The Nature of Things

In just a few days now, we will see the official beginning of spring. We have looked for the unofficial beginning over the last several weeks and at times we thought that we saw it peeking through the bare limbs of the trees or shining through the feathers of the goldfinches as they took their leave of us and headed north. But we were fooled. Winter maintained its grip. It's only in recent days that we have again begun to hope that the dreary gray season has almost reached its end. There's one way that we'll know for sure that winter is over and spring is here to stay. It's when the Chimney Swifts return. Typically, in my yard, that is in the first week of April, but warm weather is returning earlier in these years of global warming and perhaps the swifts will adjust their timetable accordingly. I love Chimney Swifts. They are among my favorite summer visitors. Perpetually in motion, they live life on the wing and they never fail to cheer me with their with their amazin...

Thanks for dropping in on my Bloom Day post from the new address of my garden blog. No, I haven't moved my garden. It is still located in zone 9a just north of Houston, but regular readers will know that I recently combined my blogs and, although I'm no longer posting on the Gardening With Nature blog , I will have regular posts about my garden here. If you followed me on the other blog, I hope you will now follow me here - or even if you didn't follow me on the other blog! Unfortunately, I still don't have much to show you in the way of blooms from my own garden. Spring continues to creep slowly into my garden, like Chicago's fog, "on little cat's feet." In the middle of February, I thought spring had arrived for good, and so did many of my plants. The shrubs, like this yellow cestrum, started putting out new tender leaves. Perennials were putting up new growth. Everything seemed benevolent for new life. Then, in early March, we had another spell of ...

On our recent late winter vacation, we traveled down the lower Texas Gulf Coast. The main purpose of our ramblings was to see birds, particularly the most majestic and famous birds of this part of the world, the Whooping Cranes. The flock of Whoopers that winters along the Texas coast is the last completely wild flock of these rare and endangered birds. They were once fairly widespread on the northern prairies, but the species was brought to the brink of extinction in the 1940s. The population bottomed out at only fifteen birds. Since then, strict protection has helped the bird begin to recover. The Aransas flock now numbers around 300 birds and there are ongoing efforts to establish other flocks, notably in Florida and Louisiana. These birds nest in central Canada at Wood Buffalo National Park. Beginning around the end of this month they will begin their 2,400 mile flight back to their summer home. By mid April, they will likely all be gone. Whooping Cranes are highly territorial. Mat...

Trophy Hunt by C.J. Box My rating: 2 of 5 stars So, I finally got around to reading the fourth entry in C. J. Box's Joe Pickett series. I had found the first three books fairly enjoyable reading, but I have to say this one was a bit of a disappointment. The events here take place several months after those described in the third book where the Pickett family suffered a great tragedy when their foster daughter was killed. In this book, Joe and his two daughters seem to have moved on, but the wife, Marybeth, still mourns the little girl. The family continues to struggle financially, as they try to live on Joe's meager salary plus whatever Marybeth can earn in her part-time jobs. She has recently started an accounting business and it is around one of her clients, a realty business, that the main action in Trophy Hunt takes place. The story opens on an idyllic scene as Joe has taken his two daughters fly fishing on a stream near their home in Saddlestring, Wyoming. It is a beauti...

About three years ago, I started posting reviews of the books that I read on The Nature of Things . This was one of the early ones that I posted on August 29, 2011. There must be a lot of C.J. Box fans among my readers because many of them responded and the post still gets hits on a regular basis. And by the way, I am now reading the fourth book in this series. The review will be posted soon. *~*~*~*  I was introduced to the writing of C.J. Box through my local library's Mystery Book Club.  Open Season , the first in Box's Joe Pickett series, was the club's selection for reading in June. Although I didn't get a chance to read it in time for the meeting, the discussion of it made me curious and I put it on my to-be-read list. I'm glad I finally got around to it this week. Box has created an enormously appealing character in Joe Pickett. A Wyoming game warden, Joe is a devoted family man with two young daughters and a pregnant wife when we first meet him. He and his f...

This post originally appeared in my Backyard Birder blog on January 31, 2012. Since that time, the problem that it reports about has only gotten worse. *~*~*~*    There are  several stories in the news today  about a recently released scientific study on the impact of an invasive species, the Burmese python, on Florida's wildlife. The study focuses on the Everglades and on the devastation of the small mammal population there. There are areas where raccoons, o'possums, rabbits, foxes, even bobcats, and other small mammals have virtually disappeared as a result of the introduction of these big snakes. The snakes also prey on reptiles and, to some extent, birds, but their preferred prey is mammals. Pythons probably   first got into the wild after being released by pet owners  when the snakes got too big for them to deal with, but natural disasters such as hurricanes have also played a part when pet stores that had sold the snakes were destroyed and animals es...

Income inequality in America has been much in the news recently, but more than two years ago, there were reports that showed that the idea of American meritocracy was a myth. No matter how smart you are or how hard you work, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the average American to rise to a higher economic status than he or she was born into. This post originally appeared on January 9, 2012, and unfortunately, it is still relevant today. *~*~*~*  The New York Times  last week had a  report about how the myth of the American meritocracy  is just that - a myth. In fact, of all the countries in the industrialized world, it is harder for a person of low economic status to rise higher in the United States than it is almost anywhere else. If America as the "land of opportunity" ever existed, it has disappeared, and this is primarily due to the policies pursued by the government. The governments of other developed countries make it their goal to protect and help thei...