Silver Snag Farm
Stories following the landscape from grass to habitat and food forest.
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A Coyote and her Tractor Friend
Canis latrans follows humans where ever we go, living off our leavings. They pursue our scraps and the animals atracted to our waste and the table we set for birds and pets. Coyotes have walked in our wagon tracks and footsteps, across trails and… Continue reading
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Babies Taking Wing
It’s the baby time of year- they’re starting to leave their nests and find their way in the world. Sometimes mom and dad is there to help, but eventually, they gotta fly on their own. None of this college graduate… Continue reading
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The Company That I Keep
I look like one of those people, but I’m not. No, I don’t watch television. There is too much else to do. But that “else” isn’t pursuit of the spiritual, the religious, the social. I do things with my beat… Continue reading
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Bringing Birdsong Back
Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song. Rachel Carson This… Continue reading
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The Home People
The scene couldn’t have been more grand. Two men dressed in black carrying long carved horns heralded us from the long ramp descending to Floor 3 of Te Papa Museum. They motioned us to move forward and disappeared around the corner into the… Continue reading
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Tongariro Crossing Take Two- that was then, this is now
Way back when, at the very start of the new millenium, I traveled to New Zealand and Tonga. The purpose was simple- a friend asked me to go to Tonga to avoid the impending Y2K disaster and greet the new year,… Continue reading
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Go to Dog Mountain
Our pets serve as silent, non-judgemental witnesses to our lives. They are memory-keepers who may hold more of our past and our secrets than our own families. Times like these chase me into dream worlds, sanctuaries of whimsy and humor. Places far from hateful… Continue reading
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Chasing Nature
The short-eared owls aren’t yet rare, but we still stand breathless waiting for them to fly moth-like as they hunt at sundown. We listen for their raspy barks in flight, watch for them to land on a post, rootwad, or… Continue reading
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Far from the crowds- a holiday staycation
The weather said, “Go winter camping!” with clear days and the night sky lit up with a fullish moon. Camping below Mt. Rainier, or high on Artist Point, with coral sunset bathing the mountains followed by the radiant moon and… Continue reading
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Winter Round One-Whistling Past the Graveyard
In the Pacific Northwest, fall brings windstorms and rain, sometimes in torrents. If the jet stream from Asia lines up just right and picks up moisture from typhoons or other sources, an “atmospheric river” forms; meterologists describe it as a… Continue reading
A Place of River and Sky 