The young IRS auditor looked across at my dad’s client and said, “You’ve claimed drought losses here, but you had twelve inches of rain last year.” The old rancher’s West Texas place had been homesteaded by his grandfather, and ranched by succeeding generations. He looked at the youngster and replied, “Yes sir, that was one […]
Tag Archives: Nature
Away out here they have a name for rain and wind and fire. The rain is Tess, the fire, Joe, and they call the wind, Maria. Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe, Paint Your Wagon We had been in Flagstaff all day, and when we got back to Winslow it was dark. The wind had […]
The spiritual sons of the mountain men were the men of the next wave – the skin-and-scoot market hunters, the cut and get out lumbermen, the cattle barons whose herds grazed the plains bare. Stuart Udall, The Quiet Crisis As a boy growing up in Texas, I was constantly confronted by the collision of the […]
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. Loren Eiseley My family spent a lot of time in the water. My dad was a college swim star, and my uncle would have gone to the 1940 Olympics if it hadn’t been for Hitler. We swam and fished and generally fooled around […]
We never really knew whose idea it was, but once pronounced, it caught on like wildfire. My father and his sometime hunting buddy, Harry, figured that if they concentrated their efforts over the entire hunting season, they could shoot enough big ducks for a really fancy duck dinner. North Texas is on the Central Flyway […]
“Nowadays man finds himself to be a technical giant and an ethical child.” Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga “The amplification of our lives by technology grants us a power we can no longer afford to use.” George Monbiot, Feral It was a shiny, four-wheel drive, crew cab pickup and I expected to see the […]
My garden is growing, the farmer’s market is bulging with fresh fruits and veggies, and the Olathe sweet corn is in. My diet is better this time of year; I can’t resist the peaches and berries, and the garden is providing a steady crop of squash, beans, tomatoes and greens. Life is good. However, it […]
It was the good old days of environmentalism. Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey, burning rivers, exploding chemical plants, and contaminated neighborhoods. We knew who the bad guys were and the good guys just had to stop them. It was a crisis of immense importance and needed immediate response. Catastrophe was looming over us every day. The […]
A man was throwing starfish caught by the tide back into the sea. When asked why saving one starfish out of hundreds stranded on the beach mattered, he replied, “It matters to that one.” Apologies to Loren Eisley, The Star Thrower Climate change, peak oil, recession/depression, bacteria in foods, pharmaceuticals in drinking water, ozone depletion, […]
“…it is important to bear in mind that nature bats last and owns the stadium.” Hawken, Lovins, Lovins, Natural Capitalism 1996 – Out on the plains to the east, the horizon stretches forever. In the valley between the foothills and the mesas, the sky is bright long before the sun’s first rays strike the valley. […]
Writes of Nature 