When someone says “hiking” the next word that pops to mind is invariably “shopping.”
For my first hiking trip, I bought long underwear tops and bottoms – bright white. White long underwear was the foundation of my anti-tick defense system. I wasn’t stepping foot into the wilds of
Ouch, I could have bought a candle-lit dinner for two for the same price. At least the word
After leeches and ticks, the scariest thing in the woods is poison ivy. That I’ve never had a case of poison ivy makes no difference. I strip down as soon as I get home from a hike, put everything I’m wearing in the washing machine and get in the shower.
“I love everything about you,” said the caterpillar. “Promise you’ll never change.” ~ from Tadpole’s Promise by Jeanne Willis
“It’s Thursday,” I said, “We have to go to the lake."
"Why?" my daughter asked.
"We have to visit the tadpoles I’ve adopted,” I said.
“You’ve adopted them?” She smiled. “That means I have brothers and sisters.”
Even with the promise of amphibian siblings, she was reluctant to hike.
We sat on our packs on the sidewalk in a residential neighborhood, squinting at the map, thankful the car had broken down or we'd be trying to hike another 7.5 miles. The fix-it-fairies had given the car a once-over and deposited it in
Nothing is more fascinating, beautiful or sacred than a dead tree. Think about it. In the forest the death of the tree and its fungi facilitated decay is foundational to the forest and it’s entire ecosystem.
But it’s not just out in the woods that dead trees are important.
This is a special post dedicated to librarians. The gift they give society is immeasurable. Librarians are as foundational to the ecosystem of society as fungi are to the ecosystem of the forest.
It started with a stranger in the woods. Enraptured by the calls of the red-winged blackbird, the stark wintered-over cattails and the sun shining on the last shards of ice on the pond, I struck up a conversation with a passerby. It must have been my goofy, content-with-the world-and-all-of-nature smile but it was not long before this fellow was saying, “I know where there are some great vernal pools.”
I know, like you haven’t heard that a thousand times.
At first glance Easter may not seem to have much basis in the natural world. You might think the ritualistic hiding of eggs a completely human construct. You’d be wrong. One only has to see skunk cabbage in early spring to know where this quaint tradition comes from. Mother Nature has been hiding little orbs in the herbaceous basket of the skunk cabbage flower for eons.
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