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Lemons as Jet Fuel, or Why I Haven’t Given Up on the Environment
It’s really easy to despair at the state of the environment. Global climate change becomes increasingly impossible to deny with each passing day. But our government seems to be doing everything in its power to maintain our outmoded culture of fossil fuelishness. And yet, even in this sea of pervasive ignorance and selfishness and greed,…
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What the Clouds Can Teach Us
When you go for weeks on end without seeing the sun or the stars, it’s easy to start to imagine that they’re not there anymore. (And I live in Seattle, so I know what I’m talking about.) The clouds seem to be pushing down on the earth, and there’s this free-floating feeling of claustrophobia that…
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Calling on Greenland
Okay, indulge me. I’m one of those people who firmly believes in the whole concept of six degrees of separation, so I have an assignment for you: someone out there must know someone who knows someone from Greenland, and I want them to check out my blog. You see, whenever someone from another country visits,…
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Ocearch—Great White Shark Research
The other day I had a front row seat for what felt like a public television nature special. I got to see the research vessel Ocearch dock beside my drawbridge. They have been here in Jacksonville, Florida, tagging great white sharks off our coast. My picture of the vessel as seen from the bridge. …
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A Rare Gift from a Dolphin
I am a bridgetender at a bridge that spans the intracoastal waterway in Florida. This job gives me a front row seat to observe nature. The other night at around midnight, I was walking on the bridge to check if all the navigation lights were functioning properly. As often happens, I startled a blue heron,…