Tag: autumn

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What matters most?

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“What matters most?” is a question I ask myself frequently, as I choose and rearrange priorities for how to spend my time, daily, hour by hour. Even minute by minute. It has taken sixty years for me to recognize this question’s power and necessity in my life. And I’m only just beginning to see how slippery its answers can be.

The green snake was what mattered most one hot September afternoon. What you don’t see here are all the videos I took of him (or her) moving along the top of a rusty wire mesh fence between the backyard and the pasture, swaying and flexing a neon-green muscle of a body into an unusual number of curves while moving along the top of the thin wire. I only see this kind of snake in our yard once or twice a year. Every time seems like the first and makes me feel lucky. I could not read the creature’s eyes to figure out what mattered most to him (or her), but I was hoping that by keeping my distance, the answer wasn’t “avoiding me.”

After a super-dry late summer, one deluge of a couple inches brought a brief respite in late September, inspiring the autumn crocuses to bloom like crazy. They are actually in the narcissus tribe and not a crocus at all, but regardless of their name, they mattered most when I saw a small bumble bee buzzing and pushing into a bloom. I remembered Betsy B., the woman who … Read the rest

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Precious Bugs

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It’s the time of year when spider webs waft through the air from impossible heights in the oddest of places and often capture falling leaves along the way. Of course there is a spider somewhere responsible for each of these, but what I see is a magic leaf, seeming to hang and dance but not fall, held in the air by an invisible tether. I saw two of these instances today, in very different places, so I took a picture of the second–a sourwood leaf suspended above our road. Because this September the webs I’ve run into have been few and far between.

I had to remove a very scary spider from my room before I went to bed last night (not pictured). This one was of the wolf variety. Not a web-maker. More of a marauding hunter. It was tricky to get at it with the empty yogurt container (my bug removal device of choice) both because it was near the corner of the wall and because I had to move a floor lamp to reach him, which I did as carefully as I could, praying he wouldn’t move. Just a foot or so from him was a crevice he could easily hide in, between painted cinderblock wall and concrete floor (no baseboards in this room). And I had to crouch and reach without throwing a shadow across him. Slap of plastic onto wall then scrape of cardboard square sliding between plastic and wall, and he was with me … Read the rest

On the Cusp of the First Frost

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October 31st, and I’m afraid many a child will be disappointed by today’s weather for trick-or-treating. It likely won’t even hit 50 degrees, rain is a real possibility, and the winds are supposed to pick up in the late afternoon. The brilliant autumn colors are falling down, down, down as the continued drought conditions push the trees into letting go of their leaves. While Sourwood Forest is mostly about woods and wildlife, I also share part of this place with four goats: Cocoa, Bertie, Iris, and Captain Fantastic (in order of seniority). And the book I’ve been working on for the past seven years–about the woods and goats–is finally in print. So this post is pointing at that, to remind readers that this place is also an inspiring place to create.

Several amazing artists contributed images to make the book visually beautiful. A few of them have websites: James Cicatko , Cathy Leather , Ted Moore, Rhea Nowak. I encourage you to check them out. If you’re interested in knowing more about the book, Contact me. I only printed a limited number, and they are not available online.

Tonight the first real frost is likely to happen here at Sourwood Forest, which marks the start of my search for artists and writers who would like to be next summer’s residents, spending some time here between May and October 2024. Contact me if you’d like more information about possibilities.

I chose the title after surveying over forty friends … Read the rest

Here one day, gone the next

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Since the small milkweed patch finally appeared in our front garden several years ago, monarch caterpillars have been a part of September for me, and I’ve learned not to get too invested in the whole thing. That said, I am still thrilled when I first spy them (usually when they are smaller than my pinky fingernail), and I look in on them every day, amazed at how fast they can grow. But it’s hard not to be disappointed when they sometimes just disappear. I try to convince myself it must be because they have found their way to a secret location and are beginning to “hang J” in preparation for what comes next. This week I decided to photograph the current residents one morning when I was lucky enough to see four of the gaudily striped critters, quite healthy and sizable, and (in my opinion) way to close to the top of the milkweed they were feasting upon.

When they reach the top and all that’s left is stem, do they climb all the way back down (some four or five feet) and proceed to crawl across the dangerous ground to climb up another stalk? I’ve never seen them on the ground or headed in a downward direction. They always seem to be moving up and very focused on eating.

