“Man takes root at his feet, and at best he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it.” John Burroughs, 1887 in Walking.
The week of April 28 through May 5 is celebrated as Stewardship Week by the National Association of Conservation Districts. The theme for 2019 is: ‘Life in the Soil, Dig Deeper’. Below is a link to the Soil Health Institute where you can view the feature video for Stewardship Week, ‘Living Soil’.https://livingsoilfilm.com/. One of the first points made in the video is that an acre of healthy soil has about the same living mass a two full grown elephants. My lot is roughly an acre in size. It is humbling to think that I now have responsibility to keep two elephant equivalents alive.
It may seem odd that a blog about Forests and Drinking Water has a post about soil. But when you dig deeper, it is clear that without healthy living soil, we don’t have a chance to have either healthy clean water or healthy productive forests. Microbial action in the soil is what allows soil to purify water. At the same time, the trees of the forest rely on soil microbes to process nutrients and make them available for nourishing the tree. So go out into your back yard today, grab a handful and say thanks.