The comb was found in a trash pile, what the archeologists call a midden, not far above the sea and just outside the remains of a longhouse. From the sit of the house and the site of the midden we know it was an easy toss: you could practically step outside and hurl food scraps, […]
Curiosities
The world is a lot right now, so I want to suggest that you find some little delights to keep your spirits up. Perhaps start with birds. (And if that doesn’t work, there are always dogs.) Last May, I wrote about how I’d become a bird spy. A year later, I’m still obsessed with my […]
I’ve been in southern Baja reading Ann Finkbeiner’s accounts of the dismal cold of midwinter and I’ve felt bad. I know what it’s like to shiver in the gray, but Baja happened for me, Sonoran Desert splendor (my home desert), along the whale-happy Sea of Cortez, (the first giant body of salt water I ever […]
There is an Asian elm tree that I can see out of my office window. In the winter, its branches trace intricate lines against the pale sky. Every few years, an arborist casts ropes through the branches and climbs up to trim the tree. One year, he pointed out a fork in the trunk with […]
Our little farm is nestled in a pinyon juniper habitat that we share with lots of other creatures. Often enough, we encounter these animals close up. Sightings of foxes, coyotes, deer, elk and turkeys are so commonplace as to have become almost (but not quite) uninteresting. Other creatures we see mostly by the signs they […]
Time is escaping me today. What day is this, anyway? This post first ran in February of 2016, and this morning I landed in Frankfurt, Germany, after a chain of cancelled and delayed flights from Colorado, which has my head swimming. What day is this, anyway, is a real question. It turns out to be […]
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) with a group of STEM-curious high school kids. Our guide on the visit was Shirajum Monira, a tiny, dark-haired woman, who spoke gently as she walked us through numerous exhibits, experimental facilities and scientific devices. She spoke patiently and […]
I was recently in Japan with my high school graduate, a promised trip to a place I’d never been. My takeaway, besides humid summer heat poaching us in our own juices, is the wild green that took over anything humans left untouched. Hills are a chlorophyl riot, rugged canyons buried in canopies, creek after creek […]
