The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald knew that Americans find public expression of their successful lives in a neatly groomed lawn. Jay Gatsby was so horrified at Nick Carroway’s ragged lawn next door that he sent his gardeners over to mow
I aimed for a weekly post about the health of the natural world, but here I am dwelling on coronavirus again. Is anyone undistracted by this pandemic? This time I dusted off my copies of Samuel Pepys diaries in which
According to legend, Robin Hood and his Merry Men hid from their pursuers in a hollow tree in Sherwood Forest during the harsh reign of King John (1199-1219). The tree still stands, albeit courtesy of props and wires, and called
We gathered along an empty country road to gaze at the wounded hillside. It now has an orange stripe of bare earth instead of a green canopy. The sight reminded me of how skin contracts from the path of a
A shameless boast, I take fewer than a dozen plastic shopping bags home from the grocery store each year (a trillion are manufactured). Discarded in garbage for burial in landfill, this non-compostable stuff awaits a post-Homo sapiens archeologist who learns
A woman in a desolate corner of North Macedonia claimed to be the last wild beekeeper in Europe made a splash at the Oscars. Her story told in Honeyland took three years to produce on a slim budget and was
When we turn on a faucet we assume the water is safe to drink. It’s not a safe assumption in many countries, of course, but regarded here as an unwritten right and safeguarded by public officials (Ahem, what about Flint,
The last hour of the night seems darkest after tossing and turning to wake from strange dreams with a pounding heart. But there is a spell that can cast off the pall if we listen at an open window in
There’s a family I know in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia that has made maple syrup for over a century. As they are now short-handed of youngsters leaving for city work and the retainers get older and frailer, I
I’m still reeling about our climate crisis/ emergency. We hear the urgency confirmed over and again by experts. Threats imagined far over the horizon that we thought we’d never see in our lifetime are now in plain sight (fires, inundations,