Gary Larson,The Far Side If I could walk with the animals. And talk with the animals. Grunt, Squeak, and squawk with the animals. And love that they could talk to me. “Doctor Doolittle” lyric by Leslie Bricusse While adding more seed to the bird feeder, I had a conversation with a curious Chickadee who […]
“…Manys en manys de time, deze long nights en deze rainy spells, dat I sets down dar in my house over ag’in de chimbley-jam – I sets der en I dozes, en it seem lak dat ole Brer Rabbit, he’ll stick he head in de crack er de do’ en see my eye periently shot, […]
The soil has been mixed with human thought and substance. These fields … have moved and walked and talked and loved and suffered; hence one feels kinship to them and at home among them. ~John Burroughs, Fresh Fields Climate change is expected to knock extreme weather up a notch — droughts will become droughtier, floods […]
One learns that it takes more than a collection of trees to make a forest, as we know it in this country. Unless they house that spirit of wildness and purity like a temple, they fail to satisfy. John Burroughs, Fresh Fields The sand around the greasewood bush on the dune was bare except for […]
“Ah yes, I remember it well. It was on a night not unlike tonight …” The tip of his cigarette glowed in the darkness, briefly revealing his features when he took a puff. Mostly he moved back and forth across the small outdoor stage spinning his yarns in the night to the expectant kids and […]
A penny saved is a penny earned. Benjamin Franklin I emptied the coins onto the kitchen table and began to sort through them looking for “Wheaties” and unusual coins. It is an old ritual, and I can’t remember not doing it — usually around the first of the year. We had several coin caches, one […]
The secret to sustainability is long-term thinking. ~ Patty Limerick The rocks were slippery and the icy cold water was rushing quickly past, so I was quite careful as I reached out to retrieve what turned out to be a baggie caught in a riverside eddy. I used my hiking pole to skewer the bag […]
I think that I shall never see, A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest, Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear, A nest of robins in her hair; […]
“With climate change increasing, drought increasing, and more high rainfall events, I think there’s more of a need to incorporate permanent vegetation into agriculture systems.” Susan Stein, Director of USDA National Agroforestry Center In the movie Interstellar, the near-future world is being consumed by climate change, and one-by-one the monocultural crops that feed the world […]
I have a Fort Theory of Ecology, Fort Theory of Conservation. Every ecologist I know, every conservation biologist I know, every conservation professional I know, built forts when they were kids. If we have a generation that doesn’t know how to build a fort, we’ll have a generation that doesn’t know how to care about […]
Writes of Nature 