Here’s a thought experiment, or a mental exercise, I often try when out hiking. It doesn’t have to be strictly for hikes, of course, or even outside. If there is a living thing nearby, it will apply—even a spider in the corner of the ceiling, or a moth that got in and is circling theContinue reading “separation”
Category Archives: Non-human Neighbours
A Climate Professional Tries to Mow the Lawn
I don’t know how all of you feel about carbon, but let me tell you, when you work in climate change, carbon guilt is real. I very rarely fly anywhere (maybe 2x in the last ten years), bought a very fuel-efficient car and live as close to work as I can, walk when I can,Continue reading “A Climate Professional Tries to Mow the Lawn”
Review: Stumpwork Butterflies & Moths
Stumpwork Butterflies & Moths by Jane Nicholas My rating: 5 of 5 stars I am incredibly impressed by the level of research in Jane Nicholas’s insect embroidery books. I don’t read them expecting to learn more about the critters she embroiders, but I do: The natural history and basic biology of the insects are included;Continue reading “Review: Stumpwork Butterflies & Moths”
Fireflies!
The Royal Botanical Gardens is an extra treat for those of us who live nearby; it has the gardens, yes, but also many kilometres of hiking trails through nature preserves and active nature education programs for artists, adults, kids and families. Naturally Frances has been a constant attender of the daycamps since we moved hereContinue reading “Fireflies!”
Nature Photography Day
So did you get out to take pictures? (I know at least one of you did. How about the rest? I may not be getting a lot of traffic here but I do have more than one reader for a fact. So.) The Ebony Jewelwing damselfly picture in the background on the front page isContinue reading “Nature Photography Day”
Nature Photography Day is Tomorrow
I write a lot–when I have time to write, which lately happens to be more often, hurray!–about how nature is everywhere and everything, and you don’t need to go far (or anywhere) to find something beautiful. Tomorrow, on Nature Photography Day, I would like to challenge myself and you to get out there with whateverContinue reading “Nature Photography Day is Tomorrow”
Review: Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a book that should be read in the spring. Unfortunately, I first picked it up in the fall, and found the first fifty pages a tough slog. Where was the evidence, the statistics, the science? There is none, ofContinue reading “Review: Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology”
“Left to itself the literate intellect, adrift in the play of signs, comes to view nature as a sign, or a complex of signs. It forgets that the land is not first and foremost an arcane text to be read, but a community of living, speaking beings to whom we are beholden.” David Abram
may apples
The may apples are finally blooming–now that it’s almost June, thanks I’m guessing to the chilly spring. I wouldn’t blame you for not noticing, though … …since when they bloom, they look like this. Go ahead. Find them! A large field of flat-topped five-lobbed leaves, and underneath every plant with two leaves, growing from theContinue reading “may apples”
Anthropomorphism FTW
I am taking it as a propitious sign that, my first spring in my first house, there are not one but two robin’s nests on our outside lighting fixtures: one in the carport, and one by the front door. We have watched since April as the nests were built, the eggs were laid then hatched,Continue reading “Anthropomorphism FTW”
Zoopolis 