This week’s essay is about the quaking aspen. What’s most fascinating about them is their existences as a potential “super” organism. That’s not like leaping tall buildings or inheriting a global conglomarate industry to fund rage-filled vengence crime fighting. Listen to find out how it’s different. And then after you listen to me dig deeperContinue reading “Within These Woods: Quaking Aspen”
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Special Childhood Places
My ball cap shields my eyes a bit from the morning sun and frames my view from the kayak. The morning sun lifts the cool air left from the night. The still water reflects the shoreline made of white pine, balsam fir, sugar maple, basswood, and oak. This lake, where I’ve experienced the beginning ofContinue reading “Special Childhood Places”
Within These Woods: White Pine
This week’s essay is about the grandfather tree, the White Pine.
Within These Woods: Chipping Sparrow
This morning essay uses the demure little chipping sparrow to explore the idea of honoring individuality while finding one’s place as part of a collective whole. Something we seem to struggle with a bit in our country right now.
Within These Woods: White-Breasted Nuthatch
Here’s a little essay about a little bird.
Within These Woods: Beaver
The original master carpenterRaw materials of sticks and mudWoven dams and all-season lodgesShe swims silently to and fro accumulatingA cache of tree tops for winter’s approachIgnoring my observing eyesUntil I come just a little too closeThen…THWACK!Her mighty tail crashes down on the water’s surfaceAnd she is gone and all around are warned
Within These Woods: Black-Capped Chickadee
“Chickadee-dee-dee”
Within These Woods: Bloodroot
This demure little flower leads to thoughts about our relationships with our children, the natural world, and what it means to care for someone.
Within These Woods: White-Throated Sparrow
This is my favorite selection from the book.
Within These Woods: Red-Breasted Grosbeak
This week’s essay explores concepts of patience, the odyssey of evolution, and our kinship with other species while I take a morning walk with a taunting songbird. “The odyssey of evolution is frenzied at times, but is afforded the luxury of eternity to conduct trial and error.”
