Pick-up Dogs How Two Rescue Dogs Save the West from Being Won
Inspiration
Dogs in Middle Earth
This isn’t really Middle Earth. Or New Zealand. But the rocky outcrops and enormous boulder fields up near Artist’s Point at at the end of the Mount Baker Highway are not unlike those of the Misty Mountain Hop or the mountains of Rohan. The brilliant fall colors, which visit us when we’re lucky in October, […]
Criss-Crossing the Cascades from East Side to West Side with Dogs
Lu’s plumage, her long tail, wildflowers, and Mount Hood in the background. Mount Hood morning. Mount Jefferson and the Cascade crest accented with a slight fog. Ponderosa pines along a ridge in Central Washington. Marcos and Kirsten with the absolutely enormous Mount Rainier some 60 miles into the background. Mount Baker with glaciers unfolding […]
Dogs and Clouds. April in the North Cascade Foothills.
I feel oh so near When morning doves appear And ghosts of April ring Echo the refrain Soon finding a place In these lost verses. —Sun Kil Moon, “Lost Verses” from April
The Olympics from the Chuckanuts
This view comes from along the Chuckanut ridge off of Cleator Road. Overlooking Samish Bay and Rosario Strait, you can see the Olympic Mountains. A cold, cloudy December morning didn’t stop us from traversing this piece of the Chuckanut Mountain ridge. Chuckanut is an interpretation of a Lummi word meaning “Long beach far from a […]
Sumas Mountain Lost Lake Expedition: A Beautiful Post-apocalyptic Wasteland on the Northern Frontier
We’d made several attempts at Lost Lake. Following the reports of fishermen, hunters, hikers, and Ken Wilcox, author of Hiking Whatcom County, we joyrode up and down the logging roads off South Pass Road looking for the mysteries of Sumas Mountain. Rich in a natural and a people’s history of Whatcom County and a little […]
North Fork bald eagle watching
The last days of October have the most beautiful light. I love the long shadows and the golden-brown palettes. We have a favorite little spot on the North Fork of the Nooksack River where we can go watch eagles and riparian birds, like the kingfisher or the great blue heron. This spot provides an excellent […]
Secrets of Dog Photography
Many people have commented on the photography in Pick-Up Dogs, so I thought I’d give a couple of thoughts about photographing dogs; my dogs, at least. Bear in mind that I’m not a professional animal photographer. Although I do take pictures of others people’s dogs, especially when I travel (I have some beautiful pictures of […]
Mushroom hunting with dogs in the October light
In a place marked by mazes of logging roads I had to try every one, so the dogs and I went up a new spur off the 38, a dirt National Forest road hidden off Mosquito Lake Road that brings you pretty close to the Twin Sisters, two masses of dolomite and small glaciers. We […]
Subtle difference between therapy and service dogs and the legal ramifications…
For denying a student permission to live in campus housing with her therapy dog, the federal government has charged the University of Nebraska at Kearney and five of its administrators with violations of the Fair Housing Act. The student enrolled at the university in August 2010 and registered with its disability-services office, disclosing two conditions: depression […]
The first few lines of Pick-Up Dogs
The stories of two rescue dogs collected in this book are just a few of the yarns in a huge library full of essays, poems, films, television programs, memoirs and comics that describe dogs’ faculties to make human lives better. Whether it be the bipolar woman who leans on her dogs for support, the young […]
Noisy-Diobsud Wilderness with dogs
Probably one of the last weekends for an elevation hike without snowshoes or other snow gear. The dogs and I, with our trusty mentor David, headed up over the Baker Dam, making our way to the Watson Lakes/Anderson Butte trailhead in the Noisy-Diobsud Wilderness. The mosquitoes and flies lingered despite all evidence that might indicate […]
Running with dogs
When I adopted Lupe, my border collie/flat-coated retriever mix, I started running. After I read Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, I became a runner. Running doesn’t come naturally for me. I’m a top heavy swimmer who prefers to hike. But I’ve learned to love running. Lupe is addicted to […]
A poem for home
“Ish River” — like breath, like mist rising from a hillside. Duwamish, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Samish, Skokomish, Skykomish…all the ish rivers. I live in the Ish River country between two mountain ranges where many rivers run down to an inland sea. Robert Sund, 1979 Cloud House There is something about the immediacy of the land here […]