Category Archives: Just Talking…

August 25, 2017.  My wife took this picture last Monday in our back yard:  the naturally-occuring “pinhole camera” effect that happens when the partially-eclipsed sun shines through tiny spaces between the leaves.  For a moment, the ground was shining with … Continue reading →

August 15, 2017.  This past month I was in Chicago and had a chance to visit one of my favorite institutions, the Field Museum of Natural History.  I was especially eager to visit an exhibit entitled “Specimens,” a fascinating overview … Continue reading →

August 13, 2017.  A couple years before the housing market imploded, I was asked to design a residential neighborhood in a way that would protect one of the largest wildlife preserves in the Twin Cities region.  The development bumped up … Continue reading →

August 5, 2017.  It seems eons ago that I and ten thousand others walked from the St. Paul Cathedral to our state’s capital in St. Paul.  It was Earth Day, 2017, and a massive slice of the Twin Cities elite … Continue reading →

[I wrote this a month after Earth Day, 2017, forgot I’d written it, and wrote another essay on the same topic, which follows this one.  The first is an essay, the next seems more like a poem.  Interesting, the way … Continue reading →

July 1, 2017.  Among the many dramatic yet predictable executive orders in the first several weeks of the Trump Administration was this one:  allow coal companies to again sidestep the intent of the 1972 Clean Water Act and let acid … Continue reading →

June 7, 2017 (Winona Daily News).  Over Memorial Day weekend I watched “The Longest Day,” the 1962 film about the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II. I was interested in seeing it because I have recently been revisiting … Continue reading →

May 9, 2017 (Winona Daily News).  On a recent Saturday a two hundred people walked in the rain to remind fellow Winonans that climate change is a clear and present danger. They did so because they trust scientific evidence. In … Continue reading →

May 12, 2017.  Last weekend I predicted a warbler wave would arrive Tuesday morning.  It did.  All around when I stepped outside were the flitting forms of tiny songbirds who had traveled hundreds of miles in the night, taking advantage … Continue reading →

May 7, 2017.  In a couple of days the first big warbler wave will arrive at the 45th parallel–halfway between the equator and north pole, and the place where I live.  I’ve been watching this event for over 30 years. … Continue reading →