Something I Ate This Week

Here’s a picture of something I found and put in my mouth. You get to guess what it is. The season for these where I live is just getting going, and this first ran four years ago, so it’s about time to show it again. First, is it organic or manufactured? Don’t scroll down to […]

Guest Post: Where Do Cicadas Go When They Die? 

The cicadas started scaling dense soil while I was in another state, hundreds of miles away from home, a hundred times farther than they’d ever travel. I returned to hollow husks, split along the back seam like a boy grown too fast for his new shirt. These exuvia are all the same brown color, light […]

Oh God, Another Meaningless List

Recently, and to much engagement-baiting fanfare, the New York Times published its list of the best books of the 21st century. As with any such list, it was riddled with omissions, both benign (whither Anthony Doerr, Madeline Miller, and Lauren Groff?) and insidious (outrageously, not a single Native American author made the cut). I was […]

Spotted Lanternfly Epiphany

Y’all know about spotted lanternflies, right? I don’t have to explain them? (invaders, hordes over-running the landscape, even government officials say to just kill ’em?) Last summer I had a lot of them and I killed every one I was able to kill, given that they’re fast and cunning. This summer, the tree guy inspected […]

Pollinators in Dangerous Times

It’s hard to know what to say, every twist and turn becoming a knot. Forces are crashing, glass flying. I’m up in the mountains where ancient volcanoes choked themselves to death, then eroded for 30 million years into the throaty remnants of a Colorado hotspot. Forests have grown on the rubble and I’ve been walking […]

Scaturalist

A coyote urine mark I investigated with my nostrils in the snow was lemony and oceanic with an aftertaste of burning sulfur and fetid saltwater. A healthy piss from a black bear in the sand I’d call oak barrel stank. I got my nose as close as I dared into the stained hole from the […]