Poachers Slaughter Thousands of Central Africa’s Elephants (via Environment News Service)
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, February 6, 2013 (ENS) – Poachers have killed some 11,000 elephants in the Central African country of Gabon since 2004, finds a study by the Gabonese National Parks Agency, WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society released today. “Gabon, refuge of biodiversity in the Congo Basin…
On Feb. 13, 2013, for the first time in its 120-year history, the Sierra Club participated in civil disobedience to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline and the general lack of action on global warming.
Fertilizer applied to a nearby farm has enriched natural water bodies to unsustainable levels. Algae blooms use up the oxygen and kill off fish and other wildlife. Come close and see the bubbling surface.
Global environmental conditions are deteriorating. Ignorance can no longer defend guilt: Dirty air and water have become familiar to all.
It is time to revise our institutions. We must find ways to curb the greed that continues a natural resource harvest that leaves no hope for the future.
I removed Grammarly from my computer. It caused MS Word to stutter and hesitate, and it took too long to produce anything useful.
Grammarly spent most of its time making ridiculous synonym suggestions. And it wasted my time with circular suggestions. When I followed Grammerly’s suggestion for revising a sentence, I sometimes got a new suggestion that would reproduce the original construction. I did like the “squinting modifier” advice, but not the hour the program took to find and point out the single occurrence. Grammarly gets a laugh or two, but I cannot recommend it for serious writing.
I do recommend the Grammar & Composition articles by Richard Nordquist on Ask.com. Five stars.
This winter a flock of Gambel’s Quail began making daily visits. Quail are abundant on the chaparral covered slopes around here, but during the past 15 years, I have seen very few on the floodplain near the river. The quail are coming for the birdseed I scatter for juncos, sparrows, finches, and dove. I like quail. They get along fine with the other birds, but they seem more stalwart than dove; more like robins.
More than 200 waterfowl spend January and February on the old stockponds at Coldwater Farm. Daily, I scatter six pounds of rolled corn on the causeway between two of the ponds. Most of the ducks in the photographs below are mallards, but a few coots, ruddy ducks, pintails, ringnecks, and widgeons are present. Wood ducks came earlier but moved on.
Wild ducks are not serene. Furious battles and outbursts of quacks occur day and night. When it is quiet down at the ponds I know the ducks have fled a predator or a two-legged marauder.
The ducks look forward to the daily corn delivery. If I miss a day, they come to the backyard where they mill around clucking, quacking, and gleaning songbird feed. When I come out, they lead the way back to the pond, confident that the corn is coming.
More than 200 waterfowl spend January and February on the old stockponds at Coldwater Farm. Daily, I scatter six pounds of rolled corn on the causeway between two of the ponds. Most of the ducks in the photographs below are … Continue reading
The Warrior
Here’s the edited introduction to my first novel. CreateSpace will distribute the novel this spring.
Download The Warrior Corr Syl: Chapter I. (WordPress will take you to an attachment page where you have to click again.)
DENVER, Colorado, February 4, 2013 (ENS) – Under a court-ordered deadline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed to protect the North American wolverine as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In 2011 the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity reached a settlement…[contact_form] or [contact_form lang=en]
The Emblem of the Tsaeb Warrior
Here’s a story from The Warrior Corr Syl.
Click to download Persistence: A Story for Rhya. (WordPress will take you to an attachment page. Just click on Persistence again.)