Why I March

It’s been a while since this blog has seen any action. The last post was right before the election, and you know how that turned out. The months since have been spent reflecting on what’s going on in our country, anticipating the work ahead, and just being human, doing stuff like going to work, keeping […]

Pinnacles to pursue and votes to cast

I’ve been lucky this fall to spend a good amount of time in the mountains with some most excellent women—new friends and old. In October I joined my friend Nicole and her friend Claire to complete the Pinnacle Pursuit, a hiking challenge sponsored by the Moosehead Lake Region Chamber of Commerce, designed to bring people […]

This summer I went swimming

I think I’ve mentioned before here that I sometimes struggle with seasonal transitions, especially when they are accompanied by major life transitions, like the end of the school year. Being catapulted out of the rhythm and routine of the semester just when the natural world is exploding with life sounds perfect but in reality isn’t. […]

Running with Strangers

It’s hard to talk about my personal experience running with all the chaos that is going on in the world right now. Divisive nasty politics, the eruption of racial violence, and mass shootings here at home, more insidious violence in both the sadly “normal” hot spots (Syria, Afgahnistan, Iraq) and places we think of as […]

Circles, Loops and Wheels

I am doing my best to keep Luna the cat in today. All around the landscape is bursting with life, including the season’s first broods, young birds preparing to take a leap of faith (in the legacy of evolutionary adaptation) and fledge from the nest. On the ground, flapping their wings, learning the coordination of […]

Despair is no longer sufficient

As the news filtered out of Orlando Sunday morning, another mass shooting was playing out in the background. When the 50 dead headline came across my screen mid day, I sat up and took notice and then hung my head, bewildered and anguished. The words “coming apart at the seams” rang through my head; we’re […]

The Lucky Ones

Yesterday morning my husband and I were looking at the calendar, admiring a photo of a kayaker going over a large waterfall. My husband commented that a friend of ours, a paddler, told him that it is no longer “enough” to simply go over a huge water fall in a kayak. Now you have to […]

Attention Nature Lovers! The Maine Master Naturalist Program seeks applicants for 2016 courses

Attention nature lovers! I have good news for you. The Maine Master Naturalist Program is sponsoring three, count them, three Tier One Associate Naturalist training classes here in Maine this summer. Located in Bar Harbor, Bridgton and Farmington, the class runs from May through September and covers a diverse array of natural history topics. And what […]