The grass is yellow. It is spring and there have been no rains. The endless vista washes up against the bare Sangre de Cristo mountains. Normally this time of year, they would be sprinkled with snow like powdered sugar on a cake. Ahead of me are the great sand [...]
Dusk lights the long corridor ahead of me through jack pine and colored maple. I am on my way to a small lake to watch the sun set. In electric mode, the only sound is the soft crunch of the car’s tires on gravel. The air is still with [...]
One of the joys of life is waking up and asking the question, “How did I get here?” I am laying on a cot next to my new grandson, Ian, in a jungle treehouse. The tin roof begins a staccato bong, bong, bong which turns to a cacophony of [...]
Climate and the environment shouldn’t be political issues, but they are. Conservatives are more skeptical, and the current administration, as well as local politicians, are doing immense damage to renewable energy and the climate. As a result, many people are trying to figure out how to move the needle [...]
Adventure is what you get when you can tell others that you survived poor planning. Tragedy is the other outcome, and is usually reported by someone who finds your body. Apologies to the dinosaurs, but disaster rarely appears out of nowhere. It is a result of a series of [...]
Is it possible for the forest to speak to the clouds and sky when it is thirsty? This is what I’m thinking, walking up the mountain in the morning. It’s winter. Cold. Gray. Diluted with old snow. Another season in time. I am pulled by habit and looking for [...]
On Friday, my neighbor Kerry was packing her old Subaru. She and her husband were getting a divorce. Selling the place. I went out to say goodbye. There’s always a little bit of awkwardness when discussing divorce. What do you say? Congratulations? Lucky, no kids? She said she was [...]
A blinding blue sky arcs the vault above me. I am tethered to the earth by my imagination of gravity and a mass of billion year-old anorthosite forming the Sawtooth mountains. Glaciers have tried to erase these mountains and left them old and rounded like me. A cool high [...]
A couple of my grandsons are at the age where the word “nuts” makes them giggle. I show them a road-killed squirrel as a subtle message to look when they cross the street. “Are those his ‘nuts’?” they laugh. The problem with squirrels is the other kind of nuts. [...]
