If You Look For Mushrooms, Will They Appear?

It’s a dream to find edible wild food, but you have to really look for mushrooms. Gene and Jan are interested in putting up tree houses on their acreage on Vashon Island, WA, and running a bed and breakfast. They also enjoy foraging for wild food (and creating their own, where possible). Dreaming of oyster […]

Identifying Plants In Our Yard

Identifying plants — especially native ones — can be a somewhat difficult process, especially if you’ve moved (as I have) to a bio-zone different from where you’ve lived before.  I was talking about this issue with my brother Gene, out in Washington State. He’s gotten very good at identifying native plants on Vashon Island, where […]

My Thoreau-ly Walden-esque Experiment: Is This Lifestyle Sustainable?

Is Nature’s Guys nature-focused lifestyle sustainable? It is a question I’ve asked myself a lot, perhaps no more than yesterday when, with an allergy-induced fever, I worked myself into a sweat clearing away privet bushes, planting an elderberry plant and a yellow squash by the creek, cleaned out the ditch of old, disgarded tires; and […]

If I Knew Birds Songs Better: What Is It? Video

Yesterday, May 5, 2018, was a Big Day in birding, and it left me wishing I knew bird songs better. First, what’s a “Big Day”? If you’ve seen the Jack Black / Steve Martin movie “The Big Year”, it’s kind of like that.  www.eBird.org organized a world-wide “Big Day”, where birders all over the world […]

Life And Death — It Happens. Sadly.

Today, in a single, natural life and death moment, I rediscovered the phrase “To Kill A Mockingbird.” It’s spring. Birds aren’t known for paying attention when they’re in love. So it was, evidently, with the mockingbird that jumped into the path of my ragtop today. I didn’t even hear a thunk, but looking in my […]

Getting ready for wildflowers and pollinators -- Glowing goldenrods, flooded by the West Chickamauga Creek, April 2018, taken from Nature's Guy kayak

What To Do? Does It Matter? Just DO!

What should I do today? Do you ever ask yourself: Does it matter what I do? What should I do? When I made the decision to live a “Nature’s Guy” type of life, I don’t think I knew what I was getting myself into! There is SO MUCH to do! So much to experience! So […]

Nature’s Guys Saturday Planting: It’s Not a Contest, Is It?

I have to confess: With all the things he gets done, my “little” brother Gene (the West Coast Nature’s Guy)  is sometimes a motivator … and sometimes I wonder if I can keep up with him in our rural life. His Live Innovations Farm and Education Center Facebook posting from Saturday said this: March 24 at 11:33pm Had […]

Albino Grackle – What Is It!?!

A couple of years ago (July 2016) my dad said he thought he’d seen a white bird feeding with a bunch of dark (purple) grackles at a neighbor’s lake-side bird feeder (normally reserved for geese and ducks). Sure enough, when I went out to see, I was able to video this rare albino grackle! One […]