Religion & Individual Rights

When national laws or rulings assert individual rights (access to birth control, abortion, gay rights) that clash with their beliefs, religi...

Our Cottontail Colony

Over the years of writing this blog, I have related the saga of cottontails on our Littleton, Colorado, farm.  During the first two decades ...

Justice & Enlightenment

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry throughout the United States.  Decades late in coming, thi...

Ladybirds in the Thistle

The "crop" of bull thistle on our Littleton, Colorado farm is exceptional this year, no doubt fueled by the wet spring.  While gui...

Supercell over Denver

Though we enjoyed a warm, sunny day in Metro Denver, a stationary front stretched across northeastern Colorado, adding instability to the at...

Yellow Goat's Beard

By June, yellow goat's beard (yellow salsify) is blooming on our Littleton, Colorado, farm and will continue to do so for the next month...

An Unexpected Gift

Just after 7:30 this morning, strong northeast winds raked Metro Denver, dropping the temperature by ten degrees (F) or more.  In the midst ...

Fathers & Sons

Today, Americans celebrate Fathers Day, honoring those who have stayed involved in the care and nurturing of their children.  While it is ye...

The Prairie Owl

Burrowing owls are summer residents of the Western U.S., from the High Plains through the Intermountain West; they are also permanent reside...

Front Range Heat Wave

After six weeks of intermittent rain and heavy thunderstorms, sunny, hot weather is forecast to invade the Front Range over the next five da...

Popes & Climate Change: Round 2

Pope Francis' proclamation that global warming is real and that humans are primarily responsible is causing indigestion for Catholic Rep...

Illness & Guilt

Having practiced medicine for almost forty years, I am well aware that persons diagnosed with a serious illness must also deal with guilt.  ...

Geology of the Baraboos

An elongated ring of hills and ridges rise in south-central Wisconsin.  Known as the Baraboos, they represent outcrops of ancient Precambria...

A Rim of Storms

A dome of high pressure over the Southeastern U.S. is causing two interconnected weather problems.  Beneath the dome, air is sinking and hea...

Genetics, Gender & Sexuality

From a purely anatomic point of view, one's gender is determined at conception; if the mother's egg is fertilized by a sperm with a ...

Magpie Invasion

Black-billed magpies are common residents along the Colorado Front Range and we often observe pairs or small flocks on our Littleton farm.  ...

Woodhouse's Toad

On my many hikes at South Platte Park, I occasionally run across a Woodhouse's toad, especially during their breeding season of April th...

Climate Change & Human Migration

We humans evolved about 130,000 years ago in East Africa; at that time, the last of the Pleistocene's warm interglacial periods was unde...

A Three-pronged Attack

Two days ago, just after noon, a blue jay began to shriek from a treeline behind our Littleton house.  He was soon joined by three other jay...

The Blanca Monsoon

Blanca, initially a hurricane off the coast of the Baja Peninsula, has moved into the Desert Southwest as a Tropical Depression, bringing co...

High Water on the Great Plains

Returning to Colorado yesterday, I crossed the Missouri River west of Columbia.  Racing along, the river waters were lapping at trees on the...

Common, Beautiful & Unrecognized

Indigo buntings are sparrow-sized birds that breed across the Central and Eastern U.S. and in parts of the Desert Southwest.  While the fema...

Death in the Backyard

We have all witnessed death in our yards.  Robins yank worms from the soil, accipiters snare unwary songbirds, snakes feast on nestlings or ...

Procreation on the Deck

New experiences, however carnal they might be, are worth reporting and yesterday's spectacle deserves a post.  It began early in the aft...

A Peaceful Morning at Eagle Bluffs

A gray overcast stretched above the Missouri River floodplain yesterday morning and seemed to induce a peaceful calm at Eagle Bluffs Conserv...

The Republican Circus

As the number of Republican Presidential Candidates approaches the census of many American towns, it seems appropriate to look at their agen...