Recent Writings
A Few Thoughts About Conservatism
When my grandparents landed in Montana long, long, long ago, they brought with them some interesting sensibilities. They were of the pioneer type, but missed the big push into the country and so ended up being, in reality, settlers. They arrived 34 years after the Northern Pacific, more or less,
A Few Thoughts on Spring and Winter
Spring managed to surprise me this year. Again. I walked to the river yesterday and discovered fresh-grown catkins hanging from an errant Sitka alder that has taken root in the stream bank. I have no idea what that alder is doing there, for most of my experience with said plant
A Few Thoughts on Vladimir Putin and Ukraine
“There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.” Winston Churchill In 2001, I had the opportunity to travel to the “new” Russia. The USSR had dissolved a decade before and the country was full of
A Few Thoughts on Winter and Our Fellow Travelers.
A bobcat is traveling around the homestead these days, teaching snowshoe hares and ruffed grouse to pay attention, a good and proper thing for a bobcat to do. I see its tracks rambling through my woods. I also had the good luck of a sighting a few weeks ago. In
A few thoughts on Something and SDRs.
At Oakland Airport, I await a flight to Spokane, last leg home from Seattle. It’s a roundabout way to get there, but it fits the day, which has been roundabout also. I still like to fly, but there are a number of SDRs that go with flying these days I
A Few Thoughts on the Meaning of Christmas
As I’ve grown older, the glistening promise of the winter holiday has become a little tarnished. That’s not to say I haven’t had wonderful Christmases, because I have, but there have been some horrendous ones, as well. I think that’s true of many people. Presence of the celebration during a
A few thoughts on the closing of Ivano’s
There’s a joke about Ivano’s Ristorante Italiano, a Sandpoint institution for 37 years: Question: “Where’s the best Italian restaurant in Spokane?” Answer: “In Sandpoint.” Alas, no more. I enjoyed what was possibly a last meal at Ivano’s Friday before last. I enjoyed my “employee discount for life,” Jim Lippi’s gift
A few thoughts on travels with Gigi
I recently traveled around Washington State with Gigi for a few days, all the way out to the ocean and back. Gigi was often the navigator. She gives advice in a calm, clear voice, and most of the time she knows where she’s going. When she doesn’t — which isn’t
Eulogy for Laddie: a not-so-good, absolutely great dog.
I had a dog, and his name was Laddie.His middle name was “A.D.D.”He was a trial, a joy, and sometimes a baddie,and sometimes he even paid attention to me. “You, dog, were a pain in the ass. Sometimes. And all through your life with me. At intervals. But, you were
A Few Thoughts on Listening.
Our friend Glada McIntire recently moved further into her true realm when she became pure spirit and left her shell behind. I say “our,” because Glada had many friends, and some are my friends as well. I am not privy to details of her transition, but I would hope she
A few (last) thoughts about politics (at least for a while)
We are all pretty much sick of politics, I think. At least I am, but I have been for quite some time, since Y2K, in fact. The shenanigans of those who govern us, from county commissioners to Senators, are as entertaining as they are disturbing. Altruism is not a common
A few thoughts on our post-COVID world.
As vaccine cards are issued and COVID masks come off in our neighborhood — not that masks were ever fully on or that everyone has acquired a card — we can move about the country in a more unrestrained manner. I use the word, “our,” because, we still can’t get
Short Musings
A few thoughts on trees, O2, CO2 and basic breathing.
It’s 4:19 pm on the day when A Few Thoughts is due, and I’m just getting to it. It’s been on my mind, but my
A few thoughts on politics, the weather, religion and literary license
Politics: Bombing Iran? So, what’s new? We’ve been interfering in Middle Eastern politics since forever. The argument that Donnie will keep us out of wars
A Few Thoughts on Questions For My Dad.
My neighbor Aaron Harris showed up with his portable sawmill this week, and we proceeded to make rectangular pieces out round logs harvested from my
Short Musings
A few thoughts on trees, O2, CO2 and basic breathing.
It’s 4:19 pm on the day when A Few Thoughts is due, and I’m just getting to it. It’s been on my mind, but my mind has not been coming up with a good subject, which is not a new phenomenon, but one I’ve not had trouble with for at
A few thoughts on politics, the weather, religion and literary license
Politics: Bombing Iran? So, what’s new? We’ve been interfering in Middle Eastern politics since forever. The argument that Donnie will keep us out of wars is now moot. Maybe 100 times more folks showed up for “No Kings Day” than for Donnie’s birthday parade ala Red Square. The military seemed
A Few Thoughts on Questions For My Dad.
My neighbor Aaron Harris showed up with his portable sawmill this week, and we proceeded to make rectangular pieces out round logs harvested from my place by Ma Nature herself: windthrown Douglas fir, cedar and hemlock courtesy of big wind events during the past few years. Brother Kent and I
A Few Thoughts About Conservatism
When my grandparents landed in Montana long, long, long ago, they brought with them some interesting sensibilities. They were of the pioneer type, but missed the big push into the country and so ended up being, in reality, settlers. They arrived 34 years after the Northern Pacific, more or less,
A Few Thoughts on Spring and Winter
Spring managed to surprise me this year. Again. I walked to the river yesterday and discovered fresh-grown catkins hanging from an errant Sitka alder that has taken root in the stream bank. I have no idea what that alder is doing there, for most of my experience with said plant
A few thoughts on Something and SDRs.
At Oakland Airport, I await a flight to Spokane, last leg home from Seattle. It’s a roundabout way to get there, but it fits the day, which has been roundabout also. I still like to fly, but there are a number of SDRs that go with flying these days I
A few thoughts on the closing of Ivano’s
There’s a joke about Ivano’s Ristorante Italiano, a Sandpoint institution for 37 years: Question: “Where’s the best Italian restaurant in Spokane?” Answer: “In Sandpoint.” Alas, no more. I enjoyed what was possibly a last meal at Ivano’s Friday before last. I enjoyed my “employee discount for life,” Jim Lippi’s gift
Eulogy for Laddie: a not-so-good, absolutely great dog.
I had a dog, and his name was Laddie.His middle name was “A.D.D.”He was a trial, a joy, and sometimes a baddie,and sometimes he even paid attention to me. “You, dog, were a pain in the ass. Sometimes. And all through your life with me. At intervals. But, you were
Winter at the River
The dog has paused his joyful romp,
quit rolling in the ermine crust
the world has grown since late last night,
to watch and listen, as I must,
to a world so still it must have a say.
A few thoughts about snails and cougar poop
Bits of life and death decorate the tread. Shards of hide and bits of white fluff mark where a snowshoe hare was consumed by something hungry. The list of suspects is short but impressive. A colony of ants confidently builds a residence in the center of the path, as if to say, “What bear?”
The Blessings of Retirement
Retirement means, of course, launching full-tilt into the rest of life, set to do all the things we have been wanting to do, but lacked the long, connected strings of time to do them. There’s nothing like a chainsaw, a splitting axe and some old-fashioned salvage logging and wood-cutting to facilitate social distancing.
Spring, Muddy Feet and Rainbows
The world made a switch today, from lingering winter to progressive spring. I anticipate a time when we make a similar switch from this strange and scary time of personal isolation to a more normalized version of life, when every other human might not seem to be a threat.