Isn’t This a Long One?

January last seems impossibly distant. Memories from back then are round-edged and worn, like relics of a lost civilization. The pandemic was dawning, of course, although few of us in this country had a clue what was to come. Lockdowns, masks, grimly mounting death tolls? Other people’s burdens, far away. I was more concerned with…

Pesky Wildlife

“…Rural development encroaches on the traditional habitat of coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, bears, mosquitoes and other animals that can be dangerous and you need to know how to deal with them.” from “Code of the West,” created by John Clarke, former Larimer County (Colorado) Commissioner Moving to the country from the city…

Object of Attention

One of the things I’ve missed most in this dry and largely snowless winter has been seeing animal tracks. The clean surface of a light snowfall is like a tightly-stretched painter’s canvas, ready to receive marks that reveal ongoing bustle in a season when everything seems, at first glance, to be in stasis. After a…

A Secret in the Garden

One afternoon back in early June, a junco exploded from underfoot when I was in the garden. I didn’t think much of this, even though the same thing happened (in about the same location) a couple of days later. Dark-eyed juncos are common up here. Their habits keep them close to the ground where I’m…