His (Daniel Boone’s) idea of happiness included unspoiled country where the land could sing its authentic songs, and where men could hear the call of wild things and know the precious freedom of the wilderness. ~ Stuart Udall, The Quiet Crisis I crossed the parking lot in a light rain. This mountain park had no […]
“How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm (after they’ve seen Paree?)” ~Walter Donaldson, Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis In my mind’s eye, I see a comfy two story white house with a wrap-around porch, shaded by tall cottonwood trees. An old wooden red barn sits in back next to a corral with […]
Good fences make good neighbors… Why do they make good neighbors? Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down. ~ Mending Wall, by Robert […]
“The average food item on a U.S. grocery shelf has traveled farther than most families go on their annual vacations.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver At our local farmer’s market, there’s always a stand that makes me uncomfortable. The owner brings a semi-trailer up from Arizona full of boxes of vegetables, and sells them quite cheaply. For […]
Frankly, a person too dull to look up at the sky and see a parade of tortoises or a huge pair of mittens or a ghost holding a samurai sword is not a person worth lying in a meadow with. ~ Jon Mooalem With all the rancor in the national news these days, I appreciate […]
The cycle of life was spinning with such speed that even a short-lived beastie such as me could see birth, rise, death, decay and rebirth happening in each and every moment. Life doesn’t get any better than that, I don’t think. Life, death, rebirth – that’s the mystery, isn’t it? That magnificent moment of connection, […]
The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves. Rachel Carson “In the 1860’s an army surveyor was here and noted that the grass grew up to his horse’s shoulders,” he said. The archaeologist and I stood on a small bluff overlooking the Little Colorado […]
Perhaps the first rule of everything we endeavor to do is to pay attention. Perhaps the second is to be patient. And perhaps a third is to be attentive to what the body knows. Barry Lopez, The Invitation, Granata Magazine Something just off the trail caught my attention, and I squatted down to get a […]
I am struck again by the apparently incompatible concept of man and nature. When we intrude into nature, do we decrease its nature-ness? “But all conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.” Aldo Leopold, A […]
“…a land ethic that holds at its core an appreciation for the community, not just the commodity, of your property,” John Marzluff, Subirdia Studies have reported that approximately three percent of the earth’s land surface is urbanized and the ‘human footprint’ is felt on up to 83%. A third of our land is devoted to […]
Writes of Nature 