Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural Environment Series – serie

Outside, where the wind is blowing, we see the world on nature’s terms, and we see that it is severely endangered. Turning inward, we seek a sense of connection with nature that could perhaps help us through the current environmental crisis. In this book, some of the most observant Americans of our day explore these outer and inner worlds in powerful pieces that show the vitality and range of contemporary nature writing. John Hay’s “A Faire Bay,” an original collection of thoughts on the pollution of the Chesapeake, opens the book, and Edward Hoagland’s “A Year as It Turns,” a group of short seasonal pieces that originally appeared as editorials in the New York Times, serves as the conclusion. Some of the other authors represented here include Rick Bass, Marcia Bonta, Charles Bowden, Jean Craighead George, Barry Lopez, Gary Snyder, and Terry Tempest Williams. Whether swimming with dolphins in the Florida Keys or stalking deer with the mountain lions, these authors experience and reflect on the terms nature sets and the terms we set for nature. With them, we discover the importance of the jack pine in the Boundary Waters, uncover the hidden beauty of Sonoran cacti, explore the very alive world of a Pennsylvania winter, visit the startling silences of the Canadian River Gorge in the Southwest, experience the breathtaking world of life on arctic ice, and view Venus at daybreak from the Grand Canyon. These are stories of place, and of family and friends, both human and nonhuman. They are tales of understanding and coming to terms with the world around us.

Elizabeth Silverthorne has gathered an intriguing bouquet of folklore about forty-four of Texas' most fascinating wildflowers such as water lily, Queen Anne's lace, honeysuckle, dogwood, and morning glory. Only recently have people again become aware that the lowliest wildflower may harbor an important secret. Native Americans reportedly made a weak tea from the paintbrush to treat rheumatism. Violets have been used to cure cancer, while sunflowers were planted by nineteenth-century pioneers to protect families from malaria. In ancient times when people were more aware of their dependence on plants to provide food, medicine, fuel, and materials for clothing, there grew up a vast amount of folklore, much of which is described in these wildflower profiles. For each flower in this book Silverthorne describes the significance and origin of its common name, identifies where the flower grows naturally, what uses it has had historically, and what legends are associated with it. She offers everyone who has admired the beauty of wildflowers a fuller appreciation of them.

From the curious sounds of baby swifts chattering in the chimney to the awe-inspiring sight of birds entering their roost at dusk, like smoke swirling back into the flue, Chimney Swifts have captured the imagination of many generations of North Americans. These sleek birds with crescent-shaped wings and acrobatic flight patterns migrate to North America from the Amazon River Basin each spring to breed and raise their young. But by the late 1980s, changes in chimney construction and homeowner attitudes had contributed to a major decline in the numbers of Chimney Swifts. Authors Paul and Georgean Kyle have worked ceaselessly in an attempt to alter that trend. The Kyles' eight-acre homestead has become a world-renowned Chimney Swift sanctuary and research station, with more than a dozen Chimney Swift towers of various designs located throughout their property. The swifts return each spring to many of these towers, where they rear their young and where their home life is observed and recorded in previously undocumented detail. In Chimney Swifts, the Kyles share the knowledge they have gained, providing readers with an unprecedented peek into the secret life of these beneficial, insect-eating birds. With a non-technical narrative, numerous photos, and original drawings, they explore Chimney Swift natural history and provide practical guidelines for homeowners to coexist peacefully with these remarkable spring and summer guests.

This photographic guide to grasses gives all who have been frustrated trying to identify these difficult plants an easy-to-use, visually precise, and information-packed field guide to seventy-seven native and introduced species that grow in the Texas Hill Country and beyond. With a blade of grass in hand, open this book and find: handy thumb guides to seed head type, the most visible distinguishing characteristic to begin identification; color photographs of stands of grasses and detailed close-ups; concise information about economic uses, habitat, range, and flowering season; and quick-reference icons for native status, toxicity, growing season, and grazing response.

Award-winning author Jeffrey Greene provides a portrait of J. David Bamberger's unlikely transformation from a vacuum cleaner salesman to co-founder and CEO of Church's Fried Chicken and an internationally recognized conservationist.Growing up in rural Ohio during the Great Depression and World War II, Bamberger learned from his mother to love the natural world. She gave him a book that would set the course for his life: ""Pleasant Valley"", by Louis Bromfield. Inspired by his new role model, Bamberger would say, 'If I ever make money, I want to do what Bromfield did.'After finding that financial success, Bamberger bought what he describes as ""the sorriest piece of land in Blanco County"" and entered upon his decades-long effort to restore the ecological balance of 5,500 acres that had been virtually destroyed by more than a century of misuse. Naming his preserve Selah - from the Old Testament term meaning ""pause and reflect"" - Bamberger now dedicates himself and his resources to protecting species and educating everyone else who will listen to his central message, delivered with evangelical zeal: We must take care of the earth, and anyone can help.