Writing by Marie Westover


Epiphany 1:
Epiphany 2: Priceless Lands and Priceless Culture
Epiphany 3: Renewable Energy is Not Enough
Epiphany 4: Discovering Justice

Other Writing:
» Morning Report
» Early Morning Report
» Ordinary Rocks
» Evening Ankle Itch
» What the River Carries
» Puzzle Pieces
» Tent Wanderlust
» Desert Baptism
» Interruption
» Desert Symphony
» Running
» Nighttime Wanderings
» Nematods Rule




Epiphany 1:



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Epiphany 2: Priceless Lands and Priceless Culture

I passed over the desert ridge and was greeted with a sight both familiar and foreign. Below lay a gorgeous valley, ringed by sagebrush hills. Horses ran across the bright sunset, manes billowing in the wind, releasing raw energy and joy. Just like that, I was hooked, utterly enamored with the Cottonwood Ranch in northeast Nevada. The range is romantic, a lure for those seeking wide-open spaces and a rugged, individualistic lifestyle. However, I have also seen the dark side of ranching. I have seen the devastated landscapes, the incised streams, and the bare ground beside the water troughs. Ranching in Nevada does not make economic or ecological sense, and persists solely because it is a highly valued American image, lifestyle and culture.

Cattle ranching has existed is Nevada since 1870, and cows have taken their toll on the landscape. Cattle grazing is detrimental to the native bunchgrass and sagebrush ecosystem as well as riparian zones. The grasslands of the west have not evolved to suffer repeated browses and remain healthy. Jon Marvel, the head of Western Watersheds, as well as hydrologist Suzanne Fouty have shown us the incised streams cattle create and exacerbate by browsing all of the surrounding vegetation, leading to weakened the stream banks and devastating erosion. When a stream is incised the water table drops, year round streams dry to perennials, and the river water becomes too warm for native trout to survive. All of these problems were present in the Cottonwood Ranch streams, despite efforts to manage the cattle in riparian areas.

To justify such a negative effect upon the local ecosystem, one would think that ranching must be highly profitable. This is not the case. Ranching in the west requires grazing vast amounts of subsidized public land to function. The federal government expends 1 billion taxpayer dollars in grazing subsidies in the western states each year. Without subsidies on public land, ranching operations would be unviable. The cottonwood ranch owns 1,200 acres of private land, and grazes on an additional 32,000 acres. Agee Smith, the owner of Cottonwood ranch, informed me that without the use of public land and government subsidies, his ranch would not make a profit.

The majority of the Cottonwood Ranch’s income comes not from the sale of beef, but from their guest ranch. The Cottonwood guesthouse is a testament to western culture, decorated with horseshoes and images of cowboys. People from all over the country and the world come to Cottonwood and pay around 250$ per night to stay on the ranch and ride horses with the cowboys. Agee Smith is selling the image of the west, not beef. The cowboy culture of the west is one of the few pieces of culture that America can claim as its own. Perhaps this is why, against all logical arguments, ranching persists on public lands. The subsidies do not pay for beef production; they pay to support an American lifestyle that would otherwise cease to exist.

The Cottonwood ranch fares better than most cattle ranches because of the beautiful scenery and guest services offered. Even so, Agee claims he is not in ranching for the money. He says, “It’s not about ownership, it’s about falling in love with a piece of land. It’s truly a spiritual connection with the land.” The romantic image of the free spirited and hard working cowboy alone on the range is a powerful draw for many people, Agee included. He says that his favorite aspect of living on a ranch is “to ride a horse out by himself to see what’s happening. [Where] there is open air, open spaces and nobody around; just [him] the horse and the land.” Government subsidies and ecological damage enable Agee and other ranchers to maintain the worldwide beloved iconic lifestyle of the cowboy.

Grazing on public lands supports the ranching lifestyle and image, but it is not sustainable because the cattle harm land that belongs to all of us. When John Marvel said that we should not assign an economic value on something that is priceless, he meant our public lands. However, culture currently holds the image of the ranch and the cowboy as priceless. In order to preserve our public lands we need to learn to value our unique natural lands more than the image of the cowboy. The healthy future of public lands requires not a death of western culture, but a shift in western culture towards a reverence of nature, not the reverence of an image.

