Recently, as I was starting home on foot, a neighbor who lives up the road from me stopped at the row of mailboxes along the highway. He knows that if I want a ride, I’ll ask. So instead, he says, “How’s your wood pile?” “Getting low. Yours?” He has a big truck, a big chainsaw, […]
Irene Wanner
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
As the crow flies
Crow Planet — Essential Wisdom from the Urban WildernessLyanda Lynn Haupt230 pages, hardcover: $23.99. Little, Brown and Company. 2009. Even though crows are unusually smart, make attentive parents, use tools, can learn to speak and are notoriously playful, they can’t seem to shake their bad reputation. They’re far more “loud, large, and conspicuous” than most […]
Posted inJune 1, 2009: Voyage of the Dammed
Forestry from the inside
The Forester’s Log: Musings from the WoodsMary Stuever264 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Forester Mary Stuever started writing newspaper columns “to share my love for forests and my passion for my chosen profession.” It’s a profession that has changed dramatically during the last 25 years, and in her new collection, The Forester’s […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Solo journeys, life lessons
The nine essays in Mary Beath’s new book celebrate nature from the viewpoint of an “independent woman pursuing adventures that include self-exploration.” An avid hiker, the artist and award-winning poet moved to New Mexico from New York almost 20 years ago. Her title piece sums up this collection’s recurring theme: the risks and rewards of […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Thinking like a fish
Chad Hanson used to wonder what music trout would listen to if they could: Brookies might like bluegrass, browns might prefer classical, while rainbows, he thought, would dig grunge tunes from the Pacific Northwest. But he was wrong, he learns. And as Hanson looks for an answer to what might seem like a silly question, […]
Posted inNovember 27, 2006: The West: A New Center of Power
An encyclopedia of rivers
Rivers are the “nerve system” of the continent’s ecology, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reminds us in his foreword to Rivers of North America. As population, industry and agriculture grow, the need for fresh water increases. But meeting that demand often entails the wholesale diverting, damming and draining of rivers. Rivers of North America is the […]