The best things in life are dirty; the worst thing in life is wakin’ up clean, without a bean… “Best Things” from Paint Your Wagon “Wash your hands,” my mother said when I came in from the garden, “They’re dirty.” Soil was caked on my skin and embedded under my nails. I had to wash […]
Author Archives: stevetarlton
“If you want to destroy a barn,” a farmer once told me, “cut an eighteen-inch-square hole in the roof. Then stand back.” Chris Riddle, quoted in The World Without Us by Alan Weisman Ask any farmer what happens to his fields when they lie fallow for a year or two. He’ll tell you that it […]
The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. – Unknown Professor Noreena Hertz, University College London, reporting on her recent surveys, described today’s teenage girls as profoundly anxious. The news reports deplored the abundance of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films and TV shows that inundate us with peril and danger at every […]
I grew up in Texas, where each of the four North American poisonous snakes lives, so it seems natural to me that I’m afraid of snakes. I grew up with horror stories of giant rattlers, quiet and sneaky copperheads, and vicious cottonmouths that aggressively defended their watery territory. We swam in many farm ponds, where […]
The great yellow eyes were fixed upon him with a wicked and baleful gleam, and the red tongue licked the longing lips as Sabor crouched, worming her stealthy way with belly flattened against the earth. Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs I watched our cat cross the lawn, belly to the grass, eyes […]
“You are one of the forces of nature.” Jules Michelet, quoted in the comic “Mutts” The other day I inadvertently stepped on one, thus proving that X-bugs are more mortal than X-Men. Every spring the boxelder beetles swarm out from the two boxelder trees at the back of the yard, coating various surfaces with their […]
It was the good old days of environmentalism. Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, burning rivers, exploding chemical plants, and contaminated neighborhoods. We knew who the bad guys were and the good guys just had to stop them. It was a crisis of immense importance and needed immediate response. Catastrophe was looming over us every day. The […]
A man was throwing starfish caught by the tide back into the sea. When asked why saving one starfish out of hundreds stranded on the beach mattered, he replied, “It matters to that one.” Apologies to Loren Eisley, The Star Thrower Climate change, peak oil, recession/depression, bacteria in foods, pharmaceuticals in drinking water, ozone depletion, […]
“…it is important to bear in mind that nature bats last and owns the stadium.” Hawken, Lovins, Lovins, Natural Capitalism 1996 – Out on the plains to the east, the horizon stretches forever. In the valley between the foothills and the mesas, the sky is bright long before the sun’s first rays strike the valley. […]
Glacial erratic, a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. It was a long drive down from Fairbanks, but the wild and incomparable scenery kept my attention. With little to no traffic, the narrow road was fine, except for a few spots […]
Writes of Nature 