First Saturday Green 101

Passing summer on a country road

By motomynd

Several times a week my wife and I walk or run the section of country road that curls past our home in Central North Carolina. We used to drive 30 minutes round trip to take to the trails of a local state park or a former dirt track raceway. This year we decided to explore closer to home and establish a better sense of place for where we now live.

First Saturday Green 101: The liquid yellow eyes...

...of a predator

By motomynd

As the plane taxied toward the terminal I turned on my phone. A text message immediately lit the screen: “Be careful when you go home. I drove by a few minutes ago and there were cops and animal control trucks all over the place.”

First Saturday Green 101: And so they went to the big cat preserve

By motomynd

It was a quiet holiday weekend in Central North Carolina. With her daughter away at an anime convention, and both looking for something—anything—to get her son away from his computer game addiction, husband and wife talked strategy.
    “How about a movie?” she asked. His look must have said more than he realized. She answered her own question: “Right. Neither of you could sit through that.”
    “How about a hike?” he asked. Her look must have said more than she realized. He immediately followed with, “Yeah, he’ll be whining the whole time.”

First Saturday Green 101: Trees, quail, mosquitoes, and neighbors talking loudly of porn

They’re all connected

By motomynd

When I bought the old farmhouse I grew up in 50 years previous, three dramatic changes jumped out at me when spring arrived and I aspired to spend most of my time outdoors. The neighbors who lived in the surrounding houses were much louder than those who were there when I was a child. There was a missing link in the bird population. Mosquitoes patrolled in Luftwaffe-worthy squadrons.
    The Washington, DC escapee within me lamented the changes but welcomed the space and relative quiet. The writer within me wondered if I should have instead returned to the cabin in the woods where I had lived before being briefly lured back to DC. The college-educated biologist still lurking somewhere deep within me wondered if the three were somehow connected.

First Saturday Green 101: Goatsucker memories

The author during a pensive moment
behind bars on the Congo/Rwanda border

By motomynd

When I have time on a spring evening to take the old Honda Shadow for a spirited cruise on local country roads, there are two stops I always make on the way back home. One is for the way it looks, the other for the way it sounds.
    The first place has the most vivid sunsets I have been able to find in this part of central North Carolina. Having photographed sunsets in all 50 states and on four continents, I should have seen enough of them, but I’m still a sucker for even the lackluster ones we have in these parts.

First Saturday Green 101: Freak of nature

By motomynd

Forty years ago today, one of the greatest athletes in history began his quest to become legend. Two minutes later he had achieved just that, with a jaw-dropping performance that resonates even today. It previewed two dramatic follow-up victories that may have him ultimately remembered as the greatest of all time, until the end of all time.

First Saturday Green 101: Trail of the Timberdoodle—Act 3 (final)

timberdoodle.org

By motomynd

[Sequel to "Act 2"]

A call to my satellite phone, as I sat in camp hard by the Kenya/Somalia border, brought the crushing news of my uncle’s suddenly failing health. The next two years were a blur of post-9/11 work overseas, and as many rush trips to Upstate as the schedule could possibly allow. Since age 12, I had marveled at Carl’s hunting and fishing tales, and his trophies from Canada and Alaska. On our last few visits I finally had my own trophies to share—photos taken while walking amongst elephants, rhinos, lions, and other animals in Africa.

First Saturday Green 101: Trail of the Timberdoodle—Act 2

timberdoodle.org

By motomynd

[Sequel to "Act 1"]

The American woodcock meanders as it migrates, and it travels less in a year than an Arctic tern does in a week, yet it is still one of my favorite birds. There is something about a bird designed for the shore choosing to live in a forest, and its overall charmingly quirky behavior, that endears it to me. There is a bittersweet attraction as well.

First Saturday Green 101: Trail of the Timberdoodle—Act 1

timberdoodle.org

By motomynd

Most people have a favorite bird. In some cases because of their image of the bird, in others for what it says about their view of the world. Some like the jet-fighter-like flight and strike of the falcon, others the equally breathtaking yet seemingly playful flight of the hummingbird.

First Saturday Green 101: New Year’s green resolutions

Go green to save money and live longer

By motomynd

Now that you have made your New Year’s resolutions to improve your health, fitness, finances, and attitude, here’s an easy one you may actually be able to stick with: resolve to go more green in 2013. No, you don’t have to go completely green, just more green—and you will find that much easier to do than losing ten pounds.

2012 highlights of Moristotle & Co.

Looking back at my year

By Morris Dean

Yesterday I went through the blog's 2012 archive [accessible through the bottom section of the sidebar]. The blog began the year as "Moristotle: A sometimes ironic celebration of life on Earth"—or was it still "An ironic celebration of life, love, laughter, and learning" or "...of evolving life and learning on Earth"? However exactly it started out the year, you can see by the masthead how we think of it now.

First Saturday Green 101: What is winging your way on the winter wind?

Eurasian golden plover,
photographed by the author
in Thingvellir, Iceland

By motomynd

In North Carolina the lawns are put away for the season, the leaves are mostly dealt with, and the next big seasonal news is the coming of winter. For far too many people this a time to abandon outdoors activities, hunker down inside, and wait for spring. If that is your strategy, not only will you grow soft and lethargic over the next few months, you will also miss the opportunity to spot unusual and rare birds you will see in no other season.

First Saturday Green 101: Going green with brown leaves

By motomynd

This is the time of year when the heat of summer yields to the coolness of fall, and the autumn leaves put on a spectacular show.
    Then they fall to the ground.

First Saturday Green 101: Preparing your lawn for winter

By motomynd

As impossible as it seems, there is a series of commercials these days that may be even more irritating than the barrage of election ads. And they may be even more over-hyped and deceptive than the false claims that Barack Obama cut Medicare funding or that Mitt Romney plans to starve to death the 47% of Americans who he says will never vote for him.