choosing to make a difference

i love ginger's idea below about rewarding desired behavior if anyone does have any ideas on how a program like that might work (send in pics of opp collected?, btd ambassadors handing out tokens when they see someone doing extra scooping?) please leave a comment or send me an email at idswissy@yahoo.com

here's the opp (and trash- water bottle, power bar wrapper, energy gel packet) that i chose to pick up today. and i do feel much better knowing that the trail is cleaner. this from the trash can at the top of the pond loop to the one by the water "towers".
and these (tho i told myself i was going to stop there, i didn't) from that trash can to the one where chickadee ridge comes down.
it was a beautiful morning. nice & quiet. and the light is just fabulous this time of year.

i guess i never looked close enough at sagebrush to realize that there's a bloom. the bigger yellow flower is rabbitbrush, the smaller is sage. no wonder it bothers people with allergies so much!

the colors are really starting to come out.

we went thru the scary trees this morning. i think that this is tamarisk (please correct me if i'm wrong) which is a horrible evil nasty noxious invasive tree that sucks all of the water up.

one thing i learned this week is that, due to its chemical composition dog poop can encourage the growth of invasive weeds by changing the chemical composition of the soil making it easier for interlopers to grow and less hospitable to native species. other things have an affect too, such as soil disturbance, but this is a big problem with many causes and anything we can reduce our impact on the soil helps.

there were people in the park this morning- at least until they left for their run!

happy trails, and have a great weekend!