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My husband and I were driving through northern Wisconsin this past week when we spotted an albino doe. We stopped to watch it and talked about the other times we’d seen albino deer. We recalled the exact locations, Palmer and…

Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day, but mothers can take unexpected forms, proven by these incredible examples of surrogates across species. Earning first prize in my interspecies mother-of-the-year photo contest is a medium-sized dog with seven baby opossums clinging onto her…

My eyes water. My throat feels scratchy. My lungs burn. People say I’m doomed; that I, Mother Earth, will never recover. I worry that they could be right. The wind stirs my grasses. I watch. A family heads out for…

  My first-born child turned forty this spring. Was it truly 40 years ago that I sat in a stream of March sunlight in the living room awaiting her birth? The thrill of holding my daughter for the first time…

When Derrick Mayoleth, blogger extraordinaire for Devil’s Lake State Park, reported that the great blue herons had returned, I knew spring had truly arrived. These amazing birds nest in a rookery close to the group camp parking lot on the…

When my daughters were college age, I arranged for the three of us to go on a trip together. We discussed where to go and chose a tour of Ireland which included seeing the beautiful landscape, visiting local pubs, learning…

The suitcases are coming out! Mom Amy packed my doggy life vest and Dad Frank packed the kayak. That means that we’re going back to that place where Leftie the alligator lives. I can’t wait to see if she’s sunning…

My husband and I took our grandsons to the Shrine circus in Madison this past February. Benjamin, three years old, fell asleep on the way there. We had just gotten inside the huge coliseum when a 6-foot creature with fuzzy…

I’m killing it. Slowly . . . hour by hour. The poinsettia sits on the floor of the basement utility room. Its once festive red petals, now wilted from lack of water and sunlight, torment me. Back in December, with…

At 7:15 p.m. my dog dashes from the living room to the back porch barking. I follow, egging her on. “Is the marsupial coming in for the night?” My dog woofs back. I grab the flashlight I keep handy and…