It's not about cooking, people. It's about hiking, thinking, and writing.
This one is for chasing butterflies. I thought this must have been what I looked like at age four or five, trying to catch butterflies with my hands.
This is the first instrumental composition I ever wrote, in 1962, with the help of Bruce Markkula, who studied guitar with Johnny Smith.
This one is the first composition I ever wrote on GarageBand, in about 2008. I refer to it as “My Adagio,” since it has no other name.
Addendum: Here are species that I didn’t have on pins.
These are 164 of the 206 species that have been recorded in El Paso County. Many of the rest are rare strays, but we may see them more commonly as the climate warms. Adelpha bredowi, for example, used to be a rare stray, but it shows up almost every year now in the region. I will continue to add to this set as new photos come in from the Pikes Peak Region, with your permission, of course.
Here are the results from two sweep samples of insects taken ten years apart at exactly the same location on the Section 16 Trail west of Colorado Springs. In both cases, 100 sweeps were made. In this area, which is relatively undisturbed in terms of regular application of pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides, total numbers of insects seem very similar after ten years. T-Tests, both one-tailed and two-tailed, show p values that do not suggest significance. I chose a date one week later in 2019, as the season appears a bit behind average in terms of butterfly emergence dates.
I had the great pleasure to work with Bud Wobus and a group of alumni from Williams College this summer at The Nature Place, near Florissant, Colorado. We explored the geology and ecology of sites ranging from the Upper Sonoran Life Zone of Canon City all the way to the Arctic Alpine on Mount Sherman, west of Fairplay. In one day, we crossed Pikes Peak granite, Cripple Creek Granite, Wall Mountain Tuff, a massive lahar from the 39-mile volcanics, and more. Keeping track of it all wasn’t easy. Here are some highlights in photos.
Wonders along the way were dramatic. This is probably only the second record from Teller County of the California tortoiseshell butterfly. Shelf Road.
A William’s tiger moth still warming up to fly. (Not Williams College).
The pallid swallowtail, Papilio eurymedon, was lost in the wonder of a wet spot.
The leach mining at Cripple Creek was of an unearthly scale.
And from the Florissant Fossil Beds Quarry, we found a couple of these Curculionid beetles, along with lots of leaves and seeds…
and a chipmunk family in the petrified stumps.
Our group, above the Hole in the Rocks on Shelf Road. All brilliant, all fun.
Crossbills, crossbills, crossbills everywhere.
And the omnipresent golden-mantled ground squirrels.
In the high country, Oeneis uhleri, Uhler’s arctic butterfly, hiding in the weeds.
Pieris napi, the veined white.
A day-flying moth, Schinia persimilis, in the Heliothine subfamily of Noctuidae.
And Parry’s primrose below the alpine rockslides.
This is a mere taste of Colorado’s wonders. If you haven’t been out west, you have a dream to live for. And, Williams people, I’ll send “Riding Out on the Lahar” by email. Other viewers here won’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
