I don't intend for this blog to be only about the baby. It will probably reflect what's going on in my own mind; i.e., 95% baby and 5% other stuff, current events and technology and other Deep Thoughts.

Anyway there was a really interesting article in the Sunday New York Times (which they will deliver! to your door! even if you don't live in New York) about farmers in Niger using trees to fight desertification. The cool thing is they're not saving trees because they're being paid to by some NGO, or in the hope of some long-delayed gratification. They may have started out thinking in the long term but they've since discovered the benefits of having trees in their fields.

But over time, farmers began to regard the trees in their fields as their property, and in recent years the government has recognized the benefits of that outlook by allowing individuals to own trees ... “The benefits are so many it is really astonishing,” Dr. Larwanou said. “The farmers can sell the branches for money. They can feed the pods as fodder to their animals. They can sell or eat the leaves. They can sell and eat the fruits. Trees are so valuable to farmers, so they protect them.”

Satellite photos show how much greener Niger is now than 30 years ago. (See Multimedia sidebar on page 2 for larger image.)

Cool.