Our Sense of Self

The human body, like that of all animals, is the product of our genetic code and its physical components are nearly identical to those of mo...

A Promising Darkness

After a month of intense sunshine, excessive heat and severe drought, we in the American Heartland are searching for signs of autumn.  Dry a...

Memories of the Dead

As we age, the number of our dead relatives, friends and acquaintances expands dramatically.  Yet, some memories of those individuals, wheth...

Five-lined Skinks

Attempting to rescue our plants from the brutal summer weather, I was watering last evening when I spotted a small lizard as it dashed from ...

The Long La Nina Summer

The extreme heat and drought across the Central U.S. this summer is courtesy of a La Nina atmospheric pattern that has been in place for alm...

Fame by Mass Murder

Following the most recent episode of mass murder in U.S. history, representatives from almost every news service in America have descended o...

Condoning Intolerance

Within the past few days, Boy Scouts of America has reiterated its policy that homosexuals are not welcome in their organization and Dan Cat...

Detour to Kirwin NWR

Heading back to Missouri yesterday, I decided to take a detour to Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge in north-central Kansas.  Though I realize...

Northern Pygmy-Owls

Favoring open forest of western mountains and foothills, northern pygmy-owls are found from southern Alaska to northern Mexico.  Among the s...

Birth Control, Human Welfare & Conservation

A recent article in the New York Times reported that unwed mothers are the new face of poverty, often attempting to raise children on one me...

Devils Tower

Near the end of the Cretaceous Period, some 75 million years ago (MYA), the landscape of eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota was flat, ...

Birding Chatfield

Chatfield State Park surrounds a large reservoir at the confluence of the South Platte River and Plum Creek, southwest of Denver.  For sheer...

Paterno & Human Sexuality

The Louis Freeh Report , released this past week, reveals that Joe Paterno and administration officials at Penn State University buried repo...

The Summer Sandpiper

Spotted sandpipers are the most widely distributed shorebird in North America, breeding throughout Alaska, Canada and most of the Lower 48 S...

Exercise Canyon

Waterton Canyon, which incises the foothills southwest of Denver, represents the South Platte's final journey through the Rocky Mountain...

The Kaibab-Coconino Plateau

As the Paleozoic Era gave way to the Mesozoic, some 225 million years ago (MYA), an ovoid upwarping of Earth's crust developed in what i...

Prairie Racerunners

Closely related to the six-lined racerunner of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S., the prairie racerunner is found from northwestern Ind...

Front Range Oasis

While those of us who live along the Colorado Front Range enjoy abundant sunshine and a mild, semiarid climate, there is plenty of aquatic h...

Monsoon Relief

Returning to our Littleton, Colorado, farm today, I found that early monsoon rains have revitalized the landscape.  Indeed, over the past fe...

Colorado's Black Canyon

Near the end of the Mesozoic Era, as the Cretaceous Sea retreated to the southeast, Colorado was a relatively flat landscape of wetlands, sa...

Looking at the Invisible

This week at CERN, the Organization for European Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland, nuclear physicists may have discovered the Higg...

A Stubborn Ridge

The dome of high pressure that has parked itself over the Heartland for the past two weeks shows no sign of abating.  Rather than drifting o...

The Heart of Champions

As the Olympic Trials wind down and national teams prepare for London, it is clear that there is something special about Olympic athletes.  ...

The Season of Insanity

Humans, tropical creatures that we are, have a healthy respect for winter,  Not naturally equipped to survive its wrath, we take shelter fro...