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Renewable Energy is Not Enough

The multimillion-dollar homes of Aspen, Colorado support masonry fireplaces as well as solar power systems tastefully displayed on their roofs. Downtown boasts high-end outdoor gear and Gucci purses as well as new hydropower projects. However, Aspen contributes to global warming despite having locally produced energy. Maintaining our current level of energy consumption is not sustainable regardless of where our energy comes from. Green energy “solutions” are simply a way of maintaining the status quo, of enabling Americans to continue to enjoy their unsustainable lifestyle. The real problem is that we use too much energy. Using renewable energy without reducing the amount of energy we use is like handing out aspirin during an Ebola outbreak.

The effects and consequences of global warming on ecosystems and communities have already begun to manifest themselves in the mountains of Colorado. In response, Aspen has adopted the Canary Initiative, which requires the town to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent before 2020. Aspen utilities installed two hydropower plants and purchased a wind turbine. The town requires all new buildings to generate as much power as they use. Many local homeowners are also committed to producing and using renewable energy. Frequently homes in and around Aspen have photovoltaic panels on their roofs.

John Hines of Aspen Municipal Utilities proudly led a tour to the site for the next hydropower plant. He explained that clean energy “is not space age technology. Its doable, now we just got to do it.” However, renewable energy is not cheap. Aspen’s new hydroelectric facility will cost 5.5 million dollars, while an average home photovoltaic system costs around 35,000 dollars. The Aspen City Council has enough capital that it will pass any renewable energy project that will repay itself in seven years or less. Although John emphasizes that Aspen hopes to be a model for other towns to install similar renewable energy technologies, purchasing and producing cleaner energy is beyond the capabilities of most towns and families.

Although the implementation of renewable energy technology is admirable, I hope that towns do not follow Aspen as a model of environmental sustainability. For Aspen to function, workers must commute up to four hours each day because real estate prices force out all but the extremely wealthy. Even doctors and lawyers require subsidized “affordable” housing near Aspen. Long commutes up the valley waste fossil fuels. Homes stand empty for most of the year and are heated in their occupants’ absence; the solar panels do not counteract this excessive use of energy. Homeowners fly in on private jets, the most inneficeient way possible to travel. If Aspen were more serious about reducing global warming, it would shut down its airport. The measures passed by the city council to implement renewable energy is nothing more than a green washing of an unsustainable community.

California is also interested in increasing its use of renewable energy sources. California legislature states that 20 percent of the state’s energy must come from renewable sources by 2010. To help reach the goal in the near future, Southern California Edison has proposed a 400-megawatt, energy for 140,000 homes, solar electric power plant in the Mojave Desert of southern California.

Jim Harvey of the Alliance for Responsible energy Policy opposes the construction of such industrial solar power stations. This man is not your common, run of the mill hippie environmentalist. Piercings adorning his face, the part time musician, part time desert rat looks like he would belong in a biker bar. Instead, he stands among creosote and yucca, trying to convince 21 college students that industrial solar energy projects are the wrong way to go about increasing California’s use of renewable energy.

The proposed plant would require the leveling and “scraping” of 4000 acres chock full of formidable desert flora, as well as the construction of transmission lines thought miles of near wilderness land. The solar plant would also drink in large amount of water for washing thousands of mirrors, which is ridiculous in an area of such obvious aridity. Jim and the AREP believe that solar panels should be placed on any existing surface: smog enveloped rooftops of L.A., SUVs large enough to be houses, perhaps even the family dog, before destroying the desert.

Solar energy in the desert or on rooftops is a good place to start decreasing dependence on fossil fuels, but is not going to replace our current energy consumption. Currently the cost of installing a home solar system is prohibitively expensive for most families, and it will take a drastic change in America’s energy policy to make rooftop solar feasible. More importantly, we do not have the technology to efficiently store solar produced electricity. For this reason, solar energy cannot yet replace base load power plants, and we would still be dependent on coal, gas, and petroleum for power.

Both Aspen and California are admirable for their commitment to renewable energy, but it is not nearly enough. It will require a combination of renewable energy and energy conservation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb global warming. The promise of renewable power misleads our society into believing we can continue to recklessly use energy. Instead of simply purchasing more wind turbines and solar panels, we need to invest in seriously rethinking our energy consumption. We need renewable energy, but we also need more public transportation and fewer hairdryers.

