I remember once walking as a boy with my father in some fields around our house. I was probably about nine years old. As we made our way, we came across a bird that fluttered and hopped on the ground. Its wing was bent and looked broken, and the bird appeared to be in distress….
My grandfather told me about shooting prairie chickens off the tops of oat shocks when he was a boy. By 2021, the prairie chicken count had fallen to 251 males. In the 1950s our family would drive two hours on a Sunday afternoon just to see Canadian geese. Today I need only arrive at a…
We were lucky to spend much of August on Vancouver Island with my parents-in-law, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. The celebration should have been last summer, but we’d had to postpone travel due to the risks of covid and changing regulations. This year, plans were easier to make, and my in-laws’ anniversary coincided with our…
Legend has it that the person who spots the first robin will have good luck all year. Our robins arrived several weeks ago and they didn’t look too lucky – hunkering down under the evergreens, feathers puffed up, wearily eyeing the snow covered lawn for anything that looked like food. While I’m not superstitious, I…
Most people think of gardening as a nurturing sort of activity, forgetting that gardeners must also ruthlessly defend their crops from creeping green invaders. My bloodthirsty gardener instincts are in full force when invasive weeds (such as creeping bellflower) or creepy-crawly pests (like the caterpillar of the white cabbage butterfly) threaten to devour my brussels…
In his short essay “The Truth of Space,” the British critic and philosopher John Ruskin asked his readers to perform a minor experiment. He asked them to draw two dark shapes on a piece of paper. The further back you go, he explained, the more indistinguishable the shapes become from one another, but you still…
When I was a child in Wisconsin, we could see the snow swirling like waves over the bare surface of Harvey Prinsen’s field. It had a certain beauty but it also meant cold. Drifting snow is a common part of almost any Canadian winter. Things are different in the Bulkley Valley of B.C. We have…
When I think about others, I like to consider all our relations – of all species. We have been blessed with so many abilities and luxuries and we have a responsibility to help those who are more vulnerable, and this includes all the animals and winged ones. When I was in my Toronto apartment, still struggling…
The God who so loved the cosmos, no doubt loves the micro-cosmos, too.
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