3 itemsLast year, I wrote an essay about our initial adventures in growing native plants. The article published just a month after we planted, and we only had small green mounds– and mulched beds– which were a significant feat in our clay-laden Tennessee soil. And even in the heat of last summer, our flowers were pretty,…
Even though I like my creature comforts, Alaska has become one of my favorite spots on Earth. I’m drawn to extremes– snowy mountains next to ocean, days of endless light (or none at all), seemingly suicidal salmon hurtling up waterfalls. Bald eagles appear at every turn in the road– landing on the eaves of local shops,…
The humidity of summer is slowly pushing spring out of Chattanooga these days. But before the seasons change, I wanted to share our recent adventures in gardening and landscaping (published in OnEarth). As recent New Yorkers and Tennessee transplants, we really didn’t know that much about plants when we started to think about our yard,…
Intermittently, the gray damp of winter is finally yielding to signs of spring. Though winter hasn’t hit my corner of Tennessee particularly hard, on this cold, damp St. Patrick’s Day, the lack of sun leaves me listless. Other than our early bloomers, red buds and dogwoods and the grass that’s slowly regreening, the predominant colors…
State lines bring out natural rivalries. New Yorkers like to pick on New Jersey, and when I lived in Indiana, Kentucky seemed to be the butt of most regional jokes. But here in Tennessee the foe is Georgia, and the scuffle may go to court. Over water. Not just any water, mind you. We’re talking…
Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t buy test-tube hot dogs for your Memorial Day barbecue, but maybe in a decade or so we’ll all be noshing on barbecued goodies raised in the sterility of a laboratory near you. Doesn’t that sound tasty? Or yucky? For me, it’s a little bit of both. I’m fascinated…
In honor of Mother’s Day, I wanted to share a few snapshots from our trip to the San Diego Zoo last month. Here’s a giraffe calf and mother: Capybaras are the largest living rodents: there’s mom and a young upstart. Capybara mom and baby at the San Diego Zoo And the best for last: hippos…
In our corner of Brooklyn, we’ve been waiting for our local whale sighting. But it looks like it just might be a matter of time. According to a NY Daily News article, local boat owners are already making money off a revenue stream that seemed confined to calmer waters: whale watching tours. I’ve posted before about…
Maybe it’s in the zeitgeist: this week’s New York magazine waxes poetic about ecology in The Concrete Jungle. Not what I was expecting when the city has been teeming with fashionistas and urban wildlife on the pop edge of culture. But, there it is in the first photo: Staten Island turkeys! In our heat island, enveloped…
How much? It’s one of those basic journalism questions, but when it comes to many science stories, it can be a tough one to answer in meaningful way. In most of my writing and reporting, I’m trying to find analogies to describe features smaller than the eye can see. But on the macroscale– like with…