The natural world, life, and dogs.
Living in the mountains, one quickly learns that predicting weather in March is a fool's errand. For several weeks, the swings between winter and spring are wild and seemingly random. Nature teases with warm days of sunshine, melting the long winter's snow pack on the ground and inviting you to step outside without jacket, hat… Continue reading Fool’s Spring
I've been writing a lot about snow lately because it's the dominant feature of my landscape in winter. Far away, on the other side of the globe where sand and ocean are dominant features and the weather far more temperate, live fellow bloggers Micah and Markus. One of the many reasons I love the WordPress… Continue reading From Snow to Sand: Baby Sea Turtles
It has been a long while since Conall caught a vole in the yard, so his food bank for the local raven pair has been bare. I worried that the ravens had given up on us as I hadn't seen or heard them much recently. Now I realize that was mostly due to weather. We've… Continue reading Raven Check-in
The snow just keeps falling. And accumulating. I measured 40 inches (101.6 cm) on the ground this morning, February 17, 2021. Forecast calls for more snow over the next several days. Ullr - the Norse god of snow and patron saint of skiers - sure is delivering this winter. Skiers are happy. My last post… Continue reading Snow and Voles: the Drama Continues
It's snowing, again. I love snow! Even though winter officially started December 21st, and spring arrives March 21st, here in Idaho's mountains winter doesn't gain full steam until January. New snow intermittently drifts down from the sky through March and into April. Locals joke that it always snows on Memorial Day (late May), and it… Continue reading Half-way Through Winter
Memories from long ago are often sparked by the simplest things experienced now. A visual, an action, a scent, a sound, a song, or a combination of many of those elements, and suddenly, in a flash of mental time travel, I’m transported from today to yesterday. Recently this phenomenon occurred three times in the same… Continue reading Today Becomes Yesterday
I confess, I'm easily entertained. Especially by dogs and their close relatives: wolves, coyotes and foxes. They fascinate me. I recently wrote about a fox who visits regularly, hunting for voles in my field, irritating Conall. I also wrote about the budding symbiotic relationship between a local raven pair and Conall's voles, left in the… Continue reading Wild Conversations
If you pay attention, the natural world offers endless entertainment. This winter there's almost daily life-and-death drama unfolding right in my yard. Nature's circle of life, on a small scale. In late December I wrote about two ravens who had discovered my dogs' discarded marrow bones. I toss them over the yard fence into the… Continue reading Conall’s Food Bank for Ravens
Starting with his earliest forays into the forest near home as a puppy, Conall has had the ability to follow his nose to animal bones left on the ground. Some bones appear in the normal course of life, after animals die from natural causes or as a predator's meal. Other bones appear after hunters kill… Continue reading Who Stole My Treasure?
A symbiotic relationship is one that benefits members of two different species or groups. Last summer I wrote about the symbiotic relationship between ravens and wolves. While I wish I could personally observe that relationship in action, wolves are too elusive (as they should be) so it's only the ravens I'm privileged to see up… Continue reading Symbiosis: Ravens and Dogs
Wild Sensibility 