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 […]
The water was dark and murky, nearly black in the dense shade. The surface, nearly still, slightly rippled by unseen small fish or insects, and vegetation crept out from the muddy shore. A small flat wooden bridge spanned a twenty foot reach of the swamp, connecting rutted dirt roads. The jungle vegetation and likelihood of […]
When we pried up the rotting board, there was a small gooey orange blob in the wet duff beneath. The cold rain had soaked everything, and I gently scooped up the unmoving creature. Only visitors to the Portland area, none of us knew the local fauna. It might be a small salamander; someone suggested a […]
The old Inuit man stood at the airport gate wearing his caribou hide jacket and pants, mouton vest, seal skin boots, wolverine fur hat and bearskin mittens over caribou skin gloves. The Aleyska pipeline representative looked him over to verify that he had the appropriate gear for the North Slope before he could fly north […]
“Nature is not always benign.” Mark Tercek and Johnathan Adams, Nature’s Fortune When she went to pick up the pile of laundry, she discovered a rattlesnake hidden underneath. Slowly, she dropped the laundry back in place. Married to a rancher and living on a ranch for years, things like that didn’t worry her too much. […]
Every spring, several Stinkhorn mushrooms appear in the tree lawn on our block. They are repulsive-looking and smell bad, hence the name. A tall white shaft rises several inches through the soil, and becomes capped with a black, gelatinous tip, containing the spores. The rotten carrion stench attracts insects, and the the spores stick to […]
My family lore holds that some of my forefathers (foreparents?) were Scots-Irish and the rest were English. There always seemed to be a divide in the extended family between the “rough side” and the “polished side” attributed to these genealogical differences. As I understood it, the Scots-Irish were originally poor Scots who had no land […]
“It is past time to broaden the discussion of the human future and connect it to the rest of life.” E.O. Wilson, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life Extinctions. Habitat loss. Climate change. We are wreaking havoc on the natural world. In spite of his dire warnings, E.O. Wilson is relatively upbeat about our chances […]
“We do not seek to imitate nature, but rather to find the principles she uses.” (attributed to) R. Buckminster Fuller “Our task is to make cities function more like natural landscapes.” Nature’s Fortune, Mark Tercek and Jonathan Adams “A companion rock? Really? Can’t we just move the tree and leave the rock here?” my buddy […]
Writes of Nature 