Author
“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.
My father pastured his sheep on what could loosely be termed the “shores” of Little Beaver Creek, a dry watercourse that flowed only after gully washers – his term for big rainstorms. Today it amazes me that I could have grown up in that place and never wondered how the creek got its name. Nor did I wonder what happened to the water or the trees that beavers could not live without.
“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.
Like any farmer, my father loved driving along a wall of green corn and computing the many bushels it would yield and the money these would put into his bank account. He irrigated his corn out of the Ogallala aquifer, and always believed that the government would shut him down before he ran out of water.
“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.
Stories about disruptions in the carbon cycle abound in the news these days. But recently, it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what the carbon cycle was. A few Google searches later, and I will never again see my fall garden in quite the same way. It has always seemed a miracle to me that a tiny seed can sprout into a squash vine that takes over my backyard.
“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.
My mother used to tell a story about a dog that our family had before I was born. She swore he could read her mind. “’Elmer, ‘ I said to him one time, “why don’t you get me that chicken?’ I didn’t even point. But danged if he didn’t go over and grab me the chicken I’d been thinking about.”
Mom also liked to recall the time she placed duck eggs into the nest of a mother hen.
“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on HIgh Plains Public Radio.
A few years ago I attended a meeting in my hometown, Goodland, Kansas. It had been called by the Vision Team, appointees of then Governor Sam Brownback, who had taken a noteworthy interest in conserving the Ogallala Aquifer. We hundred or more attendees were divided into groups of around eight each and asked to address a series of questions.
