“It was a dark and stormy night …” ~ Snoopy Colorado is nice in the summer, and camping out is a favorite activity for many of us here. Fall and spring can be nice, too, but the weather can be unexpectedly erratic. Across the southern U.S., the weather is nice three-quarters of the year […]
Category Archives: human nature
“That’s what the bison did,” Mr. Isaacs, a cow-calf rancher said. “They’d come in a million at a time, stomp it all down and move on to fresh pasture. And they wouldn’t come back until it was time to graze again.” ~ Henry Fountain Farming has always been about managing the soil, keeping it […]
Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most commonly occurs during winter months. ~ Wikipedia Lately, I’ve become envious of those animals that can just go into hibernation and ignore the outside world. Between the pandemic totally disrupting our lives both […]
Hello wall, (hello, hello)How’d things go for you today? ~ Hello Walls, Faron Young and Willie Nelson Humans seem to need walls. We build them to separate things and ourselves. We put up walls to keep our things inside and to keep other things out. We put up walls to establish ownership and create boundaries. […]
Betty, our older cat, likes to lie in her cat hammock in the kitchen window and watch the squirrels scamper on the back lawn; and the various birds that visit the feeders. She complains — with her scratchy meow — about some of them for unknown reasons. The doves, flickers and magpies are a particular […]
And so, remember this, life is no abyssSomewhere there’s a bluebird of happiness ~ Sandor Harmati Twenty-five years ago, we made a major addition to our house that expanded the kitchen and featured a string of large windows overlooking the back yard with a view to the mountains on the north. Originally, I put up […]
As long as you love me soLet it snow, let it snow, let it snow I was twenty-nine and ill-prepared for snow during my first winter in this Colorado house. It’s kind of like mowing the lawn — you feel some unexpressed social disapproval if you don’t take care of your yard and house. […]
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides nowFrom up and down, and still somehowIt’s cloud illusions I recallI really don’t know clouds at all ~ Joni Mitchell Climate change is bringing worrying uncertainty to our weather patterns. We try to minimize or eliminate carbon emissions to reduce the greenhouse effect, but we’re taking too […]
This is how it typically goes with solar arrays: We build them on open space rather than in developed areas. That is, they overwhelmingly occupy croplands, arid lands, and grasslands, not rooftops or parking lots. ~ Richard Conniff I live in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, part of Colorado’s Front Range, and from the top […]
It doesn’t really feel like summer, but then it’s not like December either. People are foreswearing their parkas and stocking hats, and we had a rain storm this morning. It’s mid-December in Colorado for Christ’s sake! It’s been mild, if not warm — making it not very seasonal at all. When I was growing up […]
Writes of Nature 