This summer we acquired a squirrel. Not by choice, but likely drawn to our rewilded property. We’ve let the alder grow wild in the back-40, leaving a deliciously bushy forest that leads down to the marsh at the bottom of the property. We’ve added perennial gardens that bring bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, while the...

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I recently read Nnedi Okorafor’s Desert Magicians duology. I had ordered her books because I thought they’d fit well into the post-apocalyptic fiction piece I’m writing for Aeon magazine, but realized once I got them that they were too far into the science fiction/fantasy (SFF) sphere to fit into my piece. Though her books are...

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Two weeks ago, I talked about social media, and the ways in which I’ve used it to create community and build my personal skills. But I didn’t cover anything about the drawbacks of using social media, and whether or not they outweigh the benefits. I ran across a few quotes this past week that I...

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Mushroom season arrives in the Pacific Northwest when the first rains fall and the dormant spores come to life around our acreage. I didn’t see any red mushrooms with white dots this year, which is too bad as they make for great pictures. I’ve read that squirrels like to pick mushrooms and hang them in...

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How long have you had an online life? Or do you eschew social media altogether? I’ve been online for about 15 years now. I joined Facebook in 2008 when my grad students told me about it, as a way to casually stay in touch with friends online. I started blogging (with BlogSpot) in 2009, looking...

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Just after the winter solstice of 2019, Irish writer Kerri ní Dochartaigh and her partner moved into a one room cottage deep in the centre of Ireland, along a disused railway line at the end of a long lane. In her latest book, Cacophony of Bone, ní Dochartaigh takes the reader on a year-long journey...

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“I am well enough to do some of the things that make life worthwhile from day to day, but few of the things that make life worthwhile from year to year.” — Matt Lazelle-Fairman The sound of the leaves falling from the walnut tree, shades of chartreuse: green and yellow, is the same sound the...

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Mosses and lichens often get short shrift when we talk about the living world. Mosses apparently cover a global area the size of China, and are more effective at sequestering carbon than bare soil. Lichens in particular are not traditional plants – they’re a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an alga. The fungus provides...

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I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a child. I fantasized about the office I would have, lined with bookshelves, and the typewriter I would use to write my own books. I play-acted being a writer, using my dad’s old typewriter and writing up ‘news’ stories for my family. But my imagination always...

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It’s the last Wednesday of the month (how did that happen?!), so it’s book review week. I first read APPLESEED back in 2021 when it had just come out. I was struck by its complex structure and characters, but had a hard time following the plot and came out the other end not quite sure...

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