Notions
October 20, 2014 / Squirrel 1, Human 0
Oh this is not what you think—the squirrels getting into my bird feeder or even my attic. Nope, this is about the STRENGTH of SQUIRRELS. Walking along yesterday, I noticed some fruits—nuts--strewn about the sidewalk. Some were still in their big round green or browning husks, others… Read More
October 02, 2014 / It’s All In Our Heads
For a while now I have been going to a little meditation group once a week. It is good to sit in focused silence for half an hour, letting go of things if possible. After our daughter died, I felt the surrounding comfort of the group, and that was good, too. Then we went to Cape Cod for a month,… Read More
September 16, 2014 / Seen at Cottage 5, Cape Cod
We have been coming here for over forty years. For some years now I have kept a little record of my favorite natural history sighting or experience of each day. I allow myself only one short line for each entry. See if you can see my sightings in your own mind's eye, and travel to Cape Cod as… Read More
September 05, 2014 / Fruits of Their Labors
If you didn’t know, you might think that this time of year—just before the Fall Equinox—is a time of death in the plant world. I mean, leaves are curling up and some have fallen already, or are turning red or yellow, and only the flowers of fall, the asters and the hothouse… Read More
August 27, 2014 / Thank You, Joel Meyerowitz
If you don’t know this photographer, you should. Years ago, really before I started taking my own pictures, but had forever been enraptured by others’ images, I posted these words of his above my desk. See what you think. “Photographers deal with things that are always… Read More
August 17, 2014 / Nested Universes
I have a really keen sense of smell, which is a good thing since I love to smell stuff, or maybe it’s the other way around, I love to smell things because I can. However, one of the plants on my deck seems to have no smell that I can discern, even sniffing really deeply. At least the… Read More
July 07, 2014 / A Gathering in the Water
Hello there. We are Moon Jellies. Please do not call us “jellyfish” as we have been around 500,000,000 years, much before Nature organized fish. One of your kind, called Linnaeus, named us Aurelia aurita, but that was only about 250 years ago. A pretty name though, don’t you… Read More
June 20, 2014 / Ravished by Petunias
In the night, intricate scent molecules rise and travel from the deck garden just below, to reach me in my window-side bed. Helpless to answer this drenching invitation, I can only perceive it. If only I were a pollinator! I can only inhale, sigh, and be ravished. Petunias of an… Read More
June 12, 2014 / A Distant Quiet
It’s very noisy here right now. They are tearing up all the streets around our house, and the staccato roar of the tearing-up machine crowds the air. The neighborhood kids have a great new toy in the yard at the house behind ours: what do you call it? a bouncy castle or some such? Anyhow,… Read More
June 04, 2014 / Tiananmen Square: 25 Years
On June 4, 1989 I was in a small town in New Hampshire, where I had been invited to lead several days of workshops for the town’s teachers. The folks there put me up in a little motel, to which I gratefully retired after the first day’s work. I ordered out for pizza and while I was… Read More