Viewed from several yards away, the fragments of fur and bone woven through the pile of woodchips gave it an oddly debonair appearance, like some sort of macabre tweed. We didn’t detect a whiff of anything nasty — until we walked downwind of a recently disturbed mound. “That must be the five deer we picked […]
Eliza Murphy
Posted inWotr
On the front line of mental illness and violence
Moments after I entered the room where the patients locked in the secure area tend to hang out, a young man asked me for enough meds to “put him to sleep” until the day of his commitment hearing. “If I’m asleep, I won’t say anything that they can use against me,” he said calmly, indicating […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Oregon sculptor turns beach trash into meaningful art
South of Bandon, Ore., along Highway 101, there perches a 12-foot-tall bird with wings made of flip-flop soles and a belly of plastic lids. Its fishing-float feet are held in place by knotted plastic fishing line. The bird, which resembles the love child of an albatross, an eagle and a seagull, is just one of […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
A geography of the imagination
At first glance, Home Ground resembles a straightforward encyclopedia of geography. But crack the book open, and you find yourself in unexpected territory, a geography of the imagination that blends literature, science, folklore and history. Author and editor Barry Lopez got the idea for the book after a frustrating attempt to find a definition for […]
Posted inNovember 27, 2006: The West: A New Center of Power
Conspiring with caddisflies
“He hath ribbons of all the colours i’ the rainbow; inkles, caddisses, cambrics and lawns.” —from The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare Name Ferg (no first name, no last name, just Ferg) Vocation Father of two, a Renaissance man who draws, paints, sculpts, composes poetry, plays music, and makes jewelry from beetle carcasses. Age 40 […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Caught in the Headlights
A personal obsession leads one woman into a world of scientists, wildlife rehabilitators and eccentrics who are mesmerized by the often bloody relationship between wildlife and roads
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
New Mexicans move to make roads more wildlife-friendly
Local residents and school kids speak up about preventing roadkill