This winter in Baltimore we suffered. We steeled ourselves against record-breaking cold, and our heating bills were scandalous. There was so much snow that the children got tired of sledding. (It snowed on Tax Day, for Pete’s sake.) Months later, the potholes are punishing, and my fig tree is at death’s door. As far as […]
Nature
Where it bursts through the gates of the southern Andes in the rugged interior of the Aysén region of southern Chile, the Rio Baker is a kicking horse. The most voluminous river in the country, it has been on the chopping block for several years, part of a 9-billion-dollar dam construction project that until last […]
When I was a kid, my mom would measure time for me in units of Sesame Street. During a road trip when I’d inevitably ask, “Are we there yet?” she might answer, we’ll be there in two Sesame Streets. For a kid, two hours can seem like forever. We imagine the world through the lens of […]
Allow me to introduce you to the hugag, a moose-like creature native to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and eastern Canada. “Its head and neck are leathery and hairless; its strangely corrugated ears flop downward,” wrote William Cox, the first state forester of Minnesota. “Its four-toed feet, long bushy tail, shaggy coat and general make-up give the beast […]
I once found a beautiful pot, an ancient red seed jar tucked beneath a boulder in the desert. By ancient, I mean pre-Columbian, probably 800 years old. It was hidden along the rubble-choked slope of a canyon in Southeast Utah. The way it was placed, seated in shade and red blow-sand next to a once […]
According to ancient historians, Archimedes spent the last moments of his life drawing figures in the dirt, so deeply entranced with the pleasures of geometry that he failed to notice the bloody pillage of Syracuse right outside his door. Aloofness, it’s tempting to conjecture, was his fatal flaw. By many accounts, he paid scant attention when […]
Unusual dust storms have been rolling out of the Southwest and flying across where I live in Colorado, a state that doesn’t appreciate brown or red in its snow. These storms are vectors of change, fingers of desertification creeping up into better-watered country. I’ve lived near the upper ends of the Gunnison River in […]
Ed. note: this was the first in a long and distinguished line of posts about, ahem, well, you’ll see. It was published June 22, 2012. Some things are better the second time. Today I have the honor of kicking off a new series on LWON, a series all about . . . (wait for it) . […]
