Yesterday I tried to find a farm out in the backcountry. I never did find the road but I passed through incredible scenery. Lately I have been smitten by the patchwork of colors on the rolling hills. Different crops mature at different rates and produce varying colors and patterns that are mesmerizing. In these photos…
In Wyoming, Arizona, and elsewhere I spent untold hours prepping the garden soil. My annual task was getting enough nutrients in the grainy, alkaline, native soils to support the growth of lush tomatoes and crisp cucumbers. In Wyoming, I hauled in hundreds of 5-gallon buckets filled with manure from the fairgrounds and then layered on…
The words Queen Bee conjure in my brain a single-minded bee, buzzing around more sedate bees, going here and there, owning the hive. That’s me. I buzz around endlessly, exploring, hiking, camping, paddling, bird-watching. The hive that I own is the mosaic of ecosystems called North America. The honey I seek is simply knowing, seeing,…
Half the material I read calls this area the prairie. The other half uses the term Great Plains. Since I live here and write about life in North Dakota now, I decided that this is the time to figure out the difference, if any, between these two terms. Yes, a prairie and the Great Plains…
I have indeed gone to many wonderful places. Now I am sitting on the 100th meridian up here in North Dakota. I am not sitting on anything real, like a chair or a porch swing: a meridian is simply one of many imaginary lines that divide the globe into equal sections. I am in the…
I am not a stranger to forest fires, having lived at various times in California, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. My closest encounter was in Northern California, around 1993. I was camping in Hendy Woods State Park, with my young son and friends, in a borrowed pop-up camper. In the wee hours, the rangers woke us…
Last summer I spent about a month in Northern Montana while on my 6-week sabbatical. I was intrigued by the extra longs days up north. I enjoyed sitting outside in the evening until 11 PM or so, when dark began to settle in. So, I have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of extra long days…
Holy Week was busy in my new church and community. I had six services (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday at the Nursing Home, Maundy Thursday at church, Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Easter). That is a new record for me, so I started working on the services a few weeks earlier. I wasn’t sure I could…
Before church on Sunday, a parishioner ran in and asked me, “Did you see the flock of robins in your yard?”Yes, I had. The day before, sometime between lunch and dinnertime, about a dozen robins arrived in my front yard. The berries on the tree that fed the Cedar Waxwings all winter was the lure.…
The northern migration along the central fly way is proceeding con gusto. I downloaded lists of which birds are in the area, which are moving on, and which are about to arrive. But, more fun than the lists: driving around Kidder County for a “look see”! Kidder County is a top ten North American birding…