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
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
I’ve been feeling wordless lately. Shocker, right? It happens. No worthwhile topic I’m itching to write about. No current stream-of-consciousness idea presenting itself to me as worthy of words on the page/screen. Instead, I turn to my dogs and let them console and entertain me. They’re good at that. Conall’s Food Bank for Ravens has… Continue reading Wolf Moon
Blood. Guts. Bones. The past few days have delivered some up-close and raw aspects of nature. If you're made queasy by the sight of blood, large animal bones or small animal organs, you may want to skip this post. Nothing horrific, but nature isn't always wildflowers and butterflies. Sometimes, nature gets real. I've been writing… Continue reading Nature, Uncensored
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?
I'm fortunate. I get to see lots of wildlife where I live, adjacent to a national forest in Idaho's mountains. While I rank the wolf - including the one I was privileged to see in its natural environment back in 2006 - as my favorite animal among the local wildlife, red foxes are a close… Continue reading Outfoxed
Wild Sensibility 