YES: As the title of this newsletter, ‘Notes From The Campfire,’ would indicate, a significant part of my life is a deep connection to the natural world. We live in a cabin-in-the-woods, and as I write these words I hear an ovenbird, a catbird, a Baltimore oriole, a pine warbler, a common yellowthroat, and our resident bald eagle, all chirping,
MATHEMATICAL ADVICE: I have always, since earliest memory, had a knack for numbers, for facts and figures. (Yeah, that’s a lie). A special ability to decipher odds and statistics and equations. (That’s a lie, too). So that people have often come to me with questions on such subjects. (Another stretcher). Anyway, with this special gift for numbers, I thought I’d
I ONCE KNEW A BOY who lay on his back in green summer grass and smelled the freshness of it, as he wondered at the pictures the clouds made above, hinting at a mysterious, wide open future. I knew a boy who sat by an Iowa creek and dreamed of wilderness, of loving and exploring it. I knew a boy
TRANSITIONS: Spring is a time of transitions. Wonderful transitions, as long nights give way to longer days. As the rising sun spreads butter on the pines a little bit earlier each day. As our old friends the spring ephemeral wildflowers raise their heads and smile. As geese holler from the river and their new little yellow fluffballs begin to figure
RAPIDS AHEAD: In my life I’ve led many a journey through the Canoe Country wilderness, some expeditions of 500 miles or more through the bush, over the rugged Canadian Shield. Each trip is full of joys and beauties, but each is laced with challenges and fears as well. There are languorous days when all seems peaceful, horizons are clear, waters