Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
AUGUST 31, 2024 – (Cont.) The main, 200-foot-long hedge runs from the corner of Cove Road and Oakland to the stone-and-mortar pillars at the entrance to the property. Having walked and driven numerous times along the neglected landscaping over the previous several days, I decided to follow Michelle Obama’s standing entreaty and “DO SOMETHING.” Much …
AUGUST 26, 2024 – Ever since I was a kid I’ve been persnickety about yard and garden landscaping and maintenance. If you asked my wife about this self-assessment she’d say, “Huh?!” followed by “If what he said were true, our yard at home wouldn’t look so sinfully scraggly, and he’d get around to pruning [“that huge …
JULY 26, 2024 – Late yesterday—or rather, very early today; the hour was closing in on 1:00 a.m.—I was about to retire when the sound of the breeze off the lake drew me outside. Usually the wind abates with the approach of dusk, but the broad stationary front over this region has brought a deliciously …
JULY 15, 2024 – I’m certainly aware that aesthetics is an academic field unto itself; that for generations books, papers, lectures, debates, discussions have wrestled with the origins, nature and evolution of beauty—or more precisely, with our perception of it. Today I ambled along the lakeshore up and down the well-established trail. I’ve walked this …
JUNE 30, 2024 – Old age. It’s on the table, and we need to talk about it. Efforts to convince Joe Biden that he should retire from the ticket remind me of a family’s decision to take the car keys away from “dad,” when he thinks he’s still perfectly fit to drive. “I might not …
JUNE 29, 2024 – This weekend my wife and I are preparing the Red Cabin and yard for a boatload of company next weekend. Our goal for the grounds is modest, however: when our guests pull up after their journey’s last leg—a long, winding, two-track dirt drive through a veritable jungle—we don’t want them to …
JUNE 22, 2024 – Today I tangled with vines, both on the cove property and over in Byron and Mylène’s yard in Chester. I tugged and pulled, cut and clipped, and stumbled backwards each time one of three things happened: 1. The vine stem I was pulling on broke, 2. The whole vine came out …
JUNE 21, 2024 – Today was arbor day in my little world away from home. Our son and daughter-in-law’s yard was already home to many trees, but two months ago they decided that a magnolia would be an attractive addition. My wife and I happened to be visiting on that occasion and accompanied the expedition …
JUNE 14, 2024 – Aboard the train hurtling across the American countryside for two full days, I’d been drawn to immediate and fleeting surroundings as if they were a full life compressed into fast-motion review. The oft-repeating train whistle seemed to signal my interaction with others along the landscape of our integrated existence. I’ll never …
JUNE 9, 2024 – Back in the day up at the lake, when we went to the grocery store we’d grab the free “Buyer’s Guide” of real estate listings published by the Hayward Area Board of Realtors. We read the listings mostly for their entertainment value. In a vintage edition, for example, I found a …
JUNE 8, 2024 – Here I sit, halfway in the sun, halfway in the shade, watching the big parade of cumulus clouds drift slowly but purposefully overhead. Like a vast armada with sails hoisted to the heavens, their crews look down on us earthbound admirers and occasionally wave. You can tell the ships of the …
JUNE 4, 2024 – In search of a topic for today’s post, I first scanned the early morning news headlines, but all that came through was, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Then, while comfortably seated on our back porch, I happened to glance up from my cup of java just as a bird …
MAY 31, 2024 – What light was filtering through the thick overcast was now fading, and as I walked along the woodland path, I mistook the sound of rain—which I did not feel, being well-attired against mosquitoes—for wind until the shining leaves moved not in concert but individually, like a sea of uncoordinated bobble-heads plunked …
MAY 30, 2024 – In his recent commencement address at Brandeis University, Ken Burns imparted exceptional wisdom in prose that bordered on poetic. One pearl among the many reflected the famous documentarian’s relationship with nature. He encouraged the graduates to . . . Be in nature, which is always perfect and where nothing is binary. …
MAY 29, 2024 – My wife recently returned from a three-week sojourn in The Last Frontier—Alaska, a name derived from Aleut-language meaning, the “mainland” or more expanded idiomatic form, the “object toward which the action of the sea is directed.” She was not on a cruise, which is vantage point of most Lower 48 American …
MAY 14, 2024 – (Cont.) Saturday’s nearly six hours of heavy labor left me feeling as I had every time after skiing the 52km American Birkebeiner Ski Marathon. I was so utterly exhausted, my walk was down to a shuffle. I was afraid to lie down for fear I wouldn’t be able to get back …
MAY 5, 2024 – Recently I tried to imagine the experience of a 10- to 15-minute stroll on the surface of Mercury, our solar system’s inner-most planet. My “what if” thought was inspired by what Dava Sobel has so to say about it in her acclaimed book, The Planets. The key features of the speedy …
APRIL 30, 2024 – I looked forward to writing today’s post. Having junked out on news reports about current events—everything from the war on Gaza to the college campus protests to the Hush Money Trial to what planet Bill Barr is on—I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say …
JANUARY 23, 2024 – By sheer will I came to terms with the undeniable fact that what I’d wanted to believe was the bat was nothing more than a black sock. Meanwhile, Beth called me from back home, safe from nature. Nonetheless, she is our veteran cabin mouse killer and bat battler. Some eight years …
JANUARY 22, 2024 – In our part of the country, a family tradition is owning a lake cabin (Minnesota) or cottage (Wisconsin) “up north.” It’s where we urban folk can fish, swim, marvel at sunsets, watch the stars come out, and roast marshmallows for s’mores. It’s where we commune with nature and, ironically, where we …
MAY 26, 2023 – After paying my dues all morning and into the afternoon, I took a break to take our seven-year-old granddaughter to nearby Como Park, St. Paul’s version of Central Park. She had the day off from school—something about a teachers’ workshop—so her mom had taken her to work at a shop near …
MAY 20, 2023 – Today a sister called me to catch up. At some juncture she said, “I’m sure you remembered, but today is Dad’s birthday.” “Yeah,” I said, adding that he would’ve been 101. “Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t live that long,” she said, light-heartedly. I agreed. Rarely are sight, taste, hearing, …
MAY 14, 2023 – (Cont.) Many princely pines in the Trädgård are in worse shape than how we found our back-garden princess, but the latter is more accessible and not surrounded by tick-land. With all the necessary operating equipment relatively close at hand, I decided to administer emergency care to the stricken princess. I summoned …
MAY 13, 2023 – Nature. We view it romantically, spiritually, philosophically, scientifically, even religiously. But we also have a long history of approaching it contemptuously, as a nuisance, an obstacle, an enemy, and of course, a giant reservoir of riches to be exploited, pretty much at any cost, so long as a handsome profit can …
MAY 12, 2023 – Today we made our first trip to the Red Cabin since the snow melt and ice-out. Vegetation here is 10 days to two weeks behind the foliage at home, which itself is well behind its usual schedule. In mid-March the snow was still two feet deep, and that was before the …