The archaeology of grief is not ordered. It is more like earth under a spade turning up things you had forgotten, surprising things come to light: not simply memories, but states of mind, emotions, older ways of seeing the world. –Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk I’ve finished reading Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk and want to weigh in on it like someone who’s … Continue reading Macdonald’s H is for Hawks: Finding Passage
We take for granted that birds in the millions returning from their winter feeding grounds in Central and South America will make it back to nest and mate in our yards each spring. The rude reality, however, paints a scenario of thinning numbers as their habitat continues to give way to human incursion; wetlands get drained; toxic sprays are employed; and GMO agriculture reduces the … Continue reading Saving Spring’s Envoys: Our Vanishing Birds
CNN reported yesterday that Hong Kong, the world’s largest retail market for ivory, will phase out ivory sales over the next eighteen months and impose severe penalties on those engaging in smuggling and trading of endangered species. Certainly this is good news! Chinese demand for ivory has long been the primary stimulus to the slaughtering of African elephants, presently an estimated 30,000 annually. It’s so … Continue reading Good News for Elephants!
I count myself fortunate to live near Lexington, KY. Its assets are many; its liabilities, few. I like its small town feel—no row housing here; no factories puffing their toxins into the air. Though ranked 61 among American cities, currently about 311,000, it’s unique in not having freeways threading its thoroughfares, unlike neighboring Louisville and Cincinnati. To be sure, Kentucky is often synonymous with poverty, … Continue reading Lexington, KY: Reflections on My Old Kentucky Home
My daughter has been complaining in her recent emails about a family on her street in Bellevue, WA. They’ve cut down two lovely Douglas fir trees, the kind that startle Easterners like me not used to arboreal skyscrapers, many of them magisterial in their silent dignity bequeathed by longevity. Bellevue, a fast growing suburb adjacent to Seattle, still enjoys a fecundity most urban areas in … Continue reading Don’t Be a Phoul: When Neighbors Cut Down Trees
If you have a garden and a library you have everthing you need.–Cicero I’ve been doing a lot of walking in the Seattle area these past several days, while visiting my daughter and family. As a gardener back home in Kentucky, it’s nice to see what cool temperatures and ample moisture can do for making verdant landscapes and, maybe more to the point, motivating green … Continue reading On Visiting Bloedel Reserve
In the aftermath of Cecil’s killing. you may have seen the op piece to the NYT by Goodwell Nzou, a Zimbabwe graduate student at Wake Forest University. Supposedly, he provides contextual balance, giving us the other side of the story, at least for the average Zimbabwean. For the many of us world wide, however, his version unwittingly says more about the sorry state of conservation … Continue reading Why We Mourn a Lion’s Death
This has been a busy time for America’s highest court, with gargantuan issues–gay marriage, Obama Care, and approval of a controversial capital punishment drug, cases decided by razor thin majorities. No less important, perhaps the most impacting of all, is the Supreme Court’s decision ultimately affecting climate change; namely its one vote majority ruling against the EPA’s Mercury and Toxic Standards (MATS) provision, designed to … Continue reading Reflections on the Supreme Court’s EPA Rebuff
Recently I posted about the plight of butterflies, especially that aerial tiger, the monarch butterfly. I mentioned that I’m trying to certify our backyard as a way station. But while I’m at it, bees also play a vital role in planning a pollinator garden. You may be aware that bees have been disappearing over the last several decades. And we haven’t known why–that is, until … Continue reading BEE Alert
Dear River, I cannot tell from your name if you are a boy or girl so I will write to you like you are a human being. The above comes from a book I’ve been reading for middle grade children, called Same Sun Here, by Silas House and Neela Vaswani. My wife, a middle school teacher, brought the book home several weeks ago for me … Continue reading Same Sun Here
