Why the Sight of These Swallows Filled Me With Awe
It’s mid-March and the annual bird migration has begun. Around here, the robins returned in February, and I thought I saw a turkey vulture. As the weeks go by, I will hear plenty of different types of birdsong in the woods, letting me know the seasonal residents have returned and are ready to breed. But this migration took on new meaning yesterday. Here’s why… After feeding the cows, I happened to catch a glimpse of movement out …
Slowing Down Is Harder Than You Think
In my work world, where I make online classes to teach people business writing skills, I constantly preach slowing down. Why do I preach slowing down? Because a lot of sloppy business writing happens when people are just going too fast. We have this cult of busy-ness in our society that says we have to always be doing and so we're dashing off emails willy nilly and hurrying through writing blog posts and hurrying through all kinds …
Jimmy Carter and My Environmental Awakening—and Disillusionment
Jimmy Carter’s passing has me remembering my environmental awakening in the 1970s—and the disillusionment that has been holding me back…until now. The Lightbulb Award The country was in an oil crisis and the President asked people to save energy. Turning off lights was one thing we could easily do. I was too young to understand the situation, but I did understand turning off lights. And I already had an inkling that we were messing with our …
When Nature Is Our Calendar, We Are More In Tune
It’s January and I saw the kestrel is paired up today while walking the dogs. We installed a nesting box for her three years ago and she has used it faithfully every year since. That got me thinking about what’s next, because nature is a sort of calendar for us since we moved here. One event leads to another. It’s a wonderful, peaceful way of tracking time, when we can slow down enough to pay …