Your Dark and Stormy Night

You say goodbye to a former neighbor, having enjoyed dinner together, and dash to your truck. Rainfall has shifted from drizzle to downpour. You switch from 2- to 4-wheel-drive. Dusk descends into the darkest of nights. You are driving to another friend’s house about...

Butterflies, Flowers, and Disillusionment

Last Saturday afternoon, on my way down the mountain to fetch the mail, I noticed a black swallowtail (Papilionidae) sipping nectar from cardinal flowers blooming on the slope beside the upper driveway. The bright red trumpet-shaped blossoms of lobelia cardinalis,...