Once when I was hiking in the gloaming, down from the mountain where the stars begin in the vault above. Once when I descended into the forest, and the moon rose over the glade, and the night hawks pealed against the fading light. Once when I was young and [...]
The wife of a friend of mine died suddenly when she was 40. The mother of an eight-year-old, our daughters were the same age and shared an interest in horses. She was an English teacher, and we both loved books and reading. We’d escape parties to talk about what [...]
I suppose the Bass-Oreno saved my life. Other than it’s preposterous name, all I knew about it was that it was made by the South Bend Bait Company of Indiana, and it caught bass. For a ten-year old, that was magic enough. I found it a couple years ago [...]
I am hiking. The long trail up the mountain stretches out ahead. It’s a bright spring day on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The trees are desperately sprouting leaves celebrating the green ouroboros. While the air is cold, the earth is warm. A raven squawks from across the [...]
For me, the last raspberry is the sweetest. Perhaps bitter sweet. All summer I’ve watered them and kept invasive Japanese Beetles and birds off with netting, and tried to protect them, knowing this time was coming. I like to record the date of the last raspberry. Over 25 years, [...]
Walking through the forest, I am at peace. A soft carpet of red pine needles mutes my footfall, while my eyes follow the trail ahead. It turns and twists organically following the Cascade River valley a hundred feet below. I grew up as a feral child. Like Tarzan, I [...]
The feathers of a sparrow drift down like snow out of a sky made bluer by yellow leaves and white clouds. A victim of a Cooper’s hawk. Life seeking and reducing everything to amino acids. The Junko is oblivious. The energy of the sparrow will power the hawk for [...]
The world is green, cool and humid. The land falls away over a valley, and beyond that, another and another. I ask the driver of the Land Rover to let us off a couple of miles from our camp at 10,000 feet. We are on the slopes of Mount [...]
Forests are the lungs of the earth. They give us about one third of the oxygen we breath, and they sequester carbon dioxide. Around the world, they absorb almost 40% of human carbon emissions and help slow the rate of global warming. I am walking along the east side [...]
