Entries are numbered in the order they were posted but by necessity are published in reverse order. The most recent postings (the highest numbers) begin below the Table of Contents while No. 1 is at the bottom of the final page.

To go directly to a story without scrolling, click on the highlighted phrase following the numbers.

Weekly postings are published on Thursdays.

1. Introduction to this site SparselySageAndTimely.com plus an account of orphaned fawns being released in Chileno Valley.

2. Point Reyes Light publisher Robert Plokin’s and his wife Lys Plotkin’s litigation


3. Nature’s Two Acres:
A Point Reyes Station Photo Exhibit

4. Nature’s Two Acres Part II:
Living dinosaurs actually found around my cabin

5. My background: Biographical information on newspaperman Dave Mitchell

6. Nature’s Two Acres Part III: Insectivores and Not

7. Nature’s Two Acres Part IV: Christmas turkeys & where the buck stopped *

8. Storm-caused fire razes Manka’s Lodge and Restaurant in Inverness

9. Big Pot Busts at My Cabin

10. Light publisher Robert Plotkin allowed to hold onto some of his Ponzi-scheme ‘profits’
11. Nature’s Two Acres Part V: By Means of Water

12. Nature’s Two Acres Part VI: How Flashing Affects Wildlife

13. Nature’s Two Acres Part VII: Rats v. dishwashers

14. Marin supervisors refuse to tilt at McEvoy windmill

15. The Bush Administration at Point Reyes: Part I

16. The Bush Administration at Point Reyes Part II: Whatever happened to the Citizens Advisory Commission to the GGNRA & Point Reyes National Seashore?

17. Saying Yes to Change: A former Point Reyes Station innkeeper finds true joy by moving in with a working-class family in a poor neighborhood of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

18. The Gossip Columnist

19. Nature’s Two Acres Part VIII: ‘Mice & rats, and such small deer’

20. Nature’s Two Acres Part IX: Point Reyes Station’s blackbirds

21. Nature’s Two Acres Part X: ‘Nature Red in Tooth and Claw’

22. Former Point Reyes Light columnist John Grissim, the late pornographer Artie Mitchell, Brazilian President Lula and the advent of orgasmic diplomacy.

23. Nature’s Two Acres Part XI: The perky possum

24. Nature’s Two Acres Part XII: April showers ‘cruel’ with ‘no regrets’

25. Nature’s Two Acres Part XIII: ‘Who’s the Head Bull-Goose Loony Around Here?’

26. Marin’s hyper-defensive Sheriff Bob Doyle ’stays the course’ despite blunder and gets county government and others sued.

27. Nature’s Two Acres Part XIV: ‘The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.’

28. Nature’s Two Acres Part XV: ‘Among animals…one finds natural caricatures.’

29. Mermaids, cows, Horizon Cable, and Russia’s Internet war on Estonia

30. New newspaper to be published in West Marin

31. Nature’s Two Acres Part XVI: A gopher snake & other neighbors

32. Many fail to find Western Weekend livestock show; a new newpaper debuts in West Marin; The Point Reyes Light reports a former bookkeeper is in jail on embezzlement charges.

33. Sunday’s Western Weekend parade and barbecue

34. Western Weekend retrospective; anonymous satire of Point Reyes Light distributed at parade; Light’s use of unpaid interns may run afoul of labor laws.

35. Inverness Park fire Friday razes art studio

36. Monday’s demonstration against The Point Reyes Light

37. Preventing fires at home while The Point Reyes Light feels the heat

38. The death of a salesman: Andrew Schultz

39. Ship’s flare or meteor

40. What we didn’t celebrate on the Fourth of July

41. 76-year-old Nick’s Cove reopens

42. Garbage in, garbage out

48. Music, wildlife, and the cosmos

49. Congress sees through Point Reyes National Seashore claims

50. Watching the Point Reyes National Seashore obliterate cultural history

51. Quotes Worth Saving & the Inverness Fair

52. The KWMR/Love Field ‘Far West Fest’

53. ‘Possums,’ a sequel to the musical ‘Cats’

54. Truth becomes an endangered species at the Point Reyes National Seashore.

55. Language, politics & wildlife

56. Despite public-be-damned management, it’s still a beautiful park.

57. Nature’s Two Acres XVII: As seen by an old, almost-blind dog

58. Bolinas firehouse and clinic opening party Sunday

59. Paving Point Reyes Station’s main street at night

60. Vandals dump sewage at West Marin School

61. Point Reyes Station’s Hazel Martinelli celebrates 101st birthday with party at son’s deer camp

62. Hawks on the move

63. Tuesday’s Marin County Farm Bureau luncheon for politicos

64. White House Pool: a public park where management listens to the public

65. Nature’s Two Acres Part XVIII: Seasonal sightings

66. Ranching matriarch Hazel Martinelli dies at 101

67. One last warm weekend before the season of darkness

68. West Marin’s ‘Mac Guru’ leaving town — a friend with a knack for surviving

69. Coastal Post’s December issue to be its last, assistant editor says; publisher contradicts her

70. California photo book’s release celebrated with gala on Inverness Ridge

71. Ship hits Bay Bridge; spilled oil drifts out Golden Gate and mires birds on West Marin coast

72. Farm Bureau president quits; defends independence of wife who disagrees with his political position

73. Point Reyes Station pharmacist decries health-insurance practices

74. Nature’s Two Acres Part IXX: ‘Things that go bump in the night’

75. Being a Gypsy isn’t enough; KPFA fires host criticized for not being a ‘person of color’

76. Giving thanks for an abundant harvest

77. West Marin Community Thanksgiving Dinner celebrated in Point Reyes Station’s Dance Palace

78. Nature’s Two Acres Part XX: Where coyotes howl and raccoons roam free

79. Lessons to be learned from the oil spill

* President Truman’s oft-used saying”the buck stops here” originally “comes from the phrase ‘passing the buck,’ which is a poker-playing expression.The buck was a marker to show who next had the deal; the buck could be passed by someone, who did not want the responsibility of dealing, to the man on his left. (The marker was occasionally a silver dollar, which, by the way, is how the dollar became known as a buck.)”
— Safire’s New Political Dictionary by William Safire
Random House, New York, 1993