“Any natural area with a high density of trees is referred to as a forest. Forests are large in size and are either evergreen or deciduous in nature … A wood is also an area in the wild that is covered with trees though it is much smaller than a forest … Forest is a […]
Author Archives: stevetarlton
With sea levels expected to rise 3 to 6 feet by the end of the century, coastal communities are moving fast to construct major shoreline projects to protect themselves. As the size of these projects expands, the primary building materials — dirt and mud — are getting scarce. ~ Lauren Sommer Mud puddles, muddy […]
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happySunshine in my eyes can make me crySunshine on the water looks so lovelySunshine almost always makes me high ~ Sunshine, John Denver We sat on the patio in the sun, soaking up the warmth after a day or two of rain. It felt nice to be outside […]
My small town on the outer edge of the Denver metro area is beginning to experience a push for more housing — particularly for affordable housing. This is driving developers to construct dense multi-family apartments and condos on vacant lots and on clusters of what would have been single-family home lots. There is much concern […]
I met Paul Kilburn at the turn-off into the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, decommissioned a few years before. Paul and his volunteers had permission to collect native seeds from the buffer zone around the facility that had been created to provide both a security barrier from outside intrusion and physical separation from what was […]
I was always a scared kid. When my older brother and I watched the Saturday night monster movies on TV, I usually ended up behind a chair peeking through my fingers as the vampire or monster threatened the damsel in distress. My brother and I often went to the Saturday matinees downtown where he was […]
I’ve been everywhere, man.I’ve been everywhere, man.Crossed the deserts bare, man.I’ve breathed the mountain air, man.Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man.I’ve been everywhere. ~ Johnny Cash I chatted recently with a friend about her days married to a park ranger and all the places she’d lived and the adventures they’d shared. It got […]
My first wife, Sue, and I had just spread our hotel towels out on the sand when he came up out of the water nearby, wearing nothing but the turned-down sailor hat that covered his bald head. He strolled by on the way to his wife — sunning equally “au natural” farther up the beach […]
I remember running out the back door across the hot cement patio to the safety of the cool grass of the lawn. Going barefoot in Texas most summers made me extremely conscious of the surface I walked on. We learned where the patches of goathead stickers were, where the gravel was scattered on the sidewalk […]
We would sit on the ground or on the pickup tailgate taking a break from following the dogs to hunt quail. Even though it was fall, the Texas heat and humidity were still high, and pushing through the brush and weeds over rough terrain required some effort. Our gear was heavy, and the thick brush-resistant […]
Writes of Nature 