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Discovering Justice

When I was 12 years old my family traveled to Tuba City, Arizona to visit friends on the Navajo reservation. At the beginning of the long drive home my eyes flashed up to see a pick up truck swerve into oncoming traffic and collide at 70 miles per hour. The wreckage blocked both lanes of the highway. I felt the intense nausea of shock, fear and horror as injured passengers were pulled from the vehicle covered in blood. There had been two families in the truck, too many people for everyone to wear a seatbelt. I watched my parents give CPR to the driver and an infant for nearly an hour before the ambulance finally arrived. The reservation ambulance came too late, and came unprepared. They didn’t have a respirator, defibrillator or oxygen tanks. All they could offer were blankets to cover the bodies. On my return trip to the Navajo reservation this fall, I noticed thick brown smog hanging above parched land overrun by spiky and unwelcoming Russian thistle. The severe pollution comes from two coal-burning power plants near Shiprock, NM, which rank among the dirtiest in the United States. When I learned about plans to build a third power plant, called Desert Rock, within a 15 mile radius, I immediately worried about the health impacts from coal pollution on the people who lived nearby. If inexpensive and essential medical equipment is not available for ambulances, the reservation certainly will not have the resources to mitigate long term public health issues associated with extreme air pollution. I saw how environmental degradation and subsequent health problems disproportionately affect the already disadvantaged. Last year, I didn’t understand what environmental justice meant. Environmental quality and social justice were two separate issues to me. What I saw this semester led me to realize this is not the case. Poor communities in the West and across the world are denied clean air and water when their neighborhoods are exploited as environmental sacrifice zones. Ill founded hope of lifting destitute poverty from the reservation tempts leaders of the Navajo Nation to accept 50 million dollars from a power company for the construction of Desert Rock, despite knowledge that the coal burning power plant would exacerbate already dire health concerns of families living downwind. The power produced does not benefit the Navajo Nation; it is exported to the cities of Las Vegas and Phoenix. Yet it is the Navajos who suffer the burden of a poisoned environment. Opposed by many on the reservation, the Desert Rock power plant has a high price for the local population. Some Navajo citizens believe the amount of money offered to the government is negligible compared to the value of a healthy community. Elouise Brown, the President of Dooda Desert Rock, leads a grassroots level fight against the construction of the power plant. Around our campfire, she asks us how much a human life is worth, and we are silent. “You can’t put a price on human life,” she tells us. Health, however, does have a price. Current health care costs borne by the Navajo Nation for cardiovascular disease, strokes and asthma reach $200 million each year. Rather than assisting the reservation’s economy, 50 million from the power company would barely begin to cover the health problems it would cause. Holding her young son Jaycee close to her, Elouise worries that the pollution from the power plant will make more people from her family and her community sick in generations yet to come. 42% of Navajo families in NM live below the national poverty line, and are unprepared to pay for additional health care costs resulting from poor air quality. There does not have to be a choice between economic viability and environmental viability on the Navajo Nation. Development of renewable energy is feasible and economically beneficial. Dailan Long of Dine CARE, another organization in opposition to the Desert Rock power plant, emphasized that the reservation has some of the highest potential for solar and wind energy production in the world. Development of alternative energy would “provide more economic benefits and opportunities to more people across…the Navajo Nation” while at the same time minimizing dangerous pollution. True environmental justice would be served by developing wind and solar energy, providing sustainable jobs, and bringing locally produced energy to Navajo homes that would otherwise have no electricity or heating. According to Navajo culture, all things must be balanced with their polar opposite in order to achieve beauty, peace and harmony. Renewable energy and clean jobs could be the counterweight to the social, economic and environmental ills related to coal power while remaining consistent with cultural values. The effects of the coal plants that already exist near Shiprock would never be tolerated in wealthier areas. After visiting Navajo homes and towns, I realized that Navajo communities often do not have the money and power necessary to oppose detrimental projects like Desert Rock. It should not be this way. It does not have to be this way. This time citizens are fighting back, and demanding renewable alternatives to coal. Environmental justice, or lack thereof, is the most important issue facing the West. In reality, there is no separation of ecological and social environmental issues. Polluted environments not only affect wildlife and ecosystems, they affect people and communities who deserve clean air, clean water and a healthy environment.

