When Beauty’s Poison Kills
“Dang it.”, I thought. I could hear the squawk of magpies over the continuous rustle of aspens turning golden in the mountain breeze. The striking contrast of white and black iridescent beauty in their plumage was quickly eclipsed by their grisly reputation: dead animal eaters. Hearing the cacophony of chattering and clamoring magpie was not…
Forbidden Fruit on the High Ranges
It was in early summer of 1988 that we stepped out of the Dodge 4-wheel drive pickup high up on the shoulder of Ramsey Mountain in Idaho’s Lemhi Valley. I was an aspiring forester, working for the US Department of the Interior, and I had two line officer/supervisors in tow for a tour of our…
Trial By Fire
After sculpting a perfectly designed-in-the-dirt ergonomic chair under a thicket of Douglas-fir regrowth, I reached into my saddlebags for a quick bite to eat. The living green conifer shade I had found to enjoy my lunch under somehow escaped the fate of most of the blackened skeleton forest around me. The majority of the coal-black…