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One day, back in West Haven, Connecticut, in 1941, living on my grandfather’s farm, an Aeronca “Flying Bathtub” came swooping over me. I was helping my uncles and grandfather bring in the hay on a sweet summer day, and the last thing I thought would happen was a buzz job by that pot-bellied flying machine. […]
Dear readers, you’re in for a very special treat. All you have to do is arrive at 10am at the Sisters Library any day from Tuesday through Saturday, during regular business hours. As you walk up to the front entrance you can’t help but notice the huge, circular stained-glass art above the doors. That was […]
Bill Kuhn, who lives among the sagebrush, juniper and mariposa lilies, is somewhat like me: a worrywart. Every time he and I sit by the fire we get to chinwaggin’ about what’s going to happen to the juniper, sagebrush and wildflowers—that are the love of our lives—after we go out among the stars. Kuhn’s also […]
The title of this piece was a common statement back in the ’70s and ’80s, when NASA was doing all it could to place men and machinery in space. It also became a common statement for all kinds of problems in our society—and now I use it to bring attention to a problem that people […]
Are cats cuddly companions or fine-tuned killing machines? They’re both—and their owners know that. Cats that live in the wild (or are indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors), kill about 2.4 billion birds in the continental U.S. each year, according to the American Bird Conservancy, contributing to the extinction of at least 64 bird, mammal […]
On a Saturday and Sunday afternoon in July, the brand-new wildlife rehabilitation facility, Think Wild, east of Bend, created a traffic jam with its open house. A lot of people from Bend, Tumalo, LaPine, Sisters and Redmond came out to check out what Think Wild was all about. So, here’s the skinny. The facility once […]
By golly, this is a strange time for Pandora moths to pop out of the woodwork—er, soil. They were here in grand numbers back in 2017, and it’s usually five to 10 years before they appear again. Must be climate change; something is taking place around us that’s favorable to this species. Meanwhile, another species […]
Oh, boy, are we having fun! Right now, during these warm first weeks of July, the California tortoiseshell butterfly, one of the more dashing of the nymphalids, is popping out by the hundreds of thousands—if not millions —in the foothills of the Cascades, known as the Skyline Forest. This beautiful butterfly has been flitting around […]
Back in 1951, I rolled into Bend on my grand old 1947 Harley, and within a year I was into the eagle conservation business. It was then I discovered what was previously unknown to me: the U.S. Government’s role in killing wildlife. Government trappers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Division of Predator and Rodent […]
The links between insects and a healthy environment are so vital to life as we know it, they should be taught in kindergarten so that everyone learns the facts at an early age. You can thank an insect pollinator for one out of every three mouthfuls of food you eat—which is what makes spraying chemicals […]
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