The natural world, life, and dogs.
Yesterday evening, while walking Conall and Finn along our road, a car approached, slowed, and the passenger side window went down. A woman of about 80 leaned her head out, smiled and looking at Conall, said, "What a beautiful dog!" as her husband slowly drove by. They were driving a Subaru, the Vermont state car.… Continue reading Compliments and Perceptions
Dizziness. Loss of balance. An inability to walk; falling to the floor, or crashing into walls or objects. A sensation of spinning despite being still, or that the world is spinning around you. In inability to maintain a sense of up or down, no matter how hard you concentrate. Changes in hearing, including tinnitus, even… Continue reading Out of Kilter
A month ago I read an article about a man named Al Nixon. Al spends nearly every morning on a park bench in St. Petersburg, Florida, watching the sun rise and the people go by. His simple, consistent presence - and his open body language as he sits, legs outstretched, arms resting on the back… Continue reading Green Lake George
Maybe, like me, you endured school essay assignments where you had to compare and contrast something. Who knew that skill could end up being a useful blogging tool? Each day as I explore my new environment in Vermont, I can’t help but compare what I experience here to what I knew for the first 48… Continue reading Reinvention, Part Three: Comparing and Contrasting
Once, long ago, a male acquaintance said to me, “You’re constantly reinventing yourself.” He was being critical. I took it as a compliment. I’ve never been one to stay on the traditional or expected path. I prefer to stretch, explore, learn, and grow. Change can be scary, but overcoming hesitation and fear is a great… Continue reading Reinvention: Getting There (Part I)
If you have a dog, or have simply watched one drink from a bowl, stream or lake, you know how messy that process is. Dogs quickly plunge their tongue into the water and then pull it back up into their mouth, repeatedly, slurping some water with each flick before eventually swallowing. Depending on the dog,… Continue reading Dogs and Fluid Dynamics
Selling a house. While attempting to buy a house on the other side of the country before said sale is closed. Stressful! Coordinating the timing of both transactions so that I - and my dogs - don't end up homeless. Hugely stressful! It's crunch time, juggling closing on my sale while searching for something to… Continue reading Stress Buster: Wildflowers
I love the gentle surprises the forest offers me when I'm paying attention. Even better when it's one of my dogs that alerts me to the surprise. When I see something new, unusual, and/or intriguing, I take photos or record video/audio if I can, and back home, start researching to learn more. A couple days… Continue reading A Dusky Grouse Encounter
My last post described the twin events of spring in the forests of Idaho's central mountains: blooming wildflowers and prescribed burns. By pure happenstance, the Forest Service decided to do prescribed burns in my two favored locations for springtime runs and hikes with my dogs: in the forest just a mile above my house, and… Continue reading Prescribed Burns
The morning of May 12th I awoke to the smell of smoke in the air, that pleasant sitting-around-a-campfire smell. At daybreak, I could also see it, hovering over the ground like a thin, dirty-white veil, wrapping my house and everything on the valley slope as it slowly rose to meet the forest. The feature photo… Continue reading Spring in the Forest: Blooms and Burns
