January 8-12, 2018 Michelle reduxes a post about a word she made up to describe daffodils that bloom during false springs—and wonders what other words the world needs these days. Honestly, all the Snowpocalypses and Snowzillas of recent years are starting to run together. If we’re going to keep naming nature in the Anthropocene, we need to branch out. Erik snorkels on […]
Month: January 2018
Last Friday night the Boston runway looked like an Arctic landing, bits of tarmac barely visible through sheets of blowing snow. I had a good view of the runway with the plane tipping like a seesaw, coming in on the tail of an explosive cyclogenesis, or bombogenesis, media-shortened to a bomb cyclone. This unusual storm […]
There are certain places in our country that are known for storytelling, the cowboy poet said to us. From New Orleans Cajun country to Lake Wobegon, a few small, distinctive regions — not New York, and definitely not Washington — have become known for their storytelling styles, and for their stories. “Western stories are the […]
Donut the dog has always been a bit of a lemon. “She hates kids. She hates other dogs. She hates physical activity,” says Julia Gilden. Gilden adopted the 80-pound Bearded Collie seven years ago. All the things people love about dogs? Donut didn’t really have many of those attributes. But she was sweet and goofy […]
Last month, while on assignment in Cozumel for a story on sponges, I went diving on a beautiful reef. It was stunning – a world of color, dreamlike shapes, and life everywhere I looked. Normally, I would have just swam about, marveled at the pretty nature, and come back to my hotel with a fat […]
When Robert Macfarlane recently chose “antevernals” as one of his words of the day, I remembered this post, which I wrote in February 2016. Now we need a word to describe our continent’s increasingly split-screen winters. How about twinter? Or splinter? And climate change isn’t the only phenomenon demanding new vocabulary: I sometimes hear others […]
Some years ago I attended a beach barbecue in Juneau, Alaska on a gray summer day. The adults drank beer in a ring around a fire where salmon collars sizzled and talked about the price of boats and politics. The kids ran in a mixed-age herd closer to the surf, clambering over driftwood and getting […]
Baby, it’s cold outside! So I’m posting a little look-back at some warmer-weather fun on the farm. ————– I love goats. In many ways they’re a lot like dogs, and I love dogs. So, it follows. How are they like dogs? At least the ones I’ve met love attention. They want to be petted and […]