LAND IS A BIT DELICIOUS

Landscaping season is in full throttle. The holes poked in my fingers from pulling out invasive blackberry tendrils will tell you that they are not that happy about it, but my eyes delighted while walking along flowering, garden-lined streets will say otherwise. Today we are talking about how we (and other fauna) mold the land around us.

Rivers and Roads

But first…

The last few weeks spent in the soccer rivals of the northwest, Seattle and Portland, were stuffed with delectable treats.

We ran the tourist’s gamut of activities in Seattle including riding with our car across Puget Sound on a ferry, stopping by Pikes Place fish market, seeing the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit, and eating in the international district. We stayed in a very cute Hipcamp that was a converted shed turned tiny home in someone’s backyard. Complete with a loft bed, a urine-separating composting toilet, and two mini Pac-Man machines, this place was easily my favorite cheap city stay thus far.

After our two days in the city, we camped nearby in the Snoqualmie Pass. This is the closest dispersed camping to the city and though it was rainy when we were there, the area is absolutely beautiful. It is a giant mountainous playground full of hidden surprises such as 100-year-old abandoned timber trucks. The Washington Discovery Pass, a year-long pass to the state parks and tons of campgrounds across WA’s Department of Natural Resource lands, allowed us to camp in every corner of the state and is a must-get if planning a road trip to the state.

The first day we arrived in Portland we visited 4 different Asian grocery stores on a quest to find Pad Thai ingredients and an elusive spicy bean curd snack that changed my life a couple of years ago and may or may not be banned from import into the US (for unknown reasons). I have asked about this snack in about 18 different Asian grocery stores over our travels and finally, one store clerk in Portland adamantly shook his head and said “Illegal” when I showed him a picture of what I was looking for. Very curious. That would explain why it has been so hard to find. But that would not explain why I could buy it by the boatload in State College, PA, and why I then proceeded to find it in the final international store we visited in Portland.

One day, I will hopefully know the truth about this snack. And though our visit to the Pacific Northwest was filled with a lot of consumption, my dream is to learn how to make this spicy bean curd snack and then sell it as “bef jerkie”, the delicious vegetarian alternative to beef jerky. Gas stations across America get ready. As they say… If you build it, they will come.

Hot Topic

THE LANDS THEY ARE A CHANGIN’

Speaking of building… we are some powerful beings—always molding the land to fit our needs.

It is hard to conceptualize how much we have changed our surroundings. Many of you might know how much I love maps. I can stare at them for hours noticing new things and committing to memory relative locations. But a map is a snapshot. It doesn’t show you how things have changed over time.

Put multiple maps together and you can see change. That is the beauty of this Google Earth Engine. It allows us to see how the land has changed since 1984 (much has happened in the last 40 years!). Compare:

• Las Vegas, NV & Louisville, KY — both of which have experienced over a doubling in size between 2000 and 2020

• Elwah River Dam removal in Washington & Three Gorges Dam built in China (which is now waning in its dam construction)

• Humptulips, Washington, USA & Ariquemes, State of Rondônia, Brazil — both of which show deforestation, but one allows the trees to grow back for (relatively) sustainable lumber production, and the other leads to permanent land use change.

I have spent many hours bouncing around the world and watching cities grow. But, the fact that this collection of maps only goes back to 1984 is limiting because we do not see the dramatic land use change that occurred before then. We do not see the deforestation around Louisville, KY before it turned to to small farms and then was urbanized. What is happening in Brazil is a tale as old as people changing forests into farms. With great power to change land fast, comes great responsibility to intentionally limit our sprawl and use our technology to productively and deliberately use up less space.

I love how the World Resources Institute frames our roadmap to sharing our limited lands. By producing more food on existing agricultural land, protecting remaining ecosystems from conversion or degradation, reducing demand for land-intensive goods, and restoring as much altered land into diverse ecosystems, we can all help undo some of the damage we have done by changing things faster than ecosystems can sustain.

