Squares and Circles: Protecting the Environment

Have I mentioned before how difficult it is to battle the elements in Chinle and to keep things alive?   The heat, scorching sun and wind and dust attack the environment with ferocity.  In an earlier blog I have whined about this and my own garden (see photo above) but I decided to see what others are doing to help keep green things alive and to protect their own environments.

The most common is some shade cloth around fences.

But check out this attractive cover.  Note that the entire yard has small evergreens planted around the perimeter.  Hopefully they will grow bigger (as opposed to scorch and die) and will add protection to the house and yard.

This wind and dust protection seems to be helping the corn grown.

Note the sign:  Experimental Sand Fence.  Made out of packing pallets.  For some reason the are all over the place here, the pallets not the fences...yet.   Wonder if works.

Some go for the smaller protection, one plant at a time.  Creative use for milk crates.

Little shade and dust cover and wind protection for a single plant.

But my personal favorite, yet another use of those pallets.  This family built boxes.  There are about twenty all around their trailer home.  Inside each one?

A tree grows!

Which reminds me of the circular stone walls I saw in Haiti...inside each one was a tree.  One way to fight the desperate deforestation there.  This lead to my book Circles of Hope.  Then look what I found in Haiti.

  Perhaps we should start using circles of stone walls in Chinle or squares of woven twigs.  Or packing pallets in Haiti.