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I have five cords of wood, two warm dogs, one very large barbecue pit, a Jeep with a dead battery and an old Ford extended cab that, not so coincidentally, smells remarkably like the leftovers from one very large barbecue pit.I have a house that I love in a place that I love near a mountain that I love. The backyard is all trees and deer and a variety of critters that go snort in the night. I have a small but intensely loyal group of friends and family, about a zillion acquaintances, and many well-wishing readers.I have several cool...

Birds enjoy the high life 14:15 09 August 02 NewScientist.com news service Birds flock to parks in up-market neighbourhoods, shunning those in the poorer parts of town, researchers have discovered. Anne Kinzig and her colleagues at Arizona State University studied 15 parks in Phoenix and found the most diverse bird populations in the smartest parts of town. To their surprise, the socio-economic factors explained bird diversity better than anything about park ecology - such as tree diversity and vegetation structure. In fact, parks in the poorest parts of town had the highest tree and shrub diversity, but the lowest bird...