Check out this map to see how land use around you has changed. And then start with your yard. Why do we have flat lawns, when nature almost always originally grew in three dimensions? How can we add native plant diversity back into the spaces we directly control?

Portland, OR was the first city we have visited in the past three years that felt like nature and urban living were almost harmonious. Some entire neighborhoods had no lawns. Every front yard was filled with trees, vegetables, fruits, flowers, and leafy things all mixed together. If they needed a lawn, they could go to a park.

Things You Didn’t Notice

WORMIES

Did you know that there are no native worms living in the northern part of the United States? I always thought worms were a healthy part of forest ecosystems and were the resident decomposers. But NO. Though many worms have evolved and survived in the southern portion of the country, New Jersey to Illinois and then up to South Dakota all froze over about 30,000 years ago and resulted in forests that are not adapted to worms.

That was until we started shipping them around the country. Worms move incredibly slowly, so we have not seen the species from the south travel north on their own. But one invasive species, in particular, is posing a threat to northern forest soils—the jumping worm (Amynthas agrestis). Because these worms exert a lot of energy by wildly thrashing around, they also consume the top layer of soil faster than any other worm. Native plants cannot keep up. Many of their seeds get eaten and the plants are not equipped to grow in the finely ground soil left behind by these worms.

If you are a home composter or gardener, it is important to look out for these jumping worms. Other species pose less of a threat because of their inability to survive cold winters. Red wigglers (E. fetida and E. andrei), seem to be a good choice of composting worm because of their minimal threat of spreading in non-native environments. There is mixed data about the impact of other worms, such as the European nightcrawlers (E. hortensis), and the main advice is to use them within a yard or compost, but avoid introducing them into natural forest areas (by dumping unused bait). Many worms are called nightcrawlers or red wigglers, so here are a few references with the Latin names and differentiations. Nightcrawlers and jumping worms look similar so here are the two side by side:

Turns out, we are not the only ones changing the land. The worms are up to something.

Refresh

• Health: There is a deep hidden world of tofu. It is shrinking as people get richer, buy more meat, and traditions get lost. But this article explores the tip of the iceberg in a genre of culinary gastronomy that is largely unknown to the West.

• Mentality: No yard, no problem! Taking care of houseplants makes us all better, happier people.

• Transportation: Looking to float around the Atlantic Ocean? Your trip might look a little different and Europe might feel a little colder in the future as the Atlantic circulating current is slowing down. Listen to what that means here.

• Household: Spicy bean curd might not sound all that enticing, but I promise it is so delicious, with a savory and spicy beef jerky-meets-string cheese texture. But it is so hard to find in Asian grocery stores. Someone, please teach me how to make these because the legality of importing them into the US is questionable. (Please tell me if you know why they might be banned)

• Community: Why would anyone steal a tree? Tree poaching is a unique crime because it is often committed by those who long for everything trees represent—stability and ”deep-rooted underpinnings of home”.

Mouthwatering

KOMBUCHA

Warm weather only intensifies my cravings for this delightful beverage. It pains me to buy $5 bottles of Kombucha at the grocery store when you can make it at home so easily. Prior to living on the road, I had a personal kombucha factory going on in the house, and you can too with your own SCOBY!

What is a SCOBY you ask? It is not the forename of the ghoul-hunting dog but rather a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. It is also not as intimidating as it sounds.

Ingredients:

• Water

• Black tea bags

• Sugar

• Starter kombucha (can be unpasteurized, unfiltered kombucha from the store)

• (later) Fruit for flavoring

It is easy as long as you do not forget about your SCOBY in the closet underneath your stairs for months.

Game Time

NYT MINI

I have been on a roll with completing the daily mini crossword—a low barrier to entry, speed-based crossword puzzle challenge.

Download the New York Times Games App and join my leaderboard to see if you can beat me! Which you probably will. I am not fast. But I try very hard to be.