Nature

'Tis the season of late summer. Of early fall harvests. The time when many a plant give their last hurrah, their fruit, their seeds. I can talk a good game about gardening, though truth be told, it's my 82-and-change mom who is the brains and primary caretaker of the garden. I mostly provide additional muscle and…

At a neighborhood barbecue recently, I wanted to prepare the Solo Stove for the night-time "mini bonfire" ahead. I started gathering some kindling and smaller wood from a nearby woodpile when my eyes spotted something that made me go, "Huh? What's that?" I saw blue coming out the ends of a dried and long dead piece…

Just caught a mosquito, mid-air. This was not a capture-and-release exercise. Photo source.  

Spring in Maryland: it's like this most years, is it not? this First, it's cool as we transition from winter into spring. It rains sometimes; it's sunny and near-perfect other times; the world transforms from the dark, gray and seemingly barren landscape of winter to a place bursting with blooming flowers, emerging green (everywhere!) and…

It does not matter whether the cherry blossoms and first wave of spring flowers come early in the season or late. It does not matter whether a particular spring is wet and cool or bright and lovely. (Well, spring in Maryland is always lovely, but it’s also spring and, therefore, the weather fluctuates and is…

Well, this certainly wasn't anything I was expecting to see upon coming home this afternoon. bear witness to the journey Poor little thing must have traversed earlier today rather hot asphalt, then it had to crawl-fall-bang down nine stairs to the bottom level of the condo ... then continue, continue on to the lowest point…

I‘ve been noticing more of my hair these past few days. Not the hair ON my head, but the hair FROM my head that’s now on the bathroom counter, on my clothes, even, ick, on my dinner plate. I noticed the noticing — the increase in frequency — and had a momentary thought of "OMG, what…

It’s deep in winter and my hands are soft and smooth. My cuticles? Them too. No dry, cracked skin. No flaking itchy skin. No hard, dry cuticles that creep up each year as winter comes on. (I know I'm not alone in experiencing this winter-hands phenomenon.) a little bit of this I have, dear friends,…

I wondered, a couple weeks back, how “the birds” emptied my bird feeder in one fell swoop. In less than 24 hours. Went from full to not full. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the squirrels who’d done so, given the design of the feeder and lack of squirrel access to it. Then again, squirrels. Need…

I saw two owls in two days: one Friday night and one Saturday evening! And I saw them in completely different locations. I occasionally hear owls (especially the bard owls), but this past weekend, I actually saw them! Two owls, two nights in a row. Hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo hoo-hoo, hoo hoo-hoo.   Photo source.

This past mid-October, I’ve had a daily afternoon visitor: this rib-cage showing, adult female deer who — and I’ve witnessed it — is still nursing two larger fawn. There’s an oak tree in my backyard and acorns galore on the ground. That’s what brings her and her fawn to fatten up in these months before winter…

We all get our small pleasures in life: the little things we enjoy simply because we enjoy them. For me, one of them is watching the birds outside my large sliding glass doors that open up to a nice vista and Lake Elkhorn beyond. I don’t know much about birds and sometimes wonder if I’d like…