By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist Several days before Thanksgiving, a collection of tracks appear in my driveway, those of a domestic cat. My neighbors have cats, but they don’t visit. These tracks are everywhere,...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist I am keeping my promise not to write about politics for a while; and it may be forever. It seems moot. We are stuck in a political and ideological...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist I’m two miles from the pickup and 500 feet above where I left it parked when I find a snakeskin on a rock midstream in the East Fork. It...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist Each year, a backpacking trip into a nearby wilderness is undertaken by certain artistic types (ATs), most often plein air painters. ATs follow “guide” Bearly-Seen Svensson (not his real...
By Sandy Compton Reader Contributor You may have heard someone say, “That person is a real character,” generally in reference to a guy or gal who is somewhat, or very — ummm — unique....
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist In John Prine’s song, “Way Back Then,” he sings, “I am out undoing all the good I’ve done.” That could be a theme for the past few years in...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist Spring managed to surprise me this year. Again. I walked to the river and discovered fresh-grown catkins hanging from an errant Sitka alder that has taken root in the...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist “There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.” —Winston Churchill In 2001, I had...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist A bobcat is traveling around the homestead these days, teaching snowshoe hares and ruffed grouse to pay attention, a good and proper thing for a bobcat to do. I...
By Sandy Compton Reader Columnist At Oakland Airport, I await a flight to Spokane, the last leg home from Seattle. It’s a roundabout way to get there, but it fits the day, which has...
