I just had an article published in Odyssey Magazine this month. This is a very cool, science magazine for middle school kids that I have loved for a long time. Each issue has a theme, and April’s theme is trees. I wrote a piece about how whole tree building can […]
Several of my posts lately have been short because of family health issues. One of those issues concluded last Saturday when my father-in-law succumbed to a long, wasting disease. This man was part of my life for 33 years. He was a hard man for me to like – politically […]
Do you love the first sight of snow drops or crocus or scilla? Are you watching the grass green up and watching willow branches turn yellow green? Have you got geese nesting on a pond near you? Senior citizens in Miami and Phoenix aren’t the only ones who venture north […]
Star Trek called space the final frontier, and that phrase is still resonating through our collective psyche. Americans have nostalgia for our lost frontier, but if we want to recapture that excitement of discovery, we are looking in the wrong direction. We need to look straight down at what we […]
In 2006 people started finding dead bats whose noses were covered in a white fungus in caves around Albany NY. We now know this is the deadly White Nose Syndrome WNS, which has decimated the bat populations of Europe. It’s spreading fast, jumping west more than 500 miles just last […]
Continuing family health issues, so I am taking the opportunity to recommend another really neat site I recently learned about. The Third Teachert is based on the premise that children develop through interactions, first with adults, then with peers, and ultimately with the environment around them. For children, that environment […]
Family health issues have compromised my ability to put a regular blog post together. I was going to write about an amazing young organization USA National Phenological Network I have learned about while researching for a book. So I’ll just urge you to check out their website. Phenology is noting […]
Yesterday I was listening to Erle Ellis of the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, speaking about “The Ancient Anthropogenic Landscapes and the Emergence of the Anthropocene” as part of the Weston Roundtable Series at UW-Madison. Check out a you tube on his research here. […]
We’ve been dealing with a sudden and serious medical issue in the family this past few days, and I have not had time to prepare a post. So I am going to refer you to a very good blog I recently learned about through the quirky connections one can make […]
Last September I wrote a post, Chili Peppers in History and in Your Garden about a presentation I saw by Dave Baumler. Last year he grew 50 different types of peppers here in Madison. This year he is starting over 100 different types, and he told me all about it […]
Digging in the Driftless 