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Morning Report

The horizon glows with peach and orange, reminiscent of sherbet. The bluffs in the distance become lighter and lighter shades of bluish gray until they melt into the clouds. Silhouettes seem close, but the distance of the desert is deceiving. The puddle left from yesterday’s cloudburst has miraculously evaporated from beneath my feet overnight. Although the tightly bound molecules of H20 were enticed to join their fellows in atmospheric moisture, the small pocket of soil above my pillow retains its dampness. The crypto biotic soil is happy this morning.

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Early Morning Report

Bright stars pinprick a dark blue ceiling.
Outlines of distant bluffs and nearby tents are
Barely distinguishable in the dimness.
The sun could refuse to rise this morning.

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Ordinary Rocks

Ordinary rocks become artifacts. A few strikes with a hammer stone and a tool emerges. Perhaps an arrowhead or a chamojilla. There is human creativity, ingenuity and dexterity in the form of a sharp edged stone. A physical memory of another time and place.

My eyes travel over the same earth as my feet. One who normally looks up toward the mountains and mesas, now scans the ground. Looking at the sandstone gully with a new objective, a new lens enables me to explore the earth in a new way. What once would have been passed over or perhaps carelessly trampled on now becomes the objective of my search. I relish the thrill of the hunt.

I find small flakes of light brown chirt, shaped by a human hand. My fingers lightly dance upon the smoothness of pottery shards, oxidized red, painted, textured, coiled then smoothed. Walking beneath the hot October sun it seems implausible that people would be able to make a life here thousands of years ago. Yet in this arid landscape, they lived, grew corn, fashioned adle-adles and made artwork. They hunted desert bighorn in the same valley in which I hunt for their traces today.

It is a minor miracle that remnants can still be found when so many have been buried, washed away or looted. I hold a brown pottery fragment, press my fingers against fingerprints and gaze into the past of Comb Ridge.

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Evening Ankle Itch

Unhappy ankles are trapped within the narrow confines of a mummy bag. Damn mosquitoes, hatched from the recent rain. I struggle with my synthetic liner to no avail. The cool winds, which brush my face, will bring no relief tonight.

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What the River Carries

Floating willow and tamarisk twigs
Suspended silt of the Colorado Plateau
Unseen fish
Aquatic invertebrates
Upstream wind in the afternoon
The sound of ripples around rocks
White water rafters
Martin
Me
A community’s lifeblood
Erosive power
The ability to travel back in time
A thirsty land
White sand in red rock country
Seeds of new life
Destructive potential
Secrets downstream
A thousand thunderstorms

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Puzzle Pieces

Pottery Shards and pictographs speak. One a purposeful record, the other carelessly abandoned and broken. Both offer pieces of an ancient puzzle. Human curiosity nurtures the will to find, to know, to understand. The clues remain elusive, washed downriver or buried in the orange sands of time. Like the rising glory of Comb Ridge that they rest below, what may be explored are tiny fragments of the whole.

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Tent Wanderlust

Filled with soaring dreams
Yearning to take flight
Struggle against the weight that pins down
My tent wishes to break free

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Desert Baptism

The pool is inviting. Awkwardly suspended high above rivers, far below clouds, it sits upon sandstone. Cool water on a hot afternoon. Concentric circles in which to sit. It calls me in. The serene surface tension is broken, the water level raises imperceptibly.

The view from the water reflects impurities. Dead insects rest upon buoyancy, the beginnings of an algal colony drift lazily by. A light shine of oil on the surface reflects rainbow in the sunlight. Oxybenzone sunscreen is suspected as the pollutant.

In order to experience a place, one must surrender to it. I lean back, and become submerged in the imperfect pool.

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Interruption

Class interrupted by a sandstorm
Sky hazy, winds loud, feet heavy
I seek Suburban refuge

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Desert Symphony

Listen to the desert. There is no wind to disturb the flora into song. A fly constantly crescendos and decrescendos as it investigates my perch. I think I can still hear it from across the gully. The dull beat of the highway is noticeable from far away. I pretend it is the rocks humming. The welcome, if sporadic melody of a songbird makes a grand entrance, then dissipates into echoes. The fugue of the fly continues. The dissonant call of a crow emerges, reminiscent of a lead trumpet trying too hard. Over the silence lies the singing of the rocks. Indistinct insects form a harmony from over the ridge. Staccato chirps rise from somewhere below. The fugue of the fly seems eternal. Another bird comes forth with syncopated song just in time for the finale. The fly holds a fermata.

