chevy Suburban nicknamed the “crummy.”

Predator and prey species shape each other. As Robinson Jeffers put it: “What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine/ The fleet limbs of the antelope?” (Actually, if it was the pronghorn antelope he had in mind, it appears that the tooth in question belonged to a long-extinct North American cheetah, but that’s another story.)

After all these years, my carpenteria is blooming! Let’s hear it for delayed gratification. Carpenteria californica is also called “bush anemone.”

Two years ago a team of zealots and environmental extremists from the Ecology Center and City of Berkeley staff prowled the pre-dawn streets of Berkeley, randomly hijacking garbage from the cans of the city’s sleeping residents.

Given the pressures of our consumer culture, it’s important to take stock of our buying habits. Decisions about if and when to buy something are usually more important than how we will dispose of it — but that’s easy to forget.