“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 […]
Category Archives: life
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 […]
Recently, the BBC released a list of the 100 best children’s books ever. Reading the list evoked my childhood and even my later youth. My father read to us frequently, and I became the reader for my younger sister, a role I kept into my teens. My wife and I both read to our son, […]
Edinburgh Castle rises above craggy heights in the middle of the city, part castle and part palace, the home of Scottish royalty. An ancient hill fort dating to before the seventh century, Edinburgh’s steep cliffs and rocky slopes preclude entry or attack from all but one side. Today the Royal Mile is filled with buildings […]
Our house was built around 1872 and the surrounding neighborhood dates to a similar time. At the time, the town was becoming a bit of a commercial center due to its position at the mouth of a creek that penetrated the Front Range. The railroad down to Denver began here, only later replacing the wagon […]
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” ~ John Muir “We forget that nature itself is one vast miracle transcending the reality of night and nothingness. We forget that each one of us in his personal life repeats that miracle.” ~ Loren Eiseley […]
Think of the cave drawings that tell a story or capture a moment from some year BC. Someone meticulously scratched images on a rock wall to immortalize the event. Men with spears, mastodons, cave bears, big cats or buffalo tell the tale of a hunt and survival. Later, colors were added to better and more […]
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!” ~ Hamlet by William Shakespeare I’m not sure how I started composting. Maybe it was just a result of not wanting to have stinky things in the trash so I didn’t have to take it out so often. I also dislike the idea of raking up […]
It was windy and cold with constant rain alternating between sprinkles and torrents. Walking on Cannon Beach was not particularly comfortable, but watching the waves from the fireplace in our vacation rental house’s living room by was pretty great. If you go to the Oregon coast in November, you must expect early winter weather, and […]
Quite a mix of birds has collected around the bird feeders outside our kitchen windows this year. The Chickadees and Juncos vie with the House Finches, Nuthatches and occasional Sparrow for a place at the trough. Lately, the big birds – Robins, Doves, Flickers and Jays – have become more aggressive in getting their share. […]
Writes of Nature 