My brother (Gene Kuhns, Jr.) and I (David Kuhns) connect to nature. We have since we were young. Our Dad and Grandma Bertha, as well as aunts, uncles and family members, taught us how.
He's planting and organizing 10 acres on Vashon Island (near Seattle). I recently moved to 5+ acres of cedar and hickory woods along West Chickamauga Creek in Northwest Georgia. We're both working toward natural and self-sustaining lifestyles. Wildflower cultivation; bee, butterfly and bird attracting; organic gardening: In short, getting off the grid and back to the woods, fields and waters as much as possible. He's an energetic, engineering type. I'm the contemplative, creative type. (He gets stuff done. I think and write about it!) We capture -- with photos and writing -- what we observe and learn. Follow the Nature Guy(s) and our opposite coast adventures!
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Eat Your Yard: Edible & Medicinal Plants for Your Salad
I have been cataloging the edible and medicinal plants, trees and foliage on our property and using them more. Today, I made a yummy spinach salad using lemon balm, “Creeping Charlie,” white evening primrose, cilantro and oregano from our yard and garden. Topped with a homemade rosemary-olive oil / honey, garlic and herb dressing. Dressing: […]
Earth Day At 50 With Me: Haiku – Haibun Memory
Earth Day’s 50! Then:/ I’m in Milwaukee’s River./ Now: I’ll plant Earth’s fields. Earth Day is 50! A half century ago I stood in the Milwaukee River in Estabrook Park near my home in Glendale, Wisconsin, loudly singing with other youth and cleaning out the old tires, mattress springs, tin cans and other junk that […]
Coronavirus = No Toilet Paper? A Corny Natural Solution (video)
The Coronavirus panic hits the USA. I’m getting photos from family and friends in Washington State (Kirkland, home of Costco and Evergreen Hospital), and Utah, where huge stores show shelves EMPTY of … toilet paper! Of course, Nature’s Guy is concerned (because my brother, the other Nature’s Guy, lives in the Seattle area, as do […]
Setting Of October’s Super Moon: Haiku
I’m cross-posting these poems in my CyranoWriter.com creative writing blog.
Make A Redneck Birdbath: Haiku
Old satellite dish,/ turned skyward, filled with water:/ Fine redneck birdbath.
Wildflowers And Pollinators: A Hopeful Prose Piece
I posted this piece on Wildflowers and Pollinators in the “Pollinator Friendly Yards” Facebook page. After only 4 days, I had dozens of comments and over 1500 likes! Obviously I hit a nerve; many people said that my post and what I was doing gave them hope. Most importantly, it shows that changing your lawn […]
Why Make And Maintain A Natural Yard: For The Birds, Bees and Butterflies
Natural yards for the birds, bees and butterflies — and for the pleasure they brings human senses — are nothing new. I personally have created my own natural yard for decades, as has my brother. Where did that inspiration come from? Our forest ranger father, who taught all my siblings that lawns were silly, foolish, […]
Environmental Activist Tired — Practical Environmentalism Requires Individual Responsibility: Eco-Opinion
I’m environmental activist tired. Today I went out to my back yard garden. I pulled up a bunch of native grasses that recently went to seed, and threw them in the brush pile. The brushpile is about 10 feet high, made out of non-native privet bush branches I’ve been trimming on my acreage. I’m piling […]
Sharing What The Land Teaches – ConTEXTing Haiku
Trees, wildflowers, birds,/ bugs, fields. The land teaches me / much. I want to share.
Scents The Fog Reveals – Free Verse
As the sun sets through oak and hickory trees, the cold fog brings a new set of smells, rich and deep, as though you could stick out a butter knife and cut a little square of the air and pop it into your mouth and let it dissolve into rich, earthy flavors: Fresh mown hay, […]