The Mindful Californian

You’ve probably never heard of George de Mestral before. Like many inventors, fame simply wasn’t in the cards. His invention, […]

Nature preserves are so much about the wildlife. Visitors are like houseguests. They’re welcome as long as they respect the […]

Photo: Burrowing owl inside of natural burrow. Credit: Larry Jordan The owls of our childhood are far from fierce beings. […]

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 […]

Henry David Thoreau once famously said, “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” and environmentalists to this day invoke […]

A heifer in Alberta, Canada eating Canada Thistle, Cirsium arvense (credit: Fito Zamudio). A haiku The War on Weeds ends When […]

Photo: Megachile fidelis on Mexican sunflower. Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey The specter of election season is upon us and once […]

Photo: View from Farallon Islands from above. Credit: USFWS There’s a reason why San Francisco isn’t known as the City […]

It wasn’t so long ago that kids routinely showed up for dinner with dirt under their fingernails and muddy sneakers. […]

Around this time last year, I started my first garden. I grew up digging in the loamy earth of an […]

Ecologists and knitters have a lot in common. Perhaps seasoned knitters have found a way to tame their yarn, but […]

You know you’re getting old when a historian asks you for a first-hand account. I received such a call not […]