Beavers are back in town

A family of wild beavers has been spotted in England for the first time in nearly 500 years.

"Beavers are a "keystone species", meaning they provide more important ecosystem services than their numbers alone would suggest. Known as "ecological engineers", their dams, burrows and ditches and the branches they drag into the water create habitats for a host of other species. Their dams slow rivers down, reducing scouring and erosion, and improving water quality by holding back silt."

Provided the government doesn't get involved.... this could be an exciting new beginning for the beaver population in the UK.

From an article at The Guardian.

Too cute to pass up

Happy Wednesday.

RSA Animate - The Power of Outrospection

Excellent talk on empathy by philosopher Roman Krznaric, now animated.

Global Forest Watch

The Global Forest Watch interactive map....

"Global Forest Watch (GFW) is a dynamic online forest monitoring and alert system that empowers people everywhere to better manage forests. For the first time, Global Forest Watch unites satellite technology, open data, and crowdsourcing to guarantee access to timely and reliable information about forests. GFW is free and follows an open data approach in putting decision-relevant information in the hands of governments, companies, NGOs, and the public."

 Fabulous and depressing (there was a lot of red on the map).

Happy Friday

Via The Guardian.

Together We Can Build Healthier Neighborhoods

The people over at Good have put together a lovely little animated film to illustrate that poor neighborhoods not only lack access to health care, they also lack access to other resources that impact health and life expectancy.

Bright Eyes "First Day Of My Life"

It was one of those cave moments for me again.... have I been living in a cave? Why have I never heard this song before?

This will help you get over the hump day, Wednesday. Beautiful.

Jane Goodall and Wounda

Heart officially melted....

From hoodies to goodies: today's teenagers have the makings of model citizens

"There is little more that we could ask for, in these times of austerity and inequality, than a new generation of politically engaged, socially minded young people."

From an article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett at The Guardian.

International Garden Photographer of the Year

The International Garden Photographer of the Year is run in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom.

The Young Garden Photographer section is my favourite and lo and behold, Samuel Aron in third place took a beautiful photograph of a hedgehog!

How do you get a city to lose weight?

".......we've been able to document that more suburban, less walkable parts of the world are the ones that rank the highest for weight. There's a new term for these places: obesogenic. As we've designed our country around the assumption of universal car ownership and use, we've created a landscape in which walking is no longer serving any purpose."

Great article at The Guardian about obesity, walkability and Oklahoma City's move forward to a healthier and thinner city.

River of Flowers

A wonderful idea from the UK, called River of Flowers.

"River of Flowers is a landscape initiative engaging the whole urban community in thinking and doing more about nature. Urban development and agriculture are two processes that have stripped the land of its indigenous wild plants. Our aim is to incorporate wild plants in both of these to bring nature into the city."

And if that isn't exciting enough for a Wednesday, I just read about an Amsterdam-based urban herbologist called Lynn Shore, who was so inspired by River of Flowers that she decided to start River of Herbs......

I'm thinking of starting River of Hedgehogs.... how cute would that be?

The Fear of Failure

"A characteristic of artistic education is for people to tell you that you’re a genius. [...] So everybody gets this idea, if you go to art school, that you’re really a genius. Sadly, it isn’t true. Genius occurs very rarely. So the real embarrassing issue about failure is your own acknowledgement that you’re not a genius, that you’re not as good as you thought you were. [...] There’s only one solution: You must embrace failure. You must admit what is. You must find out what you’re capable of doing, and what you’re not capable of doing. That is the only way to deal with the issue of success and failure because otherwise you simply would never subject yourself to the possibility that you’re not as good as you want to be, hope to be, or as others think you are.”   Milton Glaser

 Via Brainpickings.

Connect 4 Climate

"Connect4Climate is a campaign, a coalition, and a community that cares about climate change." and they are holding a documentary film competition. Deadline is April 1st.

From their website:

"ACTION4CLIMATE video challenge invites young aspiring filmmakers to produce and submit a 1-12 minute video documentary telling a story about climate change. How is climate change impacting your community? What are you doing about it? What needs to be done to solve the climate challenge?"

2014 Sony World Photography Awards Shortlist

This is a photo under the heading Contemporary Issues in the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards of a city in China, called Jiangyin, Jiangsu, showing rows of identical houses with a playground in the middle.

I see this photo and then I look out my window at the trees, knowing I have a 2 minute walk to the forest and think, I don't know how lucky I am.

Via Colossal.

Plants are magic: Søren Ejlersen at TEDx Copenhagen Salon

Søren Ejlersen is the co-founder of Aarstiderne and Haver til Maver and spoke at the Ted X event in Copenhagen at the end of last year.

Very inspiring.

Martin Crawford

I am a huge fan of Martin Crawford's work and have two of his books, How to grow Perennial Vegetables and Creating a Forest Garden: Working with nature to grow edible crops, both of which I would highly recommend. 

My new garden plan is start my own forest garden and begin to live off my own land. Very excited.....

Kid President's Letter To A Person On Their First Day Here

Kid President...........

The Gap

THE GAP by Ira Glass from frohlocke on Vimeo.


Inspiration for Monday morning.... time to make weekly deadlines.

Via Brainpickings.