KA- BOOM!

Tina Garfield captured this shot of one of our powerful summer storms last week: Going in for “programming” tomorrow, after which I expect my life will improve A LOT. Hope so, anyway… and all reports are good…

Poem

THE VALLEY OF SHELLS AND BONES “What scaled and feathered fetish shakes awake our loamy sleep  in these sealed vaults where dust and sand enrobe our golden masks  that hover over dreaming faces drowned in tinted musk?  Here where the spider curls and chitters in the crystal locket.  Here as time’s mouth leeches blood and …

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Rescuing Wildlife is Futile, and Necessary

One of the benefits of Helen’s success with H is for Hawk has been that she got a gig writing a monthly nature column for New York Times Magazine. Her latest effort, with the title of this post, appeared today. Her column, which began in March, is titled On Nature, and if you scroll down near …

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Home at last…

I am home, the op was a success, and I am fine. Many thanks for every good thought and prayer. The battery goes in a week from tomorrow, and the programming a week after that. Only physical effect was a lingering headache where AIR got into my brain… really. The grinding when they drilled into …

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Steve’s Condition

I just received an email from Jackson, and he says Libby told him Steve came through his procedure earlier today with flying colors. Apparently he is already back looking at his computer and may post something himself before long. I just wanted to get the good news out as soon as possible.

This year’s Boletes

Not a great year– the southern San Mateos, our main source, were a bit drier than we’d like– but we got a gallon of dried, first adequate harvest in 8 years. The photos span the trip down and back up the Plains of St Augustin  by the VLA; flowers, like the white poppies, show we …

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Carl Rungius painting

An unusual one, from the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, for “our” exhibition (be patient!), courtesy of the Museum and Kevin Sharp. Also the locked skulls that inspired Rungius. I found this letter from Rungius in a book I bought, unmentioned…

Countdown

As many of you know, at 6 AM on Monday, Agust 10,  I go “under the knife”  for the Direct Brain Stimulation operation— well, more like the drill, sitting up, awake if not wide awake (6 AM at University Hospital in Albuquerque means leaving here before 4 AM, and I don’t think that will be …

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In the Hawk Pasture

What I call the “hawk pasture” is an open hay meadow tucked into the foothills of Wyoming’s southern Wind River Mountains. Irrigation water and a water gap for cattle provide a draw for a variety of wildlife, but this year the birds that have taken over, including sandhill cranes, sage grouse, a pair of Northern …

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