A Gathering of Tree Huggers

Thursday and Friday mornings I sit at the welcome desk of our neighborhood nature center. My days of leading groups in the outdoors are over, but I am happy to sit behind a desk for four hours a week and free up the paid staff to do the work that they were hired to...

Street Fishing

Two Sundays ago on a drive home from Winona, I tuned into public radio to catch the last part of Wisconsin Today. I was expecting coverage of the October 18th No Kings protests, but instead got a story about fishing. Not just any fishing, but street fishing. Street...

Geese, Knees, and COVID Shots

In William Kent Krueger’s most recent novel, the first page is about leafless trees, total darkness by 8pm, and the aches and pains of climbing out of bed.* There is no doubt in my mind that the seventy-four year old author wrote these words on a day much like...

Ninety

For the topic of this week’s blog entry, I have two options. I could write about the dead fox in my garage, or I could write about my mom’s birthday party. On the off chance that someone from my family might actually look at my website, I thought it better to write...

Sense of Place

Every October I Skype with a class of graduate students from Western Carolina University. My book Rediscovering Dewey is required reading for their course, and the instructor welcomes the chance for his students to have a conversation with the author. Before our...

Maple Syrup in Bourbon Casks

Manyu’s friend Shu is back in China to visit her elderly parents, so her husband Stefan is on his own for a couple of months. On Wednesday we had him over for dinner. Manyu fried up fresh bluegill fillets and made a beef stew in her multipurpose rice cooker.  After...
Steven Simpson