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Month: September 2019

By Posted on Posted in earthcare, education 2 Comments

We were walking down our pasture loop yesterday, and for some reason, I remembered when we first walked this path in 1999, we often saw flying squirrels that would drive the dog-of-the-day crazy. Not any more. It’s been years since we saw the last one. And ruffed grouse: We’d hear their low-frequency drumming in the woods almost every time we went down the valley, some times of the year. Red squirrels: Mountain Boomers, they’re called. I’d see them from the back porch, three or …

Extirpated, Eradicated, Extinct Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized No Comments

Our son-in-law is a prosperous, young, thinking Republican. He laments the mentality of his hunting and fishing buddies (Joe Flounder in our discussion) who blames current restrictions on flounder fishing on the whims of environmentalists. They are indignant over any rules that restrict their total freedom to keep everything they catch on their three-day weekend fishing trip. He challenged me to confront with my writing such contrarians directly and make them see the light. If only it was that easy. I penned a lengthy …

On Reaching Joe Flounder Read more »

By Posted on Posted in education, nature, Uncategorized 2 Comments

Yes, it does sound like a medieval incantation of doom. This is one for you from Nature’s Book of Bad Dreams. Seems we have among us a fungus that infects periodic cicadas in a most bizarre and ghoulishly effective way. So if you find said insect with its back half white, it is a flying salt-shaker of death to others of its kind. It will not turn you into anything more or less than what you have been. OTOH… The white pustule is a …

A Cicadian Pox of Conidial Pustules Read more »

By Posted on Posted in FieldNotes, The Writing Life 2 Comments

So even with my good intentions to breathe life back into the blog, it’s been on life support in ICU for another week, hanging on by a thread (though not of active conversation) and waiting for an injection of adrenalin. But not because there is nothing to write about on Goose Creek. Far from it. And I do not apologize for personal sloth. Oh NO! My goal was to ship out five bits from the upcoming book for (possible but not certain) inclusion in …

One-Armed Paper Hanger Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Reflections, WordAndImages 2 Comments

That’s not exactly right. FUTURE status UNK, but when is that not the case? Just sometimes more UNK than others. And we are in one of those times, I suppose, on Goose Creek and on Planet Earth. Where do we go from here? Our time and energy of late has been centered around the (now failed) attempt to find housing options nearer town and with more “aging in place” options at 71 than we needed when we refurbed this place at 51–twenty years ago …

Status: UNK Read more »