I’m Ron Dodson.
I’ve spent much of my life working with wildlife, conservation, education, writing, photography, publishing, business, and community projects. Along the way I’ve written books, started organizations and businesses, worked with people and landscapes, traveled to some interesting places, made plenty of mistakes, and accumulated more projects than any reasonable person probably should.
These days, I’m supposedly retired.
I’m not particularly good at it.
I divide much of my time among New York, Indiana, and Florida. That gives me three very different places to wander around, notice things, ask questions, work on projects, meet people, and occasionally get myself into trouble.
I’ve Always Been Curious
If there is one thread running through my life, it is probably curiosity.
I notice things.
Then I wonder about them.
Sometimes it’s something in nature. Sometimes it’s history. Sometimes it’s an old photograph or an object somebody else might throw away. Sometimes it’s a business idea, a community problem, something I read, or something happening in everyday life that simply makes me ask:
Why?
Or perhaps more often:
I wonder what that’s all about?
Once that happens, I have a difficult time leaving it alone.
I read. I ask questions. I take photographs. I visit places. I talk with people. I dig through old records. I experiment. And increasingly, I write about what I discover.
Somewhere along the way, I began calling this approach to living The Stewardship Way.
It isn’t a job title or something I expect anyone else to adopt. It’s simply the name I’ve given to the way I try to move through life—pay attention, become curious, learn something, do something when appropriate, and share what I discover.
So What Do I Actually Do?
That depends on the day.
And rather than give you a long list here, I’ll show you.
Take a look at What I’m Up To.
That’s where you’ll find some of the projects, places, questions, experiments, rabbit holes, and other things currently occupying my attention.
Tomorrow?
I may be onto something completely different.
That’s part of the fun.