There are few nights of my life that I can recall when I have been more scared than I was the night I took up Kelly Brenner’s Nature Obscura. Reports of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreading throughout the world had suddenly reached fever pitch with case numbers of COVID-19 being reported as skyrocketing where only a […]
John Philoponus, in his Commentary on the Soul, records that above the entrance to Plato’s Academy was inscribed ἀγεωμέτρητος μὴ εἰσίτω (“Let None But Geometers Enter Here”). It may have been equally appropriate to have posted a sign reading “A Knowledge of Mathematics Is Required” above the doorways to the early meeting places of the […]
It was when I took up walking in the very early mornings in order to improve my health that I came to better understand the local deer. Columbia Blacktails, Odocoileus hemionus columbianus, are abundant around our Pacific Northwest home, being particularly visible in the hours just before and after sunrise. Each day, as I set […]
One of the most persistent challenges I’ve faced as a naturalist is in how to pursue my field interests while also fulfilling all my responsibilities as a husband, father, and most recently care-giving child to an elderly, dementia-afflicted parent. Then, of course, to all these as also daily added the constant and seemingly ever-increasing demands […]