I stepped out of the truck into the soft dirt and gravel of the frontage road. We parked perpendicular, and we were the first to put a car in P. “There’s a lot more people here than I remember,” I said. “Yeah, it get pretty packed these days,” said Joe. “It used just to get […]
Continue reading →I mixed an ounce and a half of Tempo wettable powder with a gallon of hose water in a hand can. The brass handle on the top of the can doubled as a pump. With it, the pump, I loaded a couple of psi into the stainless container, began to spray the eaves of my […]
Continue reading →A flash of white drew my attention. I walked over to pick up the litter and restore balance to the wilderness but am tested when the piece of trash turns out to be a bit of shit-covered toilet paper. Jerks, I think. I popped the straps off my shoulders and removed my backpack. Within the […]
Continue reading →Killing mosquitoes on a scale that makes a difference is no small undertaking. It requires knowledge of the mosquito life cycle. And it requires something else entirely—a sense that what you’re doing is for the greater good. A feeling that every time you lay down a thick fog of permethrin that it’s the right thing […]
Continue reading →These heavy clouds with moisture pent, Did snag on jagged peaks and rent. But once their snowy burden spent, The darkness cleared, magnificent. I looked west, warm in a down jacket, and raised my camera. The beauty of these hills is something spiritual, and nothing sets off that splendor more than morning sun and a fresh […]
Continue reading →A mosquito man’s responsibility lay within the boundaries of his assigned zone, and the job was simple—to kill the larvae in your zone before they hatched into biting adults. The selective insecticide used in the treatment of water-borne mosquito larvae left most other life in the source, the beetles, the tadpoles, the mayfly nymphs, unscathed. […]
Continue reading →“I’m a little nervous,” I said in the parking lot. The ice and hard snow under foot felt foreign beneath stiff ski boots that hadn’t seen these ten toes for a decade. Slippery, and cold, I fumbled with my gear as a novice. I know myself. I know that I will push my ability until […]
Continue reading →I threw a leg over the torn saddle, started the motor, and backed the Polaris four-wheeler down the ramp that led from my truck’s tailgate. I let the rig idle while I filled my shoulder bag with material from a five-gallon bucket, and checked the levels in the seeder hopper. Silica sand coated with mineral […]
Continue reading →Lyle sipped his coffee and stared out into the street that ran behind his two bedroom, one bath ranch style home. As he sipped, he left the cup on his lower lip and his moist breath mixed with the hot liquid fogging his glasses then clearing, fogging his glasses, then clearing. The road and all […]
Continue reading →The mouth of the canyon yawned wide into a sleepy Owens Valley. My soles crunched and chewed at tiny tan-gray pebbles as I moved, but it was the gate’s granite incisors rising, sharp and clean that held my gaze. These fangs looked ominous and predatory as the day’s new light amplified the jagged topography. I […]
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