A Quick and Noble End

Since many of us count animals as companions and friends, please allow me to remember Belle and recount how she died this week. You may recall her in another piece here. The Basset hound mutt with a yard-long body and short legs even made it […]

Species Parade, Episode 17

Apparently, I don’t get out much. Grey Foxes are nocturnal for the most part and I’d never ever seen one until driving home late one night. It jogged across the canyon road. I realized my nighttime activity is almost entirely done without headlights, headlamps, or […]

Diversity Reconsidered

This opinion piece appeared recently in High Country News. Here is the unedited version: Diversity is such a funny word. Most folks think of it in terms of skin color or ethnicity. I picked my college because of this so-called diversity. For a white girl […]

Glamping in Patagonia Baselayer

Don’t get me wrong. I love camping of all sorts. But truck camping, one form of glamping, is what I’m doing lately. In a truck camper, you can: Sleep on a real mattress Overnight at highway rest stops with a locked door Carry and cook […]

A Doggy Did-You-Know

When I brought skinny Peeko home from a Utah shelter, I knew only a few bits about her past: — she was about a year old — as a stray, she had broken her right elbow and it had healed badly. Two years later, I […]

“Landmarks” by Robert MacFarlane is a book to reread

We regularly recommend books on NickerNews (another site in the family of Cayyuse Crest Communications). Why not here? This first installment comes on finishing one of the most impressive non-fiction books I’ve read in years: Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane. Landmarks is full of those moments […]

“Landmarks”: A Book to Savor

Check out one of the most impressive non-fiction books I’ve read in years: Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane. Landmarks is full of precious moments for engaged readers: Ah-ha moments and passages that you immediately have to read again, not because they confound you but because they […]

Species Parade, Episode 16

The death of a game camera is better than the death of a bear. No bear pictures in this episode. The ursine action is still happening, I think. Or, at least, something is drinking the water that’s left and refilled regularl in a quiet, green, […]

Alpine Houdini Review

“Weather permitting…” Real trekkers hardly acknowledge a phrase like this one. It rains. We’re either prepared and comfortable or unprepared and grin through it. I prefer the former. During the lovely monsoon season here in Colorado, it might rain every day for a few months. […]

Species Parade, Episode 15

During the summer, cows move into the community. For a few months, their mooing and bellowing is about all you can hear unless you adjust your ears. The birds and mammals are still here, but they seem to step back, literally and figuratively. The dogs, […]