A Stranded Moose
A moose had stranded herself shoulder-deep in the bog last fall, at the southerly end of Long Pond. Of course, a car in the mud is one thing, a foundered moose another. One is a matter of inconvenience, the other of life or death. The animal was helpless, paralyzed. Fish and Game officers came out...
Living Seams
1. My partner likes to record himself talking in his sleep. I’ve listened to him order eggs, grow giddy over mushrooms, worry about spinach yields. In the morning, he’ll play back the recording and his eggs, mushrooms, spinach will be punctuated by my own sounds: whimpers, cries; last night a scream to Get off me!,...
Like the Flowers
The gladioli refuse to bloom, indistinguishable from the volunteer corn stalks that sprouted after squirrels and doves threw corn from the porch feeders. I bought these gladioli greedily; the Westwinds Nursery was going out of business, and it was the final days, everything must go, so I took them—every single bulb they had in stock. At...
Walking with the Widows
There is a bluebird on the limb of a tree in a yard near a house that is painted fairy-tale yellow. Like a piece of the sky with a rise of dawn on its chest and a fiesta necklace. I’ve walked these streets for twenty-seven years, and I’ve never seen a bluebird. Not here. Then...
Writing the Animal Other: Beyond Anthropomorphism
Some of my earliest writing advice was to beware anthropomorphism. Whenever an animal flew, stalked, or swam into an essay, I’d receive that warning at least once in any critique. Having come to writing in middle age after experiences as a naturalist, park ranger, field biologist, and graduate student of ecology, this happened often. Early...
Me vs. Slugs: Pandemic Edition
When the terrible virus was unleashed and our lives screeched to a halt, I planted a garden. My first. I tended it zealously, with the darting eyes of a suicide bomber. This was March, April, May, the world hijacked by hysteria. I could have watered my garden with tears after returning from the store rumored...
Children Hunting Bear in the Afternoon
A sow bear and a cub were hit by a truck on the road outside my neighborhood. The cub’s torn black fur and cracked claws lay crumpled beside the blown tires. The sow bear, something soft ruptured behind her bones, scrambled up the incline into the green of Pennsylvania June and died in such a...
The Snow Line
Mary points to the mountains and tells me her favorite thing about Montana is watching the snow line. We are driving to a biological research station, on a lake, where I will stay for some weeks, working on a book. Mary has been assigned as my travel guide. I have known her for one hour....
Entrance Privilege
It doesn’t matter that months have passed since my brother’s gray Tercel was hauled away from here with bits of him inside. Or that I’ve searched this patch of grassy ground where it sat many times by now. I step from my car and comb over it again, for cigarette butts, scraps of paper, convenience...
The Wild Horses of Tybee Island
We strike out in search of wild horses along the shores of Tybee Island. It’s early February—too cold for shores—but my wife and I have traveled 1300 miles from Wisconsin to Georgia, and we won’t be turned away. We slip on sweatshirts, remove shoes and socks, and walk past the pigeons toward the boardwalk. Aside...
Slumgullion Pass
I struggle to keep up with my husband Jack as we whack our way through smothering brush somewhere along Slumgullion Pass between Lake City and Creede. My lungs are working hard in the thin mountain air. Alferd Packer, the man this area is best known for, weighs heavy on my mind as he has for...
This is How a Robin Drinks
The birdbath that gets the most action is accidental. It’s just a big plastic saucer forgotten on the driveway, but found and filled by summer storms. The dog loves it, the red wasps love it, as do robins, doves, and cardinals: birds comfortable on the ground. Between it and me are an old lawn chair...
Steering into Winter
The last day of the year is barren. Trees long stripped, branches stark against the grey sky. The New England forest reveals the cages of its body, limbs tangling together, weighed down by ice and debris. From a distance the forest looks like a hundred men stooped from age and the harshness of living through...
The Wordless Woods
Foraging along the woods’ edge, the doe looks up from the hydrangea she is nibbling and twitches an ear—a salute, I think, stopping the car, though it isn’t a salute. She may be afraid for herself and the fawn with its muzzle in the mast, but shows no fear standing serene at the border of...
How to Untangle Environmental Stories: Five Contradictory Lessons
When we talk about environmental writing, one irony has always fascinated and sometimes frustrated me. Alongside chronicling the wonders of the non-human world, we’re writing about people trying to fulfill very basic needs—food, air, water, clothing, shelter—in sustainable ways, but doing so leads us into a dense tangle of politics, race, gender, and class. Too...
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