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Running

Feet run when legs move
Children run and play
Dogs run in the yard
Lizard shadows run for cover
Scree runs down slopes when disturbed
Rivers run through canyons
Flashfloods run wild
Refrigerators run to keep cool
Wheels run trapped on machines
Thoughts run in my mind
Dead ends run nowhere
Trails run up mountains
There is a run in my grandmother’s stocking
She will make a run to the store for a new pair

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Nighttime Wanderings

My mind maps places by sight, sound, touch and time. Threads of sensory inputs weave itself into a grand tapestry of the land, its history and inhabitants. A map helps me navigate new areas and experiences, hopefully without becoming too disoriented. I am camped on Comb Ridge outside of Bluff, Utah learning to draw mental, physical and symbolic maps of the red rock desert.

The desert feels like cool slick rock sandstone beneath bare feet. Traces of ancient artifacts allude to a deep human history; prominent bluffs, buttes and ridges allude to a geologic past too old to comprehend. The desert sounds like a chamber orchestra. Insects crescendo and decrescendo while birds carry the melody. I sit quietly and listen to the secrets of a small canyon. I study crypto biotic soil with a magnifying loupe in order to understand a small corner of this great landscape. I slowly trace outlines then fill in my map.

One place I know is the small tract of Comb Ridge directly above the broccoli shaped juniper tree. I sleep upon the same wind deposited sandstone that forms the great monocline stretching northward to the horizon. The first night I arrived at Comb Ridge, the soaring sandstone drew me to its slope, where I sat until driven from its great back by a sudden desert cloudburst. Local experts guide me along the ridge in search of geology and anthropology, both teaching of its history and topography. I climb the monocline each day seeking solitude, companionship or a view of the valley below. I am familiar with both Comb Ridge’s surface and past.

On a windy night a friend and I set off to climb the ridge by starlight. We start up a path that had been traveled many times without hesitation, yet nothing is familiar. Shadows cast by the waxing half moon are taller, darker and deeper. Steep ridges easily negotiated yesterday now seem formidable. We find ourselves in a completely foreign landscape. Four feet walk along treeless slick rock pockmarked with craters. We imagine that we are on the moon, and wonder how long it would take radio waves to reach us from Earth.

Wind makes the night come alive, full of dynamic, flowing energy. The air rushes in my ears, a low whistling. All I can hear is the turbulence created by protruding cartilage attached to my head. The whole earth is muted and deafness mounts my unease. One by one, pinpricks of light from camp far below extinguish. Alone without a guide, we remove sandals from our feet. Bare toes grip the sandstone, bare toes search for the path through the rock. Perhaps subconsciously we hope to replace senses we have lost in the night.

Misguided by deceiving landmarks, cloaked in secrecy by the night, we reach a false summit. The forceful air would like to blow is from our perch, but we stay to admire the obliging stars. The town of Bluff is recognizable far below by a small spread of man-made lights. Over to the right, another set of lights is puzzling. They could belong to another town, or a mine unbeknownst to us. I know so little about the surrounding land; it is impossible to know that the unnatural lights signify lit yards of Navajo homes.

Upon descent the pushy wind imbalances two travelers. Our senses work in overdrive, still the moon mocks our blindness, the air mocks our deafness, but the cool friction of the comforting sandstone reassures us. Geology and History are of no help in navigating our way down to our lonely sleeping bags. My nighttime wanderings assure me that studying a place by sunlight only partially fills my map of place. Whole days devoted to observing and absorbing prove to be inadequate for fully mapping and negotiating even a small area. I manage to become lost on a small and well-traveled slice of Comb Ridge.

I have developed a false sense of place, a false sense of security in this land. I examine my own map of Comb Ridge, and huge blank sections stare back at me. As I stumble over to my sleeping bag and gratefully crawl into its welcome warmth and familiarity, I realize maps may not be as dependable as I thought. Perhaps true understanding of a place comes from experiencing not the routine, but from experiencing the rare and the unexpected. The compiled knowledge of sudden cloudbursts, floods, sandstorms and turning seasons over the span of years are essential for a detailed map of the desert.

