In early grade school there were always the pictures of old men: paintings of the founding fathers, or black and white photos of our principal or the superintendent of our school district, maybe a famous Minnesotan. For George Washington, it was the painting of him at the bow of the wooden skiff while crossing the frozen Delaware river in the... READ MORE >
The kids used to make the holes for the house wren house one inch in diameter. That was from the instruction books. Those books are outdated now, and the kids are old. Now all the newer instruction books advise the hole for a house wren home to be one-and-one-eighth inch. For the downy woodpecker the holes are to be one-and-one-quarter... READ MORE >
There is a theory; a popular theory; in casual discussions. It’s called The Acorn Theory. Rather Jungian, rather Adlerian. It states that one’s overarching identity – manifest in theory by a great oak tree – is present at inception, within the nascent acorn. The acorn knows it will grow into an oak. The Sigma and Omega are in the Alpha.... READ MORE >
In the first two months of winter the harbor didn’t want to freeze. The harbor does not regularly want to freeze, but the various pockets and shallows and backwaters along its inside rim usually do, and in the colder winters the freeze starts from the inside perimeter and creeps toward the center then the harbor mouth and even beyond the... READ MORE >
We didn’t get our druthers. In the fading afternoon we snowshoed into the cabin, and I humped an oversized Duluth pack with not much in it. The girls were wearing their doggy vests. That was at something below zero and falling in the clear darkening sky. Inside the cabin my brother’s fire had burned down and you could see your... READ MORE >
I consider myself rather an idiot savant in the gauging of short lengths and medium distances. Either that or I’m just way off and I think I’m a savant but I’m really just an idiot. Because my buddy Bob and I can get into some emotional exchanges when we play that game. Actually, I’m the emotional one (if arrogance, stubbornness,... READ MORE >
If I had my druthers, it would be low pressure, gray over the far, far black treeline, and the ridges beyond the treelines would be gone. 33 degrees Fahrenheit, and if it was even warmer and with no wind there might be a haze – a fog – off to the far gray treeline. If we snowshoe across the lake... READ MORE >
We lost two old, old white pines (Pinus strobus) over at our operation within the last month. Of course, everyone saw the one that came down on 61 on the end of the north side sidewalk, across our two-car parking spot, the top of the white pine come just out onto the shoulder of 61, the other end uprooted, the... READ MORE >
The women in that village burned coconut husks for the cooking. They woke early in the morning in the darkness and gathered in the back cooking area in the half light, and although that land was in the subtropics, still it was in the northern hemisphere, and Lunar New Year came always in January or February – in the heart... READ MORE >
I feel grateful to have been asked, a handful of times in my life, “What is snow like?” The gratefulness I feel because it means I’ve traveled, traveled very far; have talked with strange, foreign peoples, people living in exotic places. I feel lucky for that. Although the near people who have loved me and provided so much of my... READ MORE >
