SANDHILLS ELEGIAC
This was one of my very first Substack posts way back in 2023, and since I’ve been thinking a lot lately about dogs both gone and present, I thought I’d haul it up from the musty depths and let it see the light of day again.
Mostly Feathers
Wild birds and good dogs, timeless books and endless questions, lonely places and moving water, the grass below and the sky above, and the never-ending absurdity and enduring beauty of life.
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A CASE FOR UPLAND CANINE TRADITION
WARNING: This little paen to my two favorite bird dog breeds — which was originally published elsewhere long ago — is above all a humor piece, but it does contain opinions: some actual, most firmly tongue-in-cheek.
A SERIES OF LOVELY PAINTINGS
“I felt strange and somewhat rude as I walked in behind the point and honor — I was a man walking into what was so much like a famous painting that I almost had to laugh.
FRIDAY PHOTO: LAST DRIVE
Somewhere on the plains.
THE SOLACE OF SMALL WATER
This piece originally appeared on the Hatch Magazine website as “The Solace of Mediocre Water” in May of 2025.
CODA
November.
LITERARY ORPHANS
Leo, on point, somewhere in the middle of the country, years and miles of memory ago…
WE'LL SEE HOW IT GOES THIS FALL
There he was, sitting on his customary stool at the gun counter when I walked into the shop.
MAKING GRASSLANDS, ONE CUT AT A TIME
In honor of National Grasslands Week, here’s another older previously published essay of mine that I was in the process of expanding the words below into a full-length feature story when — as is often the disheartening case these days — the publication that had assigned it announced that it was ceasing publication.
An Appreciation for Grasslands
Those who know me know that I have always self-described as a prairie rat.
I'LL CALL HIM BUD
I’ll call him Bud, because that’s what he was drinking, methodically draining each can and then tossing it on the ground before belching, heaving himself up from the cooler, retrieving another can and then plunking his ginormous ass back down with a sigh and a loud, yawping fart.