native plants

Losing Bombus

sastyk | January 5, 2011

As long as we've lived in our home, a colony of bumblebees has nested in the roof of our front porch. For years we've watched generations of bumblebees come and go, often quite closely. Our yard, edged with wildflowers and native plants (that sounds so much more elegant than "we don't mow much") is a pollinator's paradise in many ways, and we've been delighted to see them among the nearly 100 species of pollinators we've spotted over the years. Because we live in such close proximity, the bumblebees, l like the Pheobes that nest under the porch eves, are old friends. Part of my farm…

Even Their McDonald's Is Nicer

thusspakezuska | April 29, 2009

McDonald's is everywhere, of course. But it's not completely cookie cutter; only about 99.9% so. For example, the McDonald's at the Heidelberg train station I used to frequent when I felt unbearably homesick in Germany had beer on tap - something you don't see in the U.S! Most McDonald's I've ever been in, though, feature incredibly dispiriting physical environments. You aren't really encouraged to linger and enjoy yourself. It's fast food, after all. It's not like it's your quaint neighborhood Starbucks. But as we knew all along, the very rich are different from you and I, and so is…