“Having conducted this review, we believe that scent dogs deserve their place as a serious diagnostic methodology that could be particularly useful during pandemics, potentially as part of rapid health screenings in public spaces.” ~ Professor Tommy Dickey, University of California, Santa Barbara I’ve had dogs pretty much my whole life. When I was at […]
Author Archives: stevetarlton
Wheeled, plastic bins line the alley behind our houses. Black lid for trash, blue lid for recycling, and green lid for yard waste. Since we keep a compost pile in the garden, we don’t have a yard waste bin, but there are a few out there. Only collected every second week, the recycling bins are […]
“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” ~ Unknown My small town enjoys tree-lined older neighborhoods that are pleasant to walk through and front porches that are nice to sit on. The combination of shade trees and other vegetation keeps the local climate comfortable, even if […]
It’s uncomfortably hot … everywhere. According to meteorologist and journalist Bob Henson, “… the Climate Reanalyzer website shows that July 3, 2023, was the warmest single day on record — only to be toppled by July 4, tied on July 5, and broken again on July 6 … these were the warmest globally averaged days in centuries, […]
Will you still need me, will you still feed meWhen I’m sixty-four? ~ The Beatles I remember when I thought that the idea of being sixty-four was outrageous. It was soooo old … Well, this week, I turned seventy-four and I’m beginning to see what old really means and feels like. I can visualize […]
It’s warm, so we have the windows open both day and night and have resorted to a bedroom window fan for the still, warm nights. The fireworks that kept our dog and us awake at night over the holiday weekend seem to have, at least for now, subsided, but there are plenty of other noises. […]
Our dog has become very anxious about recent thunderstorms. She gets nervous and barks, something I try to discourage. Petting to try to comfort her seems to help, but only works if she will stay near one of us. Over the last few days, we’ve heard random firecrackers in the neighborhood. At night, these seem […]
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” ~ Unattributed We’re installing new fences around our back yard. The existing ones, probably put in before the 1940’s, are wire mesh strung on two-inch metal posts set in concrete. They have grown interwoven […]
It’s been warm the last week and, befitting the first day of summer, it feels like summer is finally here in Colorado. There’s still a bit of cool overnight and early in the morning, but mostly it’s hot and sunny by afternoon. It’s been a wet year so far, but now it seems to be […]
As I get older, I become more aware of my bodily functions, some of which don’t work the same way they did twenty years ago. I seem to spend more time “spending a penny’ than I used to and have become aware of the significant amount of water I use to flush away my more […]
Writes of Nature 