Christopher Barzak

Category: Nature

  • Map for a Forgotten Valley

    As promised in earlier posts, my series of lyrical essayistic vignettes, Map for a Forgotten Valley, are now available to be read online at The New Haven Review. I’m interested to see what readers might make of these dispatches on place, environment, history and local culture.  It’s a very different type of writing I’ve done…

  • Important things

    Drove north and east to visit Erie, PA today, where my writing pals Alan DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl were visiting Alan’s parents.  Had a great several hours to talk and catch up with them before having to head back home (and them having to catch a flight back to Minnesota).  But on the way home,…

  • Looking up

    There is a bird in the tree outside my window, singing the same two notes over and over, and I’m beginning to see green appear in patches as the snow melts. On Twitter, I can practice Japanese in small bites, which keeps me fresh.  Letter writing, at this point, takes too much out of me. …

  • Squirrel war looms on the horizon

    (AP) Several squirrels are barking at each other outside my upstairs window like military personnel.  If any of them turns out to be the jerk who was living in my attic a year and a half ago or so, and if he’s planning to launch a new attack, there will be war. Just sayin’.

  • Close Encounters

    When I woke up this morning and opened the door of my bedroom, my kittens weren’t waiting right there at my feet, which they usually are doing. Yeah, they’re that cute. I stood there, worrying for a moment that something had happened to them, but in the next moment a very frightened bird soared down…

  • Two days of spring in winter

    Yesterday and today we’ve had the most gorgeous weather. 65 degrees, mostly sunny. It’s no wonder the squirrel came out to try to get back in before it becomes winter again. This sort of weather makes it feel like spring, or mid-autumn. The light and warmth must send some sort of signal to every living…