This month, I got to spend a day hiking through some incredible stands of old-growth white pine in Cook Forest State Park in the Forest Cathedral area. This is without a doubt the finest forest in the Midwest.
The largest trees range from 250-450 years old and are upwards of 200 feet tall. These are the tallest trees in the Midwest.
I was in music class once and started crying. I was in a music class in college and the professor played this aria called “Casta Diva” from Bellini’s Norma sung by Maria Callas.
Continue readingI got to curate and be part of an amazing poetry reading this past Saturday: an Earth Day 2018 poetry reading at The Cabin.
It featured nine local poets (Catherine Kyle, Rachel Murphy, Amanda Rich, Hannah Rodabaugh, Ruth Salter, Daphne Stanford, Elena Tomorowitz, and Tessy Ward) and Rena Ashton (educational director of Zoo Boise). They read poetry and essays about nature and conservation.
Last month, I was writer-in-residence at the Bown Crossing branch of the Boise Public Library. I typed poetry onto a sculpture called Vox Poplar (“for the people”) that includes a typewriter and a roll of paper embossed with cottonwood trees.
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2014 marked the 100-year anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon. People lauded the species in articles, videos, and celebrations. Nearly 50 articles—found everywhere from NPR, to the Atlantic, to the New Yorker—were published about the death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon, at the Cincinnati Zoo.
In these articles, we learned that R.W. Shufeldt, the man who dissected Martha, left her heart untouched (a fitting tribute), and that Martha’s specimen travels first class with a special handler. We learned there was a memorial launched at the Cincinnati Zoo, a place that has become a reliquary to Martha, with passenger pigeon-themed exhibits and a statue to mark her passing.
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Every time the Trump administration does something really horrid, I end up crying — which is why I sometimes avoid the current news cycle — and why I also have a list on my smartphone’s notebook app called List Of Times The Trump Administration Has Made Me Cry.
Other times, I feel I have to own it as much as possible and wallow in the times that we are living in, so I created a soundtrack of some depressing pieces of music that match the general atmosphere and climate.
Here are six of them.
Continue readingI spent this spring hiking along the upper and lower Hulls Gulch trails in Camel’s Back Park / Ridge to Rivers.
I saw many new flowers (including two new blue ones).
In June, I got to be an Artist-in-Residence for the National Park Service. I spent two weeks writing about Craters of the Moon National Monument’s incredible lunar landscapes. This post contains photos of the many caves I explored while writing in the park.
Continue readingRecently, I got to spend two weeks at Craters of the Moon National Monument as part of the National Park Service’s Artist in Residence (AiR) program. This post contains pictures of the wildflowers and geological features I saw — like spatter cones and cinder gardens — while I was writing in the park.
You guys! I got this really good idea about how to go about making life easier — and the solution is to have an extra arm.
It’s that simple!
(Excuse me, but I’ve had a lot of coffee.)
hannahrodabaugh.com 
