Babies have left the nest. You can hear and watch them still begging their parents for food, beaks open, wings shivering. They can be clumsy flyers, sometimes struggling to land right on branches. The ravens, in my observation, are the loudest and klutziest of newbies. […]
Read moreMonthly Archives: July 2015
The Case against Mindfulness
Like a once-favorite song, this trend of mindfulness is starting to vex me. Its popularity is what social media and connectivity felt like five or 10 years ago. But already, I just wish folks would get over it. Please delete Headspace, the meditation app, from […]
Read moreReal live streaming
Never has getting outside been a more conscious, deliberate activity. But when you get out, where goes your brain? Assuming you’re alone, do you focus on emptying your mind and being ‘present?’ Or, do you let your mind flit restlessly from topic to topic, like […]
Read moreReal live streaming
Never has getting outside been a more conscious, deliberate activity. But when you get out, where goes your brain? Assuming you’re alone, do you focus on emptying your mind and being ‘present?’ Or, do you let your mind flit restlessly from topic to topic, like […]
Read moreSpecies Parade, Week Four
In my twenties, I worked for two summers as a field researcher in Michigan and North Carolina. My job was studying Indigo Buntings, finding their nests, catching and banding the adults, as well as the young. Buntings like to nest in secondary growth – tall […]
Read moreSpecies Parade, Week Four
In my twenties, I worked for two summers as a field researcher in Michigan and North Carolina. My job was studying Indigo Buntings, finding their nests, catching and banding the adults, as well as the young. Buntings like to nest in secondary growth – tall […]
Read moreMountain conversation oddly civil
While my Maine friends lobby to have Governor LePage impeached and the Pine Tree State stays mired in a certain degree of discontent, discord, and intransigence, folks in Utah seems downright ducky and team-spirited. It might have something to do with the pro-business environment and […]
Read moreSpecies Parade, Week Three
At night, outside my window, there’s an intermittent beepy-buzzing. It’s not one of the familiar goatsuckers (nighthawk or poor will). It’ll keep me guessing, I’m guessing. That’s the fun of getting out and seeing (or not seeing) animals. They keep you guessing. They’re like […]
Read moreBackpacker as a museum piece
“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” John Muir Reality is scary and boring. Wilderness is beautiful and tiresome. Getting Out is serene and challenging. Getting Out, […]
Read more