Earth Explorations

Rain, rain. I cannot say go away as it is so desperately needed in our drought gripped land. But this is not a propitious start to the #CityNatureChallenge.

 I took this photo at the beginning of April. The clouds, the setting sun and the road all felt like a visual representation of where I am in life.  I'm changing up this blog a bit. It will be more of a microblog for the near future, more Instagrammy with notes of Twitter and less Medium and Substack. So why not use Instagram and Twitter?  Why not not?

Sunset on the Solstice. Pierre, SD. 12/21/21 For me, the time between Solstice and New Year’s is a time to reflect upon the past year and plan for the new. This period of about 10 days feels separate from the regular hum of everyday life. The separateness gives it a sacred feeling. These, to me, are the holy days aka the holidays.  I am feeling my way forward in how to observe the holidays in a way that is enriching to the soul, the Earth and other people. I do observe Christmas and I celebrate with lights, music, presents, gathering with family, and feasting types of food.  These celebratory acts feel old to me, older than the birth of the Messiah, even. But I feel and have felt for a while there is more to the holidays. I found wisdom and good suggestions for practices to observe this holiday time in an article by Sarah Sunshine Manning, the communications director for NDN Collective. Before I go any further and link you to the article, I want to say I try to be considerate ...

This post is modified, updated version of one I wrote on my Facebook page on Dec 5. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Most weekend mornings for the next few months you will find me with a cup of tea watching the birdfeeders for Project Feederwatch , a citizen science project run out of Cornell University. In Project Feederwatch, backyard birders keep a watch on their feeders or other areas where birds gather to count and ID birds. This information helps scientists understand birds' winter behavior. Red-breasted nuthatch To get more citizen bang for the science buck, I'm taking photos of birds I see during the Project Feederwatch time and uploading them to iNaturalist , specifically to my  iNat Feederwatch project . Before you click through to see the project, I will clarify in advance that I did not see a Hooded Merganser at my feeder. I do not have a pond or small lake in my backyard (sadly). The merganser is included because filtering it out from the p...

 Thanksgiving is winding down. There are few leftovers in the fridge. Family and friends have gathered (hopefully after being vaccinated and everyone rapid testing on the day of the event) and are gone or will be shortly.  It is time to move into the next season of solstice, of Christmas, of a New Year. But before we leave November I want to put this here, my new Thanksgiving decree. Thanksgiving is a celebration of all things indigenous, of food sovereignty, of gratitude for bounty, of reciprocity to the Earth, and of writing Indigenous people back into the narrative of who we are as Americans. While these specific words may be mine, the ideas behind them are inspired by the work of many thought leaders. I would like to acknowledge Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Citizen Potawatomi ; Chef Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota Sioux ;  Steven Peters, Wampanoag  and Dr. Heather Cox Richardson for their generosity in sharing their words and ideas with the world. Their ideas have alch...

 With the return of fall, I start maintaining the bird feeders again. And by maintaining I mean spend a ridiculous amount of money on food that ends up feeding  A lot of "trash" birds, i.e., Eurasian Collared Doves and House Sparrows  Squirrels which are not birds and I'm not happy about that A few of my favorites e.g., Northern Cardinal, nuthatches, assorted woodpeckers  And for the past few days, a lone American Goldfinch. The first day I saw this little guy, shortly before I took this picture, he sat very still and was tolerant of our proximity while we worked in the backyard in a way that none of the other birds were. I figured he was either sick or exhausted. Eventually he started to eat and perked up. He looked quite robust when I spied him last night, bobbing around the feeder. I wonder, where is his flock? How is he off on his own? I'm assuming he hatched and fledged this year and somehow lost track of his parents. This happens, I'm told. Apparently, the y...

I'm not sure what happened to me in July. Normally I'm all about the wandering but apparently I had a need to get deeply rooted in July because I spent a large part of it setting up gardens and planting things. At home, I set up a row of container gardens in the backyard as well as a garden of potted hostas in the front. Who am I?   More in line with what I'm about but still garden related, I spent a Saturday morning staffing a table at Little Wings on the Prairie, a pollinator festival at, you guessed it, a pollinator garden . I handed out journaling supplies so families could take clipboards, paper and writing implements into the garden to make observations.  It was a good July. We'll see what August brings. Besides tomatoes and zucchini, that is.