After a long winter's wait, homegrown salad. Yum. The effort to grow as many vegetables and fruits as possible begins its payoff. Did you know I have eight kinds of edible berries growing in our modest yard? 
     Joining me in their wait for the season's first berries, robins fill their bellies with wiggly worms. Nearby, big fuzzy bumblebees tumble the columbine and young squirrels are practically giddy with the abundance they've discovered their first spring. It's all so exciting!
    Spotting a pesticide truck cruise the neighborhood, I cringe. It's hard to comprehend people still spraying so much poison in their yards. Disheartening—and  stinky. Is the sight of dandelions so disagreeable that we poison everyone and everything around us? Trying not to let it drive me crazy, perhaps the most effective therapy is to thank the kind, bright folks who strive to avoid the stuff. Want a truly healthy yard? You're a champ!. Thanks for being considerate.
    While it's busy in the garden, I'm still putting in plenty of studio time. Colors and forms have been bold and strong. Someone recently told me my new painting, "Swing the Balance," seen here, reminded them of "pool toys floating around." I love that! But the only pool around here is a wee kiddie pool our pup loves to lounge in on warm afternoons.
     Here's to almost summer! Enjoy!
      

See more of my work here and here.

     Two days ago, while leash walking our dog, he snatched a baby rabbit hunkered down alongside the path. He did it so fast, I'd have missed it if not for the piercing squeak, and tiny feet momentarily dangling from his mouth. One gulp, and bye-bye bunny. I was horrified. And I was wrong. He wasn't being a “bad” dog. He was just being a dog.
     As Homo sapiens, we like to distinguish ourselves from other animals who simply follow their instincts. That in itself is a hotly contested topic. Regardless, our imagination, ability to think abstractly, and ingenuity have tipped the evolutionary scales greatly in our favor. This rise to dominance is also our curse. We make choices under the delusion that we can separate our own well-being from that of the rest of the world. But survival of the fittest is an incomplete story. Nature is a continuum composed of a multitude of living things and interactive systems. Research is demonstrating that cooperation is a key driver in evolutionary success, What I do as an individual is inescapably about what I do to the rest of the planet. My daily actions mark my direction as surely as fossilized dinosaur tracks on long-gone shores.
     These days, when I read the news, I'm pretty sure that in spite of evolutionary success, we are the most reckless, idiotic species ever to walk the planet. Still, I believe in us. But the stories we currently tell ourselves and each other limit our vision and restrict our possibilities. Humanity is at a critical juncture–Can our ingenuity and imagination help us open up the world in new ways that bring real ecological awareness, social justice, and unity? Can we stop being so selfish and take the long view that considers balance and well-being for all?
     Please say, “Yes.”

     Is COVID-19 distancing giving you a boxed-in feeling? I have a positive suggestion–take a moment the next clear evening to take a look at the night sky. Worldwide industrial shut downs have led to drastically improved air quality and clarity so stars are looking brighter and more numerous than ever. It's heart-stirring to imagine this singular moment and our place in its vastness.
     I was a child when the first Earth Day was celebrated 50 years ago this month. I remember a tattered copy of Silent Spring on the coffee table, though it would be 12 years before I read it. Its author, Rachel Carson, became one of my heroes. I'd tell you about her, but I can't do her the justice that Maria Popova does in her Brain Pickings article, The Writing of Silent Spring: Rachel Carson and the Culture-Shifting Courage to Speak Truth to Power. I hope you'll take time to read it, and maybe even Silent Spring,  in celebration of our unique and magnificent planet Earth.
     As artist and naturalist, thoughts about my place on this planet and in this universe are undercurrent to all my work. I've recently been working on a series of paintings in honor of Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and Earth Day. I've included several on this page. Learn more about my paintings, Sense of Wonder, Among the Beauties and Mysteries, Spring After Winter, and Spring after Winter 2.
      Thank you, Earth, and Happy Earth Day! We best remember that every day is your day, so that we may continue ours. Be well, my friends.

     While social distancing, desperately hoping to “flatten the curve” I've been craving more time in the woods and prairies and less in the studio. If you've gotten outside at all, it's hard not to notice that other species are in spring frenzy mode. Thank goodness it's March. Imagine if it were November, with holidays to be spent in isolation and many dark, cold months ahead. A small thing to be grateful for.
     A couple of mornings ago, I was wandering a half-frozen, marshy area full of artesian springs and was nearly overcome by the smell of skunk. My young dog was pretty interested until he figured out it was just skunk cabbage. Did you know skunk cabbage makes its own heat? One of the first blooms of spring, it emerges even when the ground is still frozen. Warming themselves up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, they melt surrounding snow and soil. The stinky spadix (see below photo), or flowering body, attracts early hatching flies and carrion beetles.
​     We'd found skunk cabbage paradise. Next to a gurgling, crystalline spring.
    My small observation is that the rest of the environment is managing our human pandemic rather well, so far. Lack of air and highway traffic means air quality worldwide has seen drastic improvement. Lack of boat traffic in Venice has brought back water clarity. Not since 9/11 has science had such an opportunity to gather environmental data, and hopefully, turn it into strategies that foster resilience.
    As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day next month in the midst of a global pandemic, it's become glaringly obvious that human existence on this planet is part of a delicate balance. "Oh, no!" moment: Just before hitting "publish" this morning, I nearly choked on my coffee when I read that the EPA "temporarily" suspended enforcement of regulations because of the virus.
     An added observation: OMG. "Never waste a crisis" taken to a whole new level of lunacy.
    Politics and corrupt economics are killing us in this very moment. Some would say that's nothing new.
     But I'm not giving up. Adversity can be the best teacher, if we're open to learning from our mistakes. It's about building on what history has shown us, guided by science, to cultivate a flexibility that is not afraid of diversity, knowledge, and expertise.
    Maybe then, next time the tiniest things in the natural world lay siege against us, we'll be armed to fight back with our strongest evolutionary weapon–our brains.
     Be well. Be smart. Get outside to enjoy the spring while maintaining proper distance. And please, VOTE.

See details of Early Light 2 and Early Light 1

     Honestly, I get all emotional walking through acres of restored prairie in late August. It's that plaintive, wistful feeling that comes from life bumping into skin bruised by grief and yet touched by grace. That longing that doesn't even know what it wants, but longs for it anyway.
      Prairie speaks to me. I like to listen.
    Cicadas buzz. Bluebirds gather. Unhappy to have her nut-burying extravaganza interrupted, a flustered squirrel is scolding my pup from the upper branches of an old oak.
     July's peak wildflower explosion of colors is over. Now yellow runs the show. Silphium and Big bluestem tower overhead, dripping cool morning dew onto my face as I brush past. Red is just beginning to touch the leaves of the sumac.
     Even though I'm not ready for summer's end, I can feel it coming. Here in this prairie, I can breathe deeply and give it a grateful and reverent goodbye.
     Only a teeny, tiny fraction of our original, native prairies remain. Once the dominant ecosystem here, isolated remnants can still be found near old cemeteries, along roadsides and railroad tracks, and on steep bluffs, where accessibility, and plowing, is difficult.
     The good news is–prairie restoration. Local, state, and federal governments, schools, businesses, and homeowners have been planting native prairie species and working to create larger prairie ecosystems. These prairies provide food and shelter for native insects, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. And the good medicine of solace and respite to humans spending time wandering and tending them.