On the Back Porch

Photos from my son, Rob. This shot was taken a few nights ago, from the back door of his house. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, these are descendents of raccoons we released years ago, when we had a wildlife rehabilitation center there.
The house sits on about 20 acres of woods, surrounded by [...]

Spelunking – Sort of

I was wondering what to write about and at the same time, sorting through my huge file of pictures, and came across this one. Aha!
As I’ve mentioned here before, I lived in Kentucky for almost two years, in a place called Cave Creek. There are hundreds of miles of caves through KY, and I [...]

Blog Challenge and Writing

I’m getting back to writing fulltime, which I will do when I’m not banding birds. It’s the writing that pays the bills, the birds that allow me to do the other “work” that I do. Not a bad combination, really.
But this time, I’m also trying something different. I’ve been a nonfictin writer since I was [...]

Happily Ever After

I love where I live. It’s a Camp/Conference center, and there’s going to be a wedding here today. Last night, a knock on the door (the house I’m staying in for the winter says “staff residence” on the door, so there will be a few interruptions now and then) as friends and I were having [...]

Sparrowland

Sparrows everywhere. It’s interesting how our skills become rusty when we don’t use them. Back when I used to band here all the time, I knew every sparrow because we handled a gazillion of them. After 10 years in Florida (would you believe, we never caught a sparrow there?) and two years in Kentucky (just [...]

Native or Not?

A few times now the subject of native species vs. ‘invasive species’ has come up – and I’ve been pondering writing about this for a long time. My thoughts and opinions are probably vastly different than most naturalists, but that’s just the way it is for me.
First, let me say up front that yeah, there [...]

Iced (No – not that!)

This morning brought the first noticeable frost. We started “work” late – I didn’t open the nets until nine. I could have opened just a little earlier, but I was having too much fun admiring where I “work” and thanking Everybody that I didn’t have to jump in a car and commute to an office [...]

Morning Drivel

I’m back online this morning, and you didn’t even know I was gone. Spent the last two days moving from my little summer cabin into the “big house” next door – which is much newer, much nicer, much bigger, and – has HEAT! Just in the knick of time, too, as the temperatures fell into [...]

Bearly There!

So I’m fast asleep last night after a long, hard day – and I awaken to the sound of distant thunder. No, wait a minute…that’s not too distant, and it isn’t thunder. It’s the sound of bending aluminum, just on the other side of the bedroom wall, where the storage shed housing about 50 bags [...]

Raccoon Fatty

My son sent me this photo last night. This is one of the 20 or so raccoons that come by his house. They are the descendents of raccoons we rehabilitated and released there years and years ago.
Those raccoons were brought to us by one of the conservation officers. There were five babies in a paper [...]