Ahhhhhhhhh. We are just back from a ridiculously luxurious vacation on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. National Geographic calls it “the most biologically intense place on earth”, and it just takes a few hours there to understand why. It covers less than a thousandth of a percent of the earth's surface area, but houses 2.5% of the biodiversity of the entire world.Lest "2.5 %" doesn't sound like a lot, keep in mind that it includes 463 species of birds, 140 mammals, over 4,000 vascular plants and 10,000 species of insects. Surprisingly, even though we were in the rain forest, there were literally no bothersome insects. Not a mosquito all week, and some killer-cool, huge beetles that surely anyone would love.Jim and I took a gazillion photos, and lucky for you, I can't begin to Read More

These books as are different as a Bulldog and a Whippet. I recommend them both, but note I have some caveats for each.The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved is by Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg. I love its perspective--it's the first book I know of that incorporates indigenous perspectives on the origin of the domestic dog and the relationship between people and wolves.(FYI, for a short time I lived outside of Leupp, Arizona, on a Navajo Indian Reservation. My first husband, Doug McConnell, was accepted into the Teacher Corps right before we were married. We both learned a great deal about the Navajo culture, and I've been attuned to the differences between European and Native American perspectives ever since. Yá'át'ééh!)The authors argue that European Read More

 Well, I'm a little concerned about how that title is going to play out on the internet, but what's life without a little risk?Here's all I want to say this week: Please pick up dog poop. Any dog poop, anywhere. Not just your own dog's, any dog's. No matter where you find it.Why, you say? Why should we pick up poop from someone's else's dog? From someone far less responsible than we are? Simple: Because we want to keep walking our dogs in neighborhoods, in parks and on trails. Because the more poop that is sitting out there for all to see, the more someone is going to object, and start calling for dogs to be banned from our favorite walking places.And yes, you can make it fun. And no, I have not lost my mind. I ran a contest for a few years at a local dog park during its Read More

It's about 5 AM. Haven't slept much, neither has my husband Jim. It's the morning of his mother's funeral service and there's a brutal snow storm going on outside. We don't know if one son and daughter-in-law will make it from California, last we heard they were stranded in the Dallas airport. Jim forgot his suit and pants and has only jeans and a sweatshirt. We are three hours away from home. I am worried about the dogs, cats and sheep, and my cell phone won't work.I make some tea in the motel's sad little water heater, and turn on my iPad. As I often do, I click on the New York Times. I skim articles about politics--none seem relevant, as I'm in that strange, underwater state one is in when grieving and yet helping to organize the detritus of a death. I scroll down, and find an Read More

I had a post all planned out (in my head, hadn't written anything), but Jim's mother died early Tuesday morning. It is sad and hard and a huge relief, because the last year and a half of end-stage Parksinon's has been rough on her. She made it to 95, although she wanted to make it to 100. On her 95th birthday last week, during the few moments she was cogent, she began telling people she was one hundred years old. We corrected her once, then thought "To what purpose?" So we all celebrated her 100th birthday--Congratulations, Maisie, well done.We are where most of you all have been at one point or another: Regular life on hold, lots to do, telling her stories, hugging each other, relatives flying in . . . So, just photographs today. It's snowing hard again, it finally looks like Read More