Last updated 10.17.2018 Holy Water: Old West meets Middle East “Thou shall inherit the holy earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. Thou shall safeguard the fields from soil erosion, thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation.” American ‘Father of […]
Monthly Archives: September 2018
23 posts
Recognition 12: Israel is a cautionary tale Last updated October 31, 2018 “There are no unsacred places; There are only sacred places and desecrated places .” Wendell Berry, from his poem, ‘How to be a poet (to remind myself).’ Israel is a fine example of what trouble humans can get […]
First thing: Where are you going to put it? A pile of rounds and chunks that you’ll be splitting later always takes longer to knock down than you think it will. It’s convenient to drop the wood as close as possible to where you’ll eventually stack it but it’s more […]
Between the mid-1980s and 2012 it was my avocation, and good fortune, to spend ten days to two weeks in early winter watching marine mammals from shore. For most of those years it was just me with enough field equipment to max out the series of progressively larger float planes […]
On my way down the hall to shave the wife asked if I was going to shave. To maintain balance of power in the castle, shaving at that point was out of the question, so I said, “Well honey, I think I might just grow out the beard and be […]
Deep last winter just as it was getting dark, with the woodstove keeping the place at seventy degrees and supper nearly ready, the doorbell rang. On the porch was a rugged fiftyish man who said, “I see you burn wood. I’m selling cords of wood and wonder if you’d be […]
November 19th is World Toilet Day and toilets are on the move. The World Toilet Summit is in Melbourne, Australia this year but from Rwanda inmates to billionaire Bill Gates, humanity everywhere is opening a more enlightened dialog about what happens after we take a dump. When the United Nations […]
My grandfather had a place on a lake and every summer he’d paint one side of it. On a weekend morning he’d go to the paint store for primer and paint (dark red with white trim) and get out his ladder, scraper and brushes. He’d scrape off any little blemishes […]
Juneau’s got the Boy Scout Camp, Methodist Camp, Running Camp, 4-H Camp, Discovery Camp, Bible Camp, Science Camp, Fine Arts Camp and Dance Camp but for teaching life skills in hardcore self-sufficiency nothing comes close to Homeless Camp. Homeless Camp is pass/fail. Nothing is provided. Show up in town with […]
“They’re psycho crows!” my friend exclaimed. “Every day. Four o’clock in the morning. Caw! Caw! Caw! They’re driving me crazy.” I sympathized with her. It happens every year. Do nesting crows dive-bomb you when you walk the dog? Do they clean out your garden seeds? Do they use your […]
Part I in a series on outstanding volunteer-run assets in the Capital City Bibliophilla: is it wrong? We know who we are. Candidates all for Book Readers Anonymous, OverReaders Anonymous or various other actual support groups for unrepentant addicts of the written word. Juneau’s the right town for our kind […]