Emily Wortman-Wunder

Butterflies in my yard today: tiger swallowtail, cabbage white, least skipper, common checkered skipper. Also two bumblebees. That's Denver Colorado in early July.
(Still no painted ladies, which is strange and ominous)

I love how this first line in @coloradoreview.bsky.social 's summer issue takes us on a journey

Still, teen me and adult me are still thrilled to enter these places.

(Also, of course, rocks & their implacable forces rule us all. Even you, Congress. Even you, pundits. And we lose wildness and wild animals at our peril.)

As an adult I am more aware of the complexity--who was kicked out to create this segregated region, what we lose by separating wildness from our regular human routes.

It was exhilarating and reassuring to teen me that there was such a place

Just back from Banff, Canada, which felt like the Realm of Rocks in the same way that when I first visited Yellowstone at age 16 it felt (compared to Ohio) like the Realm of Wild Beasts--like this was their place, and we were just visiting. Simplistic, probably, but it still feels true

Sprawl Is Still Not the Answer A chorus of critics insist that building on undeveloped land is the only way out of the US housing crisis. But the environmental costs of unrestrained growth are overwhelming.

Sprawl is having its moment as a possible solution to the housing crisis. But this is narrow, linear thinking applied to complex systems. The side effects of sprawl are as bad if not worse than the problems it would solve.

Timber cobstruction with earth infill between joists. Hortus building by Herzog de Meuron, Erden.at photo by https://www.marismezulis.com/

When modern people started farming, they built with what was available locally in abundance, mostly with renewable or reusable materials. Clay, wood, straw, stone. We did this for thousands of years. 1/2 foto: maris mezulis

Brainsss!!!

Regular rhubarb on the left; forced on the right. Forced rhubarb is softer and less stringy and tastes less puckery. It is very pink.

Rhubarb exploding from under a clay pot, which is being tipped to one side by the force of growth.

Update! No "forcing" happened--the rhubarb sprouted at the same time the rest of the yard's rhubarb did. Also, my choice of forcing vessel was much too small (and my rhubarb is a BEAST). Next: but how does it taste?

Painting of white gull from front, looking to left, with yellow beak with red spot on lower part, and glimpses of dark grey wing feathers on left.

#ArtDD2025
Herring gull

Never understood why people don't like gulls; there again, I've never had a chip nicked by one!😄

Orig 📷 by @danjbrown97.bsky.social with thanks.

@saocousins.bsky.social @holnicotenh.bsky.social @stevecobbin.bsky.social @andykaitken.bsky.social @mayfieldbirder.bsky.social

Your yard isn’t yours. It belongs to the foxes at night, the birds in the morning, the squirrels in the afternoon, and the gophers whenever they feel like it.
Moral of the story: You’re just a tenant in nature’s world.

#natureisboss #rewild #coexist #treadlightly #earnyourkeep #shareresources #wild

Chart showing the federal contracts to musk's companies rising from 630 million in 2015 to 3.67 billion last year

One place our government could save a lot of money is the billions given to Elon Musk's companies every year.

abcnews.go.com/US/musk-work...

A Conversation with Emily Wortman-Wunder - Center for Literary Publishing | Colorado State University Emily Wortman-Wunder discusses “Geography of Forgetting,” featured in the Fall/Winter 2024 issue of Colorado Review, with associate editor Linnea Harris.  Emily Wortman-Wunder is the author of Not a T...

Late last year I go the chance to talk with Linnea Harris at the Colorado Review about my essay published in their Fall/Winter issue--seriously, SUCH a great journal to work with. coloradoreview.colostate.edu/2025/02/a-co...

Yes! I have to use the dill seed heads, usually (which work fine!)

Yes--as a Colorado gardener, it is a mystery to me how the tomato-cilantro combination ever came about. Those two plants are diametrically opposed in my garden--if it's warm enough for one, the other is long done.

Terracotta pot upside down in a winter garden, half buried in compost.

I'm going to force rhubarb this year--my first attempt. Is it too early? Is my setup too half-assed? I'll find out!

What I'm reading, January 2025 edition: two Aussie novels and @dannymlavery.bsky.social 's Women's Hotel.

“9. Take every opportunity to participate in civic life. Linger in and enjoy good parks, places, and streets every day, not just during special events. Your very presence and engagement adds life, vitality, and safety to a place, and helps them be more enjoyable for everyone.” #NewYearsResolutions

I LOVED Joan Aiken. We would have been best friends (I 100% chose my friends based on their reading habits)

One of my favorite childhood authors and one no one else around me (in the US) knew about!

So this week Elise & I hosted a small gingerbread gathering, and @cottomanempire.bsky.social created… an EDIBLE WILDLIFE OVERPASS. Check out those migrating animal-cracker bison! The crushed Oreo asphalt of the road! The flawless curvature of the gingerbread bridge! A true #roadecology masterpiece.

For those among us nerdy enough, please enjoy these images of the plain plaster at Sutton Scarsdale Hall, Derbyshire. Interesting to see various methods, the use of additional materials and the layers 🤩 🤓

This from @pekkatahkola.bsky.social winter-cycling ambassador of Oulu:

"Metsokangas elementary school in the far suburbs of Oulu. It was -31°C in the morning. Just 1 of 4 parking lots for students. It's not about the cold, it's the safe infrastructure & excellent maintenance. No rocket science."

When the going gets cold, the Finns keep cycling.

Illuminated bike paths on compacted and textured snow in Oulu, #Finland.

Thanks to @harrivaarala.bsky.social for the video!

Ivory poaching and the rapid evolution of tusklessness in African elephants Intensive ivory poaching during a period of civil conflict caused the rapid evolution of tusklessness in an African elephant population.

This isn't new to the world, but it's new to me and blew my little mind this morning: some African elephants are rapidly evolving to not have tusks because of ivory poaching 😟 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Cover of Creative Nonfiction: The Final Issue. The Best of Thirty Years of Creative Nonfiction.

My essay "Rooted" got selected for Creative Nonfiction's anthology The Final Issue (creativenonfiction.org). I'm a little in awe of the company it's keeping.

Snow falling on an urban train station at night.

I kept hoping Totoro's cat bus would arrive. Instead it was just the (very slow) E train.