I have an idea: volunteer vacation in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia! There really is a thing called volunteer vacations/ voluntourism. You can sign up for trips to third-world countries online, and pay big bucks to do so. Lots of people do it every year. Here is the great part: you don’t have to go to […]
Halfway there. OUOUOU, livin’ on a prayer….
Almost halfway through the year, and Monday the 20th of June was the first day of Summer. That Strawberry Moon was amazing. (Kept me up. How about you?) Not to mention it was West Virginia Day, too. Oh, and the record-breaking heat wave out west— yikes! We are cooler than most places. I am not […]
For the Birds
That’s what the next couple weeks are all about here at OCR! This week is bird banding class, next week is the legendary New River Birding and Nature Festival! We just finished up a Beginner Bird Banding class taught by certified instructor from The Institute for Bird Population. This is an intense (too intense for […]
Fools me, April
Every time! I am so gullible! The spring flowers pop out like these beauties I found while driving along in The New River Gorge National Park over the weekend. And then one afternoon it is so hot I turn on the AC in my car and boom my mind, body and soul are falling all […]
Ossum the opossum meme
Memes are kind of like fact checking the candidates. “Mostly true, and a very good sentiment” is how I would rate this one. Don’t get me wrong! Opossums are very good at what they do, and mostly go unnoticed. (Except for on the highway; that they are not good at) Do they eat lots of […]
The soul of a place
The soul is not the flashy “attractions” that first draw you in; it’s that part that brings you back. You may not be able to put your finger on it or see it. Sometimes you can tell just driving by, sometimes within a few minutes of being somewhere, and sometimes it just grows on you. […]
Hush
Hush, It will all be over soon. Winter, that is. Enjoy it while you can. I love the muffled, soft quality of the woods when there is a fresh spring snow sticking to everything. A “quiet snow” is different— comforting, calming, giving everything all of its cool embrace and letting us all know to be […]
Planning season! (Not planting season, but similar.)
Planning Season is the time to put those vacation seeds that you have been dreaming about out in the light of day. Share your dreams with others by planting these seeds with overt suggestions, pretty pictures and links. Some “friends and family vacation” gardens are so fertile and grow so fast that this may only […]
Its an avocado!
This is the best 21 seconds of youtube ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5x4Clxh7HM I want to be more like this tot. You know, happy. I am a very happy guy, but that is Yoda-level happy. (Okay, Yoda is not a good example of a happy guy, my kids just pointed out.) Lucky for us, we like making people […]
