“There he goes!” “After him!”  “I’ve got him—no I haven’t!” “There he is—under that rock!” From the large, colorful Collared Lizards  of Oklahoma to the small, spiny lizards and fence lizards of the Southwestern deserts, there is always a lizard to chase, and we must always at least try to catch it. This time, the lizard was a Western Side-Blotched Lizard  at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. This lizard is a small, brown one with a dark blotch behind its fo

Chapter 6: The secret of the best; the story of the quarrel between the bakers In Chapter 5, I introduced you to the baker in the Cranberry Village. His name is Bundt, and he makes the best breads, cakes, and cookies on the Island. But now I must introduce to you a problem which I didn’t mention in Chapter 5. If you remember, I told you that Bundt the baker makes delicious cranberry bread. Do you remember who else in the Village makes cranberry bread? You’re right. It is Mrs.

©2026 by Joshua Venturo Much of the American West is dry rocky land dotted with small patches of brown or soft green bushes. Lofty mountains soar upward from tree-covered valleys, but in most places, once the sweeping ridges give way to lower, more predictable hills, dry grassland or desert prevails. In Arizona, saguaros push toward the sun through the rocky hillsides, slowly soaking in any water available. In California, strange-looking Joshua trees, with their long, pointed

We found him huddled in a hollow between the boulders. We saw the fear in his face as he looked up at us with his big round eyes. And we saw the cruel, barnacle-encrusted rope around his neck. The rope was old and crusty. It looked like it had been there for a long time. It was so tight that it was digging into the poor animal’s skin. There was a deep cut all around his little neck. He was a sea lion. A little baby sea lion all alone in the rocks on the shore of the Oregon Co

Want to Watch a Desert Hairy Scorpion in Action? ©2025 by Joshua Venturo The Mecca Hills of Southern California are dry, dusty, and hot. Each day, the sun beats down, parching the ground until only a few shrubs can survive. Down in the wetter washes and canyons, there are catclaw and paloverde trees. Higher, on the rocky slopes and ridges, there are creosote bushes and spiky ocotillos scattered here and there. Once in a while, there is a branchy cholla cactus bristling with s

Yellow eyes shone out of the black forest, just outside the half-circle of white light our headlamps made. One winked out, then they both disappeared. Moments later, the eyes shown again, this time a few feet to the left. We summited this small Nevada mountain on a nice afternoon hike We had to do something . It was winter in the northern Nevada hills. The days had been getting shorter, and we were out later than we expected. The eyes, and whatever creature they belonged to,

Chapter 5: A secret about bread; the story of Bundt the baker In the middle of the Cranberry Village, there is a tiny, barely noticeable shack that sits by the street in the middle of a long row of shops. And hanging over the door is a crooked sign on which, if you look closely enough, you can barely make out the words “Bundt’s Bakery.” For Bundt the groundhog is far too busy making the best bread in the country to worry about making the outside of his shop fancy. He doesn’t

©2025 by Daniel Venturo It was a nice evening on the Oregon coast, and we had decided to take a tide pooling excursion before cleaning up and having dinner. We climbed through the rocks and started finding things—mammoth green anemones, orange and purple starfish, and spiny sea urchins. We called each other over to see tubeworms , new kinds of starfish, or strange gelatinous blobs. Then, as we peered under a large boulder, we saw a lemon! As we gathered around to examine the

Chapter 4: The secret to courage; the story of Fenton Frog Fenton Frog is a mailman – or a mail-frog I should say. His job every day is to sort out all the letters and packages and things that come to the Cranberry Village and deliver them to the right houses. Fenton loves his job. He enjoys pedaling his bike down all the shady dirt paths of the village with his mail bag slung over his shoulder. He enjoys the singing of the birds and the breeze on his face. Fenton lives on a

Dense forest thins. Views of jagged peaks become unobstructed. A glassy lake appears over a rise, reflecting each patch of snow that...

Chapter 3: The fisherman's secret; the story of Paul the mole There is a pond on the Cranberry Island. It is in a remote, quiet place...

High in the mountains, hidden in small pockets and nooks in the rocks and grass, there are puddles of water. At first glance, these...

Chapter 2: The most important thing; the story of Whisk the squirrel In the little village of Cranberry by the sparkling Cranberry bog,...

In the dark of night, in the cold of a deep pool in a rushing stream, a mayfly is hatching. This mayfly does not look like a typical fly....

Chapter 1: The Cranberry Island; the story of how things began The Cranberry Island, as it is called, is not really an island. There is...

©2025 by Daniel Venturo Iridescent green and blue. White wing patches. An extremely long tail. He flies through the grasslands, on his...

Great Sand Dunes Tiger Beetle Fascinating, strange, exotic bugs. Australian deserts are alive with them. Amazon jungles crawl with them....

Want to Listen? In the silence of the night, a lone coyote prowled. Overhead, a full moon cast its silver light. It gleamed off the quivering aspen leaves and created shifting shadows on the forest floor as it sifted through the spruce boughs. The silence was eerie, broken only by the stirrings of a mink in the leaves or the soft murmur of an owl in the trees. Quickly and quietly the coyote moved, her quavering nose close to the earth as she searched for promising smells. At

Want to Listen? He was the most unlikely individual for the mission. He was young and untrained; he had never even held a sword before. He was not strong physically, and he was so soft on the inside that even seeing a wilted flower brought tears to his eyes. He was new to the kingdom too and knew little about the land or the king or the subjects. He was naïve as well, and gullible—foolishly ignorant of the enemy and his lurking traps. Indeed, there were a thousand other perso

Want to Listen? We were hiking in Black Mesa State Park, Oklahoma. The sweat poured down our faces in the harsh sun, and waves of heat rose from the surrounding desert-lands. Then, suddenly, we spotted him. A flaming blue-orange speck moving speedily through the grass and dirt. What is he? He is a Festive Tiger Beetle. The Festive Tiger Beetle is a brightly colored beetle which lives east of the Rockies. It ranges in size from 11-14 millimeters. These beetles are diurnal and