Zebra Swallowtail butterfly (Eurytides marcellus) Spring’s acceleration has leveled off as the solstice approaches. Trees are all in full leaf, and it’s looking like a potential bumper crop year for apples and pears. The hay has been cut, dried and baled on nearby farms and the sheep are ready for shearing. Most grazing meadows still […]
Category Archives: all
Watersheds and Bioregions
The Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River, map 6/15, Army Corps of Engineers, 1944, Harold Fisk, chief cartographer Documenting the seasonal cycles over the past few months (see my Week in Bloom postings) has me thinking a lot about bioregions and watersheds as the most appropriate scale for human interaction with the natural world […]
Shanty Boats and Scow Schooners
the scow schooner Annie L, built in 1900 by Emil Munder, unloading hay in San Francisco As hay bales begin to dot the fields I’m reminded how little the landscape of West Sonoma County has changed since the late 19th century, when scow schooners still sailed down the rivers to deliver cargoes of hay, timber […]
Future Classic?
looking through the translucent, fiberglass/resin skin to the honeycombed, cardboard core of one of Mike Sheldrake’s prototype surfboards In terms of the triad of beauty, performance and workmanship, Mike Sheldrake’s cardboard surfboards transcend the impressively vast exposition of mostly ‘DIY-for-DIY’s-sake’ projects and demonstrations at this year’s Maker Faire. Posing serenely amidst whirring gizmos and gadgets, […]
The Week in Bloom
elegant windlass at each pair of posts, framing a gateway The only sounds punctuating my bike ride to the coast along the quiet, eight mile stretch of Valley Ford-Franklin School Road were the sweet song of the meadowlark perched on fence posts and the eerily creaking eucalyptus in the wind. As I climbed the long […]
Making Hay
The road from Valley Ford to Two Rock is flanked by furrowed fields of freshly mowed hay, ready for baling. Pretty soon the barns will be stocked to the rafters with sweet hay, elucidating their proportional relationship to the fields they occupy. Craftwork begins with the localization of supply and demand; contentment begins with their […]
Preparing for Mildred’s Lane
naturalist/essayist John Burroughs In preparation for my residency and lecture at Mildred’s Lane late next month, I’ve been studying the upper Delaware River, reading about its history and looking at maps. I was struck by a passage by the nineteenth century American naturalist/essayist John Burroughs, describing a boyhood trip down the Delaware in his book […]