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Memory Theater
I came across images of fallen logs painted with landscapes and images of the woods from which they might have come. Fictional forest history painted on the remnants of real forests, a reminder of life...
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Memory Lane
There’s a large-scale project under way to turn back the clock in order to better prepare for the future. In Napa Valley, the non-profit San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) has been working to...
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Fading Indelibility
Old habits die hard. So, it turns out, do new ones. Back when I was living in Japan, I had a friend who was born near Tokyo in the 1950s. His family wasn’t poor, but with the scarcity of protein that...
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Making Choices
I was doing some early morning grocery shopping this morning, and I was buying avocados. Above the avocado bin were two types of produce bags: a roll of the thin plastic bags, and a stack of bags made...
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Forest Vs. Trees
Humankind owes its origins to forests. In return, we have been reshaping them for our own uses ever since we learned to use tools and fire. Jeffrey James terrarium.Image: Jeffrey James I’ve told the...
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The Dire End of the Bandit 6
Pirates, those outlaws of the high seas, have held a blurred fascination for generations. They share the allure of an in-between realm with horseback bandits, a place free of everyday rules and...
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Drinking From Your Neighbor’s Glass
In honor of World Water Day, here’s an interesting riddle: There are two kinds of water sources for a town, surface and underground. In times of adequate rain, that water can be used for human...
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The Marks We Leave Behind
Today’s first real post-winter foray into the garden reminds me that I’m a messy gardener. Late, as usual. But I’ve got a special packet of seeds to plant this week, and they’ve inspired me to be more...
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Covering Our Eyes
The main centers of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) lay like a loose pearl necklace around the coastal edges of the nation. I’ve never been to any of the NASA...
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A Multitude of Voices
I had the windows open last night and listened to the wind blow through the trees and hedges around our home. We have a small stand of bamboo on one side of the house, a few fruit trees in the garden...
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Rare Snow, Rare Rant
It’s one of those days that confirm the thinking of both climate change deniers and the other 98% of us. I wanted to go out for a run, and ended up wearing my spring running tights, a winter running...
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Fast Learners
I shouldn’t have been all that surprised this week when the news came out that Physarum polycephalum, also known as slime mold, has now been shown to be capable of learning. Physarum polycephalumImage:...
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Keeping a City at Bay
The Presidio in San Francisco was established as a fortified base by the Spanish in 1776 as El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis. It was the northernmost outpost of...
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Fewer Footprints
When we were out on the Pacific Coast in California a couple of weeks ago, two things in particular caught my attention: One was the lack of shorebirds, the skittering types that chase waves and scurry...
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Fish and Steel
The image of thousands of fish washing up on a shore is almost never a metaphor for lucky circumstance. It’s almost always a sign that something, somewhere, has gone very wrong. Back in April,...
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Inadvertent Sabotage
Not long ago, a news story went around the world about a weasel that shut down CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, forcing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to go offline for a few...
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Circumnavigational Wonder
The world’s first circumnavigation by an aircraft powered only by the sun was just completed this week. The Solar Impulse 2, created and flown by Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, landed in Abu...
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Scrapping Rigs
There’s something mesmerizing about scrap yards. Especially the big ones. All those big objects, the sum of an equation involving perceived requirement, raw materials, engineering and time. So much...
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Waiting For Rain
I was running my loop the other day when I came across this delicate specimen in the middle of the road – a damselfly that was flitting around two weeks later than the very end of the usual damselfly...
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Turning Point
Thank you, Summer, for your heat and color. Thank you, September, for your rain and cooler air. Oak Leaf Colour Square over three weeks.Artist: Richard Shilling Happy Autumn Equinox. Welcome, season of...
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