Bee Lines

I’m on an email listserv for people who study bees. Not honeybees (goodness, no, not honeybees). All the other bees. There are some 20,000 species of bees in the world. Tiny metallic green ones, big fuzzy ones, and everything in between. I rarely read the emails – it’s more fun to imagine what they might […]

The moon, right there

Right there! The moon! And, right above it, Mars. Right over my head. Right over your head. Right over your head, person driving that car! Right over your heads, people who just rode by on the train! Right over your head, person walking your dog! And the dog’s head, too! And right over my grandparent’s […]

Snapshot: Sandhill cranes

Before they head south for the winter, sandhill cranes like to get together and fatten up. One of the places they do this is near the town of Jackson, Michigan. So on a recent visit to Ann Arbor, my dad and I drove over one day to look for them. They weren’t hard to find; […]

Snapshot: Executive Function

I’m not sure that my problem is with executive function exactly; my problem might more accurately be described as “not wanting to do administrative tasks.” And, my goodness, when you’re a grown-up, there are a lot of administrative tasks. On the suggestion of a wise advisor, earlier this fall I asked my friend Erika if […]

100 Days, 1 Dress

This weekend I could not motivate to write a blog post from thin air, so I asked Our Cameron to interview me instead. Here we are. So I saw a photo on Instagram of you wearing a pink(?!) dress. And then you said that you had worn that dress for 100 days. Wow! And what’s […]

Snapshot: Persimmon tree

In spring of 2022, I wrote about an edible plant walk. Plants! With food! They’re all around us! In early October I went on another plant walk with the same guy, featuring oak trees. Did you know you can eat acorns? You can. But first you have to process them, extensively, to get rid of […]

Bug On My Window, Having a Tough Day

A few weeks ago, a cicada landed on my screen of my open window. This was one of the regular cicadas that come out every year. They’re much more secretive than their 17-year cousins. Well, most of the time they’re secretive. They don’t seem very secretive when they’re on your screen window, making their extremely […]

Snapshot: Very Big Tree

Behold this mighty tree! It’s in an unassuming bit of woods near my parents’ house in Silver Spring, Md. So unassuming, in fact, that this December 2021 visit was the first time I had set foot in that particular bit of woods, and my family moved to the neighborhood in 1985. The local parks folks […]