For many of us world events feel intense!

It’s fascinating, and not in a nice way. So I’d like to bring you some real good shit. (If you'd like to skip my stories about eco-feminist badassery, scroll down to the Chickfly Pants Update)

Yesterday, I attended a Climate Change conference hosted by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. This is the kind of thing nerds like me live for. The event brought together state agencies and scientists, guided by traditional ecological knowledge, on forest, fire, water, and soil, and how it ties into Climate Change.

I am working on one of their grant-funded projects through my other firm, Village Ecosystems. We combine fire resilience with water conservation by using wood thinned from forests to build in creeks. We create brush structures in gullies and eroding streams that filter out sediment and restore habitat. At the same time, we reduce wildfire risk, recharge aquifers, build soils, and sequester carbon.

My company, Village Ecosystems, built this rainwater catchment tank at Pinoleville Tribal Nation, and a local artist, Tim at Union Ore, welded these salmon out of used saw-blades.

I thought you needed some good news, and while I keep informed about global politics, it is my day-to-day engagement in civil society with my peers and peeps that keeps me feeling empowered.

Thirty-three Nor-Cal tribes and California co-created this North Coast Resource Partnership. Our hosts this week were Pomo and Mewok People. The Graton Rancheria is led by a tribe that fought through the 1990s to regain tribal status and secure a piece of terra firma. The professor who gave the opening talk shared how he was initially resistant to opening a casino with his people. But since then, they’ve donated over $100 million to initiatives, supporting environmental causes and reproductive rights, and they give an additional $3 million a year to several tribes without casinos.

He explained that, after the genocide, their remaining members can all trace their lineage back to just fourteen women who survived by becoming concubines to white men. Now they’ve pulled together a high-powered, money-producing machine and are hosting State Board Meetings for Ecological Recovery. That’s the kind of power a handful of great people with a mission can achieve.

You are powerful. This political climate does not negate the amazing work we do, every day. When we are all at the table, there is no need for DEI—a concept built on the presumption that most people in power are already white men.

Two of you wrote me this week about abusive situations you are actively evading. Good job, both taking action and reaching out! We all need to stay connected.

So, let’s bring this back!
 

Chickfly is about being empowered, and it's about who wears the pants. Our fly is both a very useful opening, and a political statement about equality...

My Wilderness Field Work: Wearing the Merino's three days straight.

And wearing them in bed, now, as I type. Can't Stop.

I was out in the field all weekend, camping in the wilderness. I wore my Merino Chickflys for three days straight. It was icy, and since we were staying in a trailer, I slept in them. In the morning, I just threw on a second pair of pants on top!

I think most people in the U.S. don’t grasp the extent of our rugged, rural terrain. So, here’s a story.

The Middle Fork of the Eel River lay below us on the east side of Iron Peak, a red rock edifice out Spy Rock Road. My partner, Teri Jo, and I were analyzing dirt roads in steep terrain with some of the most erodible soil in the world (landslides galore). Good, fun shit! Told ya so!

The woman we were staying with had a reputation for killing a wild pig with her bare hands. In addition to her multiple Subarus, old dump truck, and excavator, she drives an old RAV4 with a sawed-off top, beer cans, and an extra battery wired up in the back. No windshield. Just an extra ranch car for running around her 1,000 wild acres. She runs ten cows and has a tough reputation—which is pretty useful out there. She is also a microbiologist.

I had to ask about this pig-killing story. I was like, “Really? No knife? What did you do—just tip it over?” She laughed and admitted, “Okay, you’ve got me. It was a hybrid—half domestic—and it was up to no good.” (Pigs are invasive here.) “So I tipped it off a steep hill.”

Oh wait—this was supposed to be a...

Chickfly Pants Update!

Production designer, Eloisa Serrano, sent the final version of our Chickfly Capri pants, the ones I lived in last summer. Keep an eye out for our pro-order and get yours first!

Here’s me wearing the Chickfly Capris pants at a ghost town this summer (I wore them all summer). So cozy, soft, and fluid.

All winter, as you know, I wear the Merino and Eucalyptus Leggings. That's why I'm offering you all 25% off those babies today!