Our first blog post — was it only a week or so ago? — mentioned how, for me, the cycle of the seasons, the perpetual regeneration of living things, seemingly sprung out of nothing: bare ground, frozen ground, was inseparable from our own human urge to make stuff. Where does a musician’s melody come from, …
In a rut II, the Brunftzeit
Let’s say for the sake of argument that the writer, having the very sensible name Bardh Godwyn, passed down over generations by a hard-working and entirely believable family of Celtic forest dwellers, and certainly not a convenient pseudonym, instead had been given the unfortunate surname Brunst. It’s a peculiar enough thing to call someone, but …
In a rut
The deer have started to return. Mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus. A word about binomials first. I use them a fair bit, and there are two reasons: one, they’re much more reliable than common names — Pandion haliaetus is always an osprey, whereas “fish hawks” or “seahawks” can be any number of birds, or football teams, …
In the key of Whaa?
Here’s that picture of the hairy false goldenaster I mentioned in the last post. Now, if you didn’t know it was a hairy false goldenaster (I mean really, look at it) and even if you didn’t know your botany from your Bimini, you could probably guess it was at least a member of the Asteraceae …
Let Me Illustrate
Last night’s windstorm blew the cover off the hot tub. It ended up in the driveway at the bottom of the little hill the tub perches on, only a few feet from the Subaru. I suppose a stronger gust — stronger than the 40mph wind they said we got in the night — might have …
Rocky Mountain Juniper
Local ecosystems can vary over even small distances, so while both Red Cedar and nearby Reservoir Ridge share similar altitude, dry rocky soil, and common high plains shrubs like Rhus trilobata, Reservoir Ridge — just across Satanka Cove from us — has something in short supply on this hill: Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum). It’s …
What we don’t see
Take a look at this picture. It looks at first glance like a selfie. But a selfie by definition is a self-conscious thing. “Backstage! With Bon Jovi!” That’s a selfie. Or “Me and Diana on the Empire State Building!” Or “Guess who we met on top of the Empire State Building!! Bon Jovi!” And then …
Sand Cherry
The previous owner of these 1.7 acres — a wonderful, creative, quixotic human — invested an extraordinary amount of time in projects around the place. Some of these I’ve written about elsewhere: the chicken coop that the foxes laid siege to (and easily conquered); chicken coop 2.0, newly electrified (also overrun, pillaged, chickens carried away …
You’re sitting on them
There’s a light snow falling in the ravine, with temperatures likely to drop further this evening, so we’re going inside today. When Jane and I lived in Vancouver, we answered a local ad about worm composting. Someone was interested in forming a group to promote it. It sounded like a good idea, but felt a …
Mountain Cottontail
Everyone should have their own cottontail. Not the tail per se — though that would make business meetings a lot more interesting— but the rabbit with the tail. Luckily we have one, the Mountain Cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii), one of nine cottontail species found in the U.S. and Canada. They occupy a range in the intermountain …
Red Cedar Wright 