Blogs We're Liking

How good it feels to use the royal we on a cold and sleety Tuesday—it does wonders for the immune system!

Our friend, The Brooklyn Bachelor, has launched a terrific new urban beekeeping blog called BQE Keeper, and we highly recommend you pay a visit ASAP.

Also happy to have recently discovered Local Ecologist, a very nice blog on "near and far encounters with the local and ecological." This blog is currently hosting the latest episode of the Festival of the Trees blog carnival, and our When Trees Have Faces post is included in the latest roundup of cool essays and photos on all things arboreal.

A Tidewater Gardener is another new find, and we're inspired by the detailed photos and thoughtful writings on gardening, landscapes, and related themes by "an unapologetic plant geek" in Virginia.

That's what we're reading over here at GSH this week—what blogs have inspired or excited you of late?

Humans to Trees: Drop Dead

This from an article in the New York Times entitled, Environment Blamed in Western Tree Deaths:

"Rising temperatures and the resulting drought are causing trees in the Western United States to die off at more than twice the pace they did a few decades ago, a new study has found."

Of course, the environmental issues contributing to the trees' problems—drought, rising temperatures, extended summer weather—might just possibility have something to do with human behavior. So I'd have framed the headline somewhat differently; it seems the environment is being wrongly accused here.

When Trees Have Faces...

...One can (like Dorothy) get a little creeped out walking in the woods. Here are some of my local players on the facially-inclined tree front.
If you like these, check out Trees of Halloween.

And talking of trees, here's my favorite arboreal cyber-thingy, Festival of Trees.

Botanical Convergences

Wren and I were amused to find this bit of botanical signage on our walk in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Sunday afternoon. So weirdly election-y!
It's quite a lovely tree, in spite of its name. The iPhone camera gave it this warm, buttery, 19th-c. treatment.

Trees=Bees

Well, not exactly, but trees do equal: oxygen production; food and habitat for insects, birds, mammals, and other creatures; beauty; life; forests; planetary well-being; shade; totemic symbolism; real-world awesomeness; forage for bees and other pollinators; sanctuary; and more.

Tropical forests, in particular, can be described as the "lungs" of the earth, converting vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the oxygen on which we all depend. The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is one such "lung"—and it's in deep trouble now, having been deforested to within an inch of its life.

The Nature Conservancy—one of the best environmental groups I know of—has launched a campaign to save the Atlantic forest through a massive effort that will result in the planting of 1 billion trees in this ecologically important forest.

I've been a card-carrying member of the Nature Conservancy for many years, and I am continually impressed by their good and important work. In that spirit, I'm inviting the readers of Global Swarming Honeybees to join me in planting 100 trees in this vast reforestation effort. $1 plants 1 tree. How's that for a bargain?!

Every dollar raised through this site will be matched by an anonymous donor (me). Sign on now (or learn more) using the link below. And thanks.

"What have I done but wander with my eyes in the trees?"—Allen Ginsberg (from "A Desolation")

Cross-pollination with Festival of the Trees

Very excited to have had my photo of a freewheeling caterpillar accepted for the recent Festival of The Trees blog carnival, a most engaging project. The picture chosen by FOT is part of a series featured in my Nature is an Art Gallery post in early Aug.