Beyond Walking

The Shadow Dreams Into Fall

First days of seasons so often seem to miss their mark, promising either something that has already arrived or that may not appear for weeks. They masquerade as transitions when in reality, the transitions exist on a continuum, and that official “first day” merely marks the calendar’s progress. Yes, there is the lengthening or shortening that is most dramatic on an equinox, but things don’t necessarily feel different.

Why, then, do we go to so much trouble to note the hour and minute that one season slips into the next? Perhaps it is simply because we need to measure the days in some way. For quite a few years, I measured them with my students by writing haiku. But this isn’t about the haiku; it’s about the images and music this first day of fall calls to mind for me.

Read and Explore at The Naturalist’s Notebook

The West Coast is on fire. Endangered species’ habitats are facing ruin. We have turned to the Greek alphabet to name new tropical storms and hurricanes. It is not a time for the faint of heart when it comes to perusing news about nature.

Some days, then, it feels increasingly important to acknowledge the beauty and whimsy in the world, for it is a good reminder as to why we push forward through it all. And lately, puffins keep capturing my attention, thanks to one online source that provides a glimpse into the world beyond headlines of despair (though you will certainly see photos of California on fire). I have been so happy to stumble upon a number of puffin photos this month that I decided I needed to post about The Naturalist’s Notebook.

Changing with the Seasons: Home Garden to CSA

*Kitchen garden, very early in the season. Yes, it’s in the front yard. So is the light.*

Brief today, as it’s Friday and I’m tired. But yesterday I received the best news I’ve had in a while. Our farmer will have a fall CSA season. This is good news on several notes. Of course, we will enjoy having fresh, local, organic greens and vegetables until early winter. His arugula is the best I’ve ever had, and was, in fact, the reason I first reached out to him to inquire about the CSA.

But more important, the farmer who runs our CSA on his one-acre farm, just a few miles from our house, is doing well! (An exclamation point–this must be serious.) He has undergone more than four months of chemotherapy this year, and was not able to do his usual spring planting and begin the CSA earlier in the season. To hear now that things are going well at the moment and that there will be a fall harvest is simply a joy. Did I mention that he is in his early eighties?

Coronavirus and Climate Change: Frightening Parallels

Back in the early spring, when the pandemic was still in its U.S. infancy, I watched the unraveling of so many systems with a sense of dread. All I could think of were parallels between what I was seeing and some of my worser-case scenarios for the social upheaval that may result from climate change. And so I wrote this:

Long have I envisioned a day in the future, maybe 20 years from now, maybe only 10, when my daughter will come to me with a question I cannot easily answer. The afternoon will be sunny, warm, with a slight breeze, and in so many other times and places, a perfect day. Except it will be December, January. Something will be not quite right, or many things will be terribly wrong. I will know the question before she asks it; I have been imagining it for years. Why wasn’t more done, and sooner, to deal with climate change?

Fall into Reading with Leaves, by David Ezra Stein

If I were so inclined, I think I could create a collection of nature-inspired children’s books that no one in my house would read but me. The trouble with some such books is that they lack any plotline that might keeps kids interested over a period of time. They might have lovely language, delightful images, or interesting information, but I think even those that have all three qualities can grow repetitive in their basic enumeration-of-things-that-move-about-the-woods narrative.

In more than a few cases, the art is the main draw (ha ha), the prose lacking. I have, for example, a book beautifully illustrated with cut paper, but the language is ho-hum. Still, for some reason, as long as perhaps two of the qualities mentioned earlier are reasonably well met, I can’t get enough of outdoorsy picture books. Today’s feature is a fun read for little ones as we enter the fall season.