February Dreams

A warm beach, clear, blue water, lapping waves, palm trees and cool drinks under an umbrella. Looking out at the crystal snow falling in the below-zero air, I shiver in spite of the roar of our furnace trying to keep out the cold. A February winter’s day in Colorado, not unlike the last few and […]

 Unhoused

“It was a dark and stormy night …”                                                                 ~ Snoopy Colorado is nice in the summer, and camping out is a favorite activity for many of us here. Fall and spring can be nice, too, but the weather can be unexpectedly erratic. Across the southern U.S., the weather is nice three-quarters of the year […]

Bored and Grumpy

Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most commonly occurs during winter months.                                                                                                 ~ Wikipedia Lately, I’ve become envious of those animals that can just go into hibernation and ignore the outside world. Between the pandemic totally disrupting our lives both […]

Both Sides Now

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides nowFrom up and down, and still somehowIt’s cloud illusions I recallI really don’t know clouds at all                                                 ~ Joni Mitchell Climate change is bringing worrying uncertainty to our weather patterns. We try to minimize or eliminate carbon emissions to reduce the greenhouse effect, but we’re taking too […]

Made in the Shade

This is how it typically goes with solar arrays: We build them on open space rather than in developed areas. That is, they overwhelmingly occupy croplands, arid lands, and grasslands, not rooftops or parking lots.                                                 ~ Richard Conniff I live in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, part of Colorado’s Front Range, and from the top […]

Indian Summer

It doesn’t really feel like summer, but then it’s not like December either. People are foreswearing their parkas and stocking hats, and we had a rain storm this morning. It’s mid-December in Colorado for Christ’s sake! It’s been mild, if not warm — making it not very seasonal at all. When I was growing up […]

Evolving

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and […]

Urban Nature

Humans need to find peace and quiet. Any parent has reached their screaming point from all the chaos that children and jobs can bring into their lives, but we all occasionally need some calming, uninterrupted time for our brain to settle down and clear out our thoughts. For some, a walk in the woods or […]