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Nematodes Rule

I have always been drawn to the underappreciated, the lonely, the unglamorous, even in beautiful places. I revel in the microscopic, the dwellers of the dirt, the lowly parasites that call this river ecosystem home. Cottonwood trees rise majestically along the banks of New Mexico’s Gila River, sandhill cranes voice enchanting throaty calls, bright flowers and flashy pollinators provide a kaleidoscope of color and energy. Although the surrounding scene is lovely, my mind wanders to what cannot be seen. The creatures I think of can’t be discovered by the unassisted human eye, or even with the aid of my 10X magnification loupe. Still I know that they are there, in the silt and everywhere else. They are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth, with 900,000 species projected to exist on earth, in every ecological niche imaginable. I am talking of course, about the small and mighty nematode.

I first learned about nematodes in high school biology class, and immediately fell in love with their unassuming awesomeness. Nematodes are cylindrical roundworms with a tough exoskeleton called a cuticle. Unlike common earthworms, nematodes are nonsegemented, and transport nutrients though fluid in their body cavity. They breathe by absorbing oxygen though their skin. I imagine what it would be like to breathe though my skin instead of my nose. They only have muscles on their sides, and their movement is limited to a sideways thrashing that ranges from being mostly to completely ineffective at swimming. Imagine if you had to swim with your arms and legs tied to your sides, and if you could only move sideways. Now you know what it is like to be a nematode. I may try it the next time I visit a pool, for the sake of scientific exploration. The vast majority of nematodes are microscopic, but larger species exist as well. The largest nematode discovered to date was found in a sperm whale, at the length of 8.5 meters, and a diameter of. 3mm.

Scientists have mapped the genome of the nematode C. elegans, and know the developmental fate of each cell and neuron. We understand nematodes on the cellular level better than we understand our own human development, but most people are barely aware of the existence of this entire phylum of diverse and fascinating creatures. Nematodes are everywhere, even inside human bodies. If all life on earth other than nematodes were to suddenly disappear, every corner of the planet would be covered with the roundworms. The ecosystems and organisms that existed would be recognizable by the species of nematodes left behind.

Yesterday I went swimming in the Gila River. I gazed into the water below, and at the silty sludge of decomposing leaves before taking a step into the muck. It welled up and covered my foot. Nematodes are responsible for braking down organic material and recycling nutrients in the ecosystem. They created the soil that the overhanging cottonwood tree is rooted in. without nematodes living and working in the Gila river ecosystem, or any other ecosystem for that matter, the world as we know it would cease to exist. I routinely take their existence for granted, and gaze across scenery without a thought for the microorganisms that provide the base of the landscape. On that day, I scooped and handful of river sediment and wondered how many thousands of tiny roundworms I had disturbed.

My favorite nematodes are the celebrity profiles of gruesome parasites, like the ones that cause trichinosis, elephantiasis and loa loa, the African eye worm. I realized I knew nothing about the gentler, cuter roundworms of the Gila River ecosystem that I found myself in. On a scientific quest, I hungrily searched the Internet for information on local roundworms. Google yielded disappointing results. All I found on native New Mexican nematodes were that trout and other fish were hosts to a few species, and that they were sold to farmers as pest controls. Websites boasted “special holiday deals for nematodes at bargain prices!” I love nematodes, but not enough to buy them in bulk over the Internet for my garden. The remaining literature I could find on nematodes were dense scientific articles on host parasite relationships, and three measly paragraphs in Camble and Reese biology textbook. Even I am reluctant to wade through these tedious writings. Clearly, more literature should be accessible so that people may learn about the joy of roundworms.

I realize that not everyone adores the phylum nematoda as much as I do, but the little worms deserve more attention than they receive. I searched Furthur II as well as the nature conservancy’s libraries. Numerous titles promised a wealth of information on trees and forests, range and grass, entire shelves full of bird guides, butterflies and charismatic wildlife of all sorts. There was not one mention of nematodes, even though they are more numerous both in species and individuals than all other animals in most ecosystems. Nematodes seem destined to do the grunt work of the world, with little thanks from the rest of us that depend upon them.

All around me cottonwood leaves are shaken from their branches and flutter through the air towards their earthen destinations. Fresh leaf litter festoons the dry grass, piles of sleeping bags, and occasionally my laptop computer. I smile, knowing that invisible nematodes are already working to return leaves to the soil beneath my feet.

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