Tag Archives: nature
Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw*
This has been quite the year, hasn’t it? If you need a break, stick around, though I can’t promise it won’t make you squeamish.
I believe in letting nature do its thing. And by that I mean on some level life only exists to feed other life.
Planting Rocks
I don’t consider myself a gardener. I say I’m the laborer to my wife’s gardening. I grew up with a shaded yard, so my mother’s feeble attempts didn’t yield much. She had a rock garden though, but I don’t remember much about it. My grandmother was quite the gardener. She had a terraced back yard, […]
Five Years in the Woods: an Update
What a year this has been, nature-wise. Also otherwise, but I’ll stick to what I know for sure, my home. Recently someone visited the post I wrote back in August 2018. That was the first year I lived out here in the middle of nowhere Massachusetts. While five years is not a significant dataset, this […]
Construction Day 1
There’s a phrase, live lightly on the land, that would be nice to adhere to, but sometimes to get there you have to make a mess first. When my wife and I moved to our little slot of paradise a few years ago, we knew we wanted a nature preserve vibe. We’ve worked to remove […]
There’s Birding and Then There’s Birding
The house wren is back. This insouciant little guy clicks and clatters a call that sounds more like a baseball card in bike spokes than a bird. For a couple of years he tried building a nest in my satellite dish (for internet before my small town finally got wired). His girlfriends never went for […]
Worldbuilding
Each morning, when the weather is nice, I sit on my porch and eat my snack while my second cup of coffee perks. It’s now late June. The yard looks lush and at peak greenery. The mountain laurel are flowering—white and pink snowballs covering the bushes. The smaller sheep laurel dots the surrounding green with […]
There’s No Birding in Space
At heart I’m a nature girl, so it was hard to write a novel that takes place mostly on a space ship. In Endurance, Captain Lyn Randall even laments about wanting to hear bird song and feel the wind. It’s summer now here in New England and the days are long. I’ll wake up at […]
Winter Notes
In the evening when it’s dark and the stars shine bright, I like to stand by an open window and listen and breathe and look into the night. Winter air can be odorless. Or a pocket of scent might startle me, usually when walking through the woods. It could be the mild skunk-like musk of […]
Back Home
There’s a meme going around social media: what advice would you give your younger self. I’m not sure what it’s intended to do. Make you feel better about where you’ve ended up? Or feel worse? My 20- and 30-something self would be amazed. I never contemplated where my life would take me. I’ve had the […]
Today, 8/28/18
I haven’t had much time to reflect on my new life, here in western Massachusetts. There’s been no lack in appreciation. Even on hot days like today, I love the smell of the summer grass. After a thunderstorm, I love how the air cools down. My mother used to always mention that when I was […]
Elaine Burnes 