@Lookout matter. I hope that they indulge in "water farming" as well as other practices, butassume that somebody there is hip to all that. Have a great day.

A cool 70 degrees this am and headed toward 90 by afternoon.

Here's a permaculture project near the Dead Sea and how they greened a piece of dry desert.
(5 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk]

China is working to stop the growth of the deserts too

What makes desertification so problematic in Asia is the movement of sand toward population hubs. The Gobi Desert in China’s northwest is the most dominant; its cousin, the Kubuqi, is farther east and closest to Beijing.

With an annual budget of about $1 million (U.S.), Future Forest has planted about 6.2 million trees since 2006. Every year, 30 per cent of the new plants die and have to be replaced. When completed, the barrier is to run north-south for about 15 kilometres, a green ribbon about 800 metres thick, as a choke point to divert the sands from their easterly path. The goal is to plant 100 million trees and thicken the green wall into habitable green space.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/01/can_chinas_great_green_wal...

desertification and droughts are real challenges!

@Azazello The Yaqui were not indigenous to California, but appear to have immigrated to various locales in SoCal at various times, because their presence is sporadically noted in the various histories. I can't say about Yaqui Pass, but a view to the SW would show a small lush area known as Yaqui Well. It is a natural seep, now with no surface water. The name allegedly comes from a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, who lived near the well with a local Kumeyaay woman.

This may have been the most boring Le Mans race ever. The finishing order was the same at the end as it was when I went to bed last night, Toyota 1st and 2nd overall. Porsche takes 1st and 2nd in the GTE Pro class ahead of two Fords. Ford and Porsche both paid homage to the glory days of the race. The four Ford cars were numbered 66, 67, 68 and 69. Those happen to be the last digits of the 4 consecutive years in the 20th century when Ford GT40s won overall. The class-winning #92 Porsche was painted like the famous "Pink Pig" car that the factory ran in 1971. Details here: ACO

Were there Yaquis in California ?

@smiley7 picnics and other outdoor gustatory delights, but the linked article sort of put me off of any such thoughts. Luckily, I'll never go to the Faroes and will thus, alas, miss out on the experience described in the article.

and The New Yoker helped the dream along with this good piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/18/koks-the-worlds-most-remot...

Ziska and a clutch of deputy chefs served the mahogany clams, explaining that they are among the ocean’s most long-lived creatures. “A mahogany clam can live to five hundred,” he said. After the cheesy waffle with fermented-lamb spread, hailed as delicious, came a palate cleanser: a dollop of stewed rhubarb between peppery nasturtium leaves smaller than the pads of one’s fingertips. It looked like a fairy’s portion, or a chef’s practical joke.

A good morning for a fairy tale.

Have a good day, everyone!

@dystopian the Anza-Borrego once a year, and hit Yaqui Well at least once. One of the trails out of the Agua Caliente county park south on SR S2 from Scissors Crossing, and scissors crossing itself are also sometimes fruitful.

Neat Yaqui pass pic, been there, Yaqui Wells is still a birding stop if in the area.

The Dusky Seaside was a separate species until the great taxonomical lumpings of AOU (Am. Ornithologists Union) 1973. I looked for them July 73 near Titusville, FL, but there were few left, it was wrong time (heat) of day, and we missed it. By time I got back to FL the few left were in captivity. I heard repeated spraying for mosquitoes was a major factor, I presume the "pesticides" mentioned at the wiki page below. They actually sprayed the marshes they were in.

per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusky_seaside_sparrow
"When Merritt Island was flooded with the goal of reducing the mosquito population around the Kennedy Space Center, the sparrows' nesting grounds were devastated, and their numbers plummeted. Later, the marshes surrounding the river were drained to facilitate highway construction; this was a further blow. Eventually, pollution and pesticides took such a high toll that by 1979, only six dusky seaside sparrows were known to exist — all of whom were males; a female was last sighted in 1975."