More Adventures with Gary Rapp

For the past few weeks Gary and I have been working on planting Cottonwood poles and Box Elder Maple Trees, while making sure that other newly planted trees are getting enough water and care. Getting my hands dirty has been a very refreshing and rewarding experience, but I've realized that what I benefit from the most is the conversations that Gary and I have. He is incredibly knowledgable about the Colorado Springs area and eager to share his knowledge.


Learning from Gary I feel that I have gained a better sense of bioregionalism. When we discussed the bioregionalism quiz in class a few weeks back, I realized how little I knew about the area's ecosystems, but over the past few weeks I have acquired a pretty good sense of Colorado College's bioregionalism. For example, I can tell you 5 grasses prevalent in the area (blue grama grass, buffalo grass, kentucky bluegrass, crested wheatgrass, and curly mesquite grass) and that the Siberian Elm trees that are now one of Colorado Spring's dominant tree species, were brought over from Siberia in 1872 by Gen. Palmer because of their drought tolerance. All of this has definitely given me a new appreciation and sense of connection towards the plants I see in passing everyday.

A Siberian Elm tree

The other day, when deciding where to plant our first Cottonwood pole Gary told me to go with my first instinct. He later elaborated that he has been thinking a lot about the idea of the "shared unconscious" and that perhaps my first instinct was based on the unconscious connection I have with the earth. This is a pretty cool idea to me and here is a link Gary sent me about it if anyone is interested in looking further:


 http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/Gregory_Bateson.pdf

Another interesting link Gary referred to me is about The Land Institute located in Salina, Kansas. This is an area that has developed "natural systems agriculture" for prairie ecosystems. This idea of natural systems agriculture is what Gary is trying to instate in the Shooks Run Park ecosystem. The link is an episode of This American Land and minutes 6:44 to 12:02 discuss the Land Institute:

http://www.thisamericanland.org/FrontLines/108episode.html.

Enjoy!