The Nature of Things

Well, that was fun. This fifth entry in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series was a quick and entertaining weekend read. It contained all of the elements that have made this such a likable series for me and few of the ones that I have found annoying in the past. Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming is called on to go undercover in The Dark Horse . The problem is that his undercover work is to be done in an adjoining county, in fact the county where he grew up and where the old Longmire family home is. He's not unknown in these parts, so being an anonymous undercover cop is a challenge to say the least. The challenge comes about because Absaroka County has been sent a prisoner to house. They don't have enough criminals to keep their cells filled so when other counties have an overflow and need additional cells, they send them to Absaroka. But the sheriff of the adjoining county, an old friend of Walt's, might just have an ulterior motive in sending him this p...

I spent the last week reading Richard Powers' wonderful book, The Overstory , and thinking a lot about trees. There is something about trees that seems to inspire poets. There are certainly plenty of poems about them and even more that employ the imagery of trees to make the poet's point about something. Robert Frost, in particular, seemed to have a special affinity for trees and wrote about them often. This is one of my favorites. The Sound of the Trees by Robert Frost ,  1874  -  1963 I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace, And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of going But never gets away; And that talks no less for knowing, As it grows wiser and older, That now it means to stay. My feet tug at the floor And my head sways to my shoulder Sometimes when I wat...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Tufted Titmouse having a drink from my little backyard fountain. *~*~*~* A new study out this week estimates Puerto Rico's deaths from Hurricane Maria could number as many as 4,600 Americans . Many of these deaths were attributable to delayed medical care because assistance to the island after the storm was delayed, ineffective, and insufficient. The island's infrastructure still has not been restored and this year's hurricane season began yesterday. *~*~*~* Plastic bags are a major threat to the environment and do inestimable damage. New Jersey's legislature is considering tackling this problem with either an outright ban or a tax on each bag . Perhaps more states will follow suit.  *~*~*~* A group of volunteers monitoring spring migration at an observatory in Quebec were hoping to be able to count as many as 50,000 warblers on one day. Instead, they saw an astonishing estimated total of more than 700,000!...

Trees compose the overstory on Earth; the rest of us lesser creatures and plants compose the understory. We humans in our arrogance and hubris designate ourselves as THE sentient beings. Little do we ken the emotional, intellectual, and social life of trees. We are only beginning to have the smallest inkling of how dependent we are - all of life is - on them. Early in Richard Powers wonderful, monumental novel, there was this quote:   "That's the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen. Right here, right next. Creating the soil. Cycling water. Trading in nutrients. Making weather. Building atmosphere. Feeding and curing and sheltering more kinds of creatures than people know how to count." Our root problem is, once again, our hubris. We see ourselves as at the pinnacle of all creation and we can't fathom the idea of something greater than ourselves. Trees, after all, are plugged in to the Earth itself. Their roots run deep and touch ...

A dead body is found in a field near a slaughterhouse in Marghera, near Venice. At first glance, it appears to be one of the prostitutes who work the area around the abbatoir. But on examination, it turns out to be a man dressed in a woman's red dress and underwear and red silk shoes. The victim has been beaten about the head and face so badly that he is rendered unrecognizable. When his gender is discovered, the assumption becomes that he is a transvestite prostitute and the investigation of the death at first proceeds on that theory. But you know what they say about assuming things... It is the middle of August when all of this happens, vacation time for Italians. Commissario Guido Brunetti and his family have plans to escape the oppressive heat of Venice for two weeks on a refreshing trip to the mountains where, even in mid-summer, sweaters are required. Then he gets "the call." He has been assigned to head the investigation of this appalling murder. His wife and child...

Losses are a part of life and how we deal with them, one could argue, says just about everything anyone needs to know about the kind of person we are.  I love the images of Wesley McNair's poem about loss, particularly the part about the widower who "can't stop reaching for the other side of the bed" until finally one odd afternoon...   " watching something as common as the way light from the window lingers over a vase on the table, or how the leaves on his backyard tree change colors all at once in a quick wind, he begins to feel a lightness, as if all his loss has led to finding just this." Loss can teach us, if only we are open to learning. Losses by Wesley McNair It must be difficult for God, listening to our voices come up through his floor of cloud to tell Him what’s been taken away: Lord, I’ve lost my dog, my period, my hair, all my money. What can He say, given we’re so incomplete we can’t stop being surprised by our condition, while He is completene...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Clapper Rail with chick, photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. *~*~*~* Every single month since February 1985 has been warmer than normal, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's 400 months in a row . Anyone born after that month has never experienced a “cool” month for Earth, let alone a normal one. *~*~*~* Just to underline that point, dozens of people have died recently in Karachi, Pakistan from a suffocating heat wave that has paralyzed the city. On Monday, a temperature of 111.2 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded in the city, which is often referred to as a concrete jungle because it lacks large areas of plants or trees. And that, of course, is part of the problem.  *~*~*~* A long-delayed study of how rising sea levels might damage national parks has finally been released by the National Park Service after charges of scientific censorship. *~*~*~* Feral cats do inestima...