Naturalist Jim Conrad, photo by MeridaGOround, in Yucatan, 2012

I’ve written about this modern-day Thoreau several times here at my searchable blog.  For a guy with such big feet, he’s got the smallest carbon footprint of anybody I’ve ever met. His austere lifestyle is to walk lightly on our planet, honoring Nature’s beauty, without trampling.  

Naturalist Jim spent a few days at our home in Merida several months ago, after decamping from a rustic ranch in Tepaká, Yucatán, on his way to new digs at a remote eco-lodge in Texas, Frio Cielo Ranch, where he is resident naturalist.  During  winter solstice he released his latest project,  NATURE-STUDY MEDITATION: Mother Nature as Therapist in Anxious Times.

This ebook is downloadable for free.  And he’s now offering ZOOM conversations with the naturalist, individually and to groups, where he gladly entertains nature questions, clickable at a block on his home page, BackyardNature.net .  

Jim tells me that his recent foray into FaceBook is over, as they have foreclosed his access to his fb account, apparently wanting money from him since traffic at his noncommercial site has become busy enough that they seem to want a cut of his action, which is basically zero, as he subsists modestly on donations. (He speculates that perhaps this increased traffic is due to home-schooling during pandemic.)  

His latest ebook is somewhat autobiographical, as he interacts with posts from his past, while sharing his approach to meditating on nature, and our place in it.  It’s instructive without being preachy. He teaches how taxonomy works to help us better understand nature; and he explores mental realms that stimulate curiosity, and bring peace and relaxation.