You’ve probably never heard of George de Mestral before. Like many inventors, fame simply wasn’t in the cards. His invention, on the other hand, came to take on a life of its own. According to legend, de Mestral and his Irish pointer were on a hunting expedition when they accidentally walked through a patch of […]

Photo: Burrowing owl inside of natural burrow. Credit: Larry Jordan The owls of our childhood are far from fierce beings. The Tootsie pop mascot and Hedwig the messenger may gain our affection, but they don’t necessarily inspire respect. These images tend to stick with us through adulthood, even after we’ve eyed their hooked talons and […]

As I walked to the grocery store this evening, I found myself sidestepping puddles on the sidewalk and skirting ankle-high jets of water. Though another dusty California summer has come to a close, the water continues to flow. Through irrigation tubing, that is.

IT’S HARD TO remember an October where the distant roar of a leaf-blower wasn’t the soundtrack. Every Saturday my father would sip his tea, waiting for the leaves to dry in the early morning sun. Eventually he would put on his ancient Connecticut State Police baseball cap and disappear into the shed, reappearing with the […]

A heifer in Alberta, Canada eating Canada Thistle, Cirsium arvense (credit: Fito Zamudio). A haiku The War on Weeds ends When cows begin to eat them. Foe becomes forage – The Tao of Cow In 2004, Kathy Voth had a revolutionary idea: instead of using herbicides to control invasive plants on grazing lands, why not teach […]

Photo: Megachile fidelis on Mexican sunflower. Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey The specter of election season is upon us and once again, the phrase “addiction to foreign oil” seems to be a particularly popular bludgeon among political rivals. As a nation, we are as fond of our addictions as we are of scrutinizing them. In the […]

Photo: View from Farallon Islands from above. Credit: USFWS There’s a reason why San Francisco isn’t known as the City of Good Visibility. Residents are accustomed to turning up their collars against the damp foggy mornings and bemoaning the haze of smog that often seems to hang over the city. With a bit of luck, […]

Around this time last year, I started my first garden. I grew up digging in the loamy earth of an old riverbed in Connecticut, picking out earthworms to feed my pet duck. As such, I was completely unprepared for the obstinate brick of Central Valley clay waiting for me in my backyard. It was not […]

Ecologists and knitters have a lot in common. Perhaps seasoned knitters have found a way to tame their yarn, but in my case, it seems to have a mind of its own. I have made many a lopsided scarf, but my specialty is impossible knots. In my capable hands, the yarn quickly folds itself into […]