Doug’s shirt said, “The mountains are calling, and I must go,” while Skip’s read, “Into the forest I must go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” We wore them proudly because we earned them summiting Mt Bierstadt, a 14,065-foot-high mountain in Colorado. You can see we aren’t spring chickens, but by following these …
Read more “The Mountains Are Calling and I Must Prepare – How to Plan for a Hike”
I’m not quite sure how to start this. it’s been a while — and by a while, I mean a year. Honestly, I’ve been putting off writing this post. I wanted to write something eloquent and touching, to summarize COVID and BLM and what it’s like to live through these times. But every time I …
This week I auditioned to join the Eugene Gay Men’s Chorus. My tour guiding schedule has prevented me from joining any chorus for the past decade. In the late 90’s and early aughts I still hadn’t built up a docket of tours to be truly full-time, and so I could sing with Tucson’s Reveille Gay …
This past weekend, at personal request, several teams of some 15-20 birders helped Alan Contreras test a new CBC circle he is considering proposing to National Audubon. Just to the southeast of the very old Eugene circle, this new one is centered about 1.5 miles southeast of the town of Jasper on the Willamette River, …
Read more “The Christmas Bird Count season ended January 5th. But wait – there’s one more!”
The Eugene CBC is now my “home count,” as I live just 2.3 miles from the circle center (a CBC circle is 7.5 miles in radius). Last year I was in Brazil, so I missed it during my first winter in this house. It always gets the most participants of any circle in the state, …