How to hibernate
An illustrated guide.
WARNING
I like seeing this sort of notice. Some people might find it intrusive. To me, it’s a sign (sorry) that humans have been here.
Some field
Just some field. Whatever you do, do not click for a larger view. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
Deer!
Can deer recognize individual people as individuals? We’d like to that this deer can.
Wild strawberries
I think I have finally figured out what interests the deer who visit the back of our backyard: Fragaria vesca, or wild strawberries. They’re why the deer appear so choosy as they browse the ground.
Sunday in the park with geese
After Seurat.
Redbud and sky
The solar storm gave us a sky dark as night. Much more attractive is the sky seen through the leaves of our redbud tree.
Squirrel with avocado skin
A squirrel enjoying an avocado skin, as seen outside Boston last month.
Arbor Day
Should we sing a song about the trees on Arbor Day? Should we sing a song about the trees that proudly sway? Should we be so simple and as sweet a story tell? No, we yell! What’s there to tell?
Look closely
A squirrel, uncertain how to get down.
Treehouses
Nests in a tree, two years apart.
Turtles
The nearest faraway place for our household right now is a trail around a lake.
Heron
Please consider this photograph a brief respite from the day.
Orange mushroom art
Elaine thinks they’re jack-o’-lantern mushrooms. If so, they’re poisonous. And they’re reputed to glow in the dark.
Word of the day: flea-bane
Flea-bane, bane of fleas!
“The repeated refrains of nature”
Rachel Carson: “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”
“Useful, poetic,” &c.
Rachel Peden: “A garden makes me feel useful, poetic, comforted, overworked, justified for living, luxurious.”
“On speaking terms with yourself”
Rachel Peden: “If you’re not on speaking terms with yourself, you need to do something about it.”
“For pies and jelly and philosophy”
Rachel Peden on the gifts of woods.
Churchill on looking at nature
“Once you begin to study it, all Nature is equally interesting and equally charged with beauty.”
Organized squirrels
News from the cute-animal kingdom: they sort their nuts.
A Painted Rock Owl
Spotted yesterday at the entrance to a park.
It takes a forest
Peter Wohlleben explains why giant redwoods, planted in European parks as “exotic trophies,” never grow especially tall.
A social network
From the foreword to Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees.
Grey day with squirrel
I thought of lines from William Carlos Williams: “The descent beckons / as the ascent beckoned.” This squirrel was taking its time about heeding the beck.
Word of the day: snag
Go out walking in nature preserve. Spot new specimen: snag . The Oxford English Dictionary explains.
Orderly, dark and deep
Verlyn Klinkenborg (born in Colorado, living in upstate New York) recounts waking up with “a deep taxonomic yearning” to identify the trees around him.
The Three Graces
Walking in nature.