At the age of eight, Francie the Duck (Ret.) began turning into a drake. For eight years she had unquestionably been a hen, brown-feathered, egg-laying, but then she went through the change and n...
We found a rough earth snake in the yard last week. His kind was new to me: skinny and brown with pale bellies, they burrow under mulch and soil and feed on worms and bugs. He was trying to burro...
http://www.davidwalbert.com/dw/2011/07/11/rough-earth-snake/
This Earth Day post on a New York Times blog, about why dandelions are ok and “Wimbeldonlike” lawns maintained in their sterile protection by a chemical arsenal are bad, left me nonplussed �...
http://www.davidwalbert.com/dw/2010/04/26/the-benefits-of-sloth/
Four deer are nosing through the pine straw for acorns the squirrels might have missed, barely shimmering against the background of russet-brown and dappled snow. Where have they been all week? I...
http://www.davidwalbert.com/dw/2010/02/09/when-we-are-not-looking/
The miracle of a butterfly is a cliché, but it’s a miracle my daughter, who is four, hadn’t yet witnessed, and she gave me daily — if not hourly — updates on the caterpillar’s progress...
This gal has taken up residence in my workshop: Or guy. I asked, but she wasn’t talking. When I cleaned out the shed Monday after leaving it fallow for a year and a half — with a job and a ki...
Photograph by Ronald F. Billings of the Texas Forest Service, USDA Forestry Service Archives, image 226085. Since we began gardening several years ago—when we moved into our first house—we ha...
http://www.davidwalbert.com/dw/1999/04/04/the-wheel-bug-of-life/