Today was rainy, and I wasn’t able to find any of them in my brief foray into their milkweed neighborhood. I’m going to believe that does not mean they are … Read the rest

Blessed Rain

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Hurricane Ian’s outer flank is stirring up the woods, dropping much needed rain all over the Pedlar River watershed today. Yesterday, before the rain started, I took photos of the river at a place very familiar to me. I don’t remember ever seeing the Pedlar here so low. I’m sure it must have been this low during the drought (circa 2000-2002), but my memory isn’t what it used to be.

What I do know is that area friends and neighbors have been noticing the low water this year more than ever before. Is this because we have reached a certain age where we can feel sure about our comparisons of “these days” with the past, perhaps? Or maybe it is because the swings from rain to dry are extreme enough for even those who don’t pay much attention to notice.

Pedlar River upstream of Mitchell’s Ford, September 30, 2022

This time of year is unsettling for many reasons–day length changing fast, trees changing color, squirrels racing about and all those signs we don’t even realize are triggering the oldest part of our animal beings into a sense of “Winter is coming! We must put up food and get the nest insulated!” These brainstem instincts are much stronger than the civilizing forces that allow us pretend we are somehow above and in control of nature.

But the usual anxiousness of Autumn “these days” occurs within the larger context of climate change. What I think is different for me this year is … Read the rest

Pedlar River Institute’s Sourwood Forest Residency Program Begins!

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Charcoal sketching in Sourwood Forest, May 9, 2022

Nature offered us a perfect spring day for the opening celebration of Sourwood Forest’s first artist residency week! Thirteen people went into the forest to draw using charcoal pencils made from the trees that grow there. Judy Strang, Christine Forni (multidisciplinary artist) and Amy Eisner (poet and teacher) collaborated to create an event where guests were treated to poetry, group conversation, refreshments, and a chance to try their hands at sketching in the woods. Everyone left energized, having been nurtured by the forest and by each other.

Charcoal pencils Christine made of Beech and Sourwood twigs harvested from Sourwood Forest

The opening celebration forecasted what future half or full day workshops may include: a mix of art making, poetry, reflection, and environmental understanding. Event leaders Judy, Christine and Amy had first met when they were residents at Vermont Studio Center in June of 2017. Even then, Judy was speaking of her desire to host artists at her house, but it wasn’t until late in 2021 that the three began to talk about the start of Sourwood Forest: it would be marked by Christine and Amy coming to Judy’s place as the first “residents” for what Judy was calling “an experimental week.” When Judy indicated she’d like to host a public event as part of that week, Christine described her “drawing you outside” (see her instagram #drawingyououtside for more information). Christine offered to make charcoal pencils from trees in Sourwood Forest ahead of … Read the rest

A Long, Long Fall

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“What color would you say they are?” my husband asked yesterday as we were sitting at the small table in our living room, eating lunch by the window. He was writing in the journal we keep about what’s happening outside. It was December 10th, and bright red, orange, and burgundy leaves from the Bradford Pear tree were scattered all over the yard, shining out against the muted browns of our other yard trees’ leaves, most of which were raked away two weeks ago. He was asking about the leaves still on the tree, though.

The last to let go of her green, the pear tree shifts colors as she fades, her leaves taking on just about every autumn hue before her leaves finally drop and eventually fade. Her twigs only began to let go about ten days ago. At the moment when Scott asked that question, the sunlight backlit the smattering of leaves still left on her branches and made them glow. I told him neon-peach.

The pear is my autumn clock. Winter is officially here when she’s finally bare. Or at least that’s how it has been since I first met her in 1992.

This decorative pear was planted in the front yard by my husband‘s ex father-in-law a few years before this place became my home. The type is non-native and generally considered invasive. From where I stand in the yard today, I see the pear tree’s sapling children in several places, all still holding

… Read the rest

The Threads that Hold Us

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I’m not sure if a spider in any way benefits from having a dead oak leaf hanging from her thread. More likely the thread that’s holding the leaf I can see through my window –about three feet down from the high branch it attempted to fall from, which hovers in the empty air as if of its own accord –is probably attached to a long abandoned strand of silk.

Several days ago I’d seen another leaf hanging in mid air. That one was caught in a morning sunbeam, spinning in a slow, weaving dance made surreal by the fact that the leaf wasn’t falling but staying at the same altitude while it moved. I knew right away that it was held by a spider’s thread, though I couldn’t see it, but I tried (as I stood at the kitchen sink marveling at the sight of it) to see it as magic, as miracle, as a good omen for my day.

Today I tried again to pretend I didn’t know what held the hanging-in-empty-space leaf suspended against a backdrop of smooth white clouds. I wanted to forget I knew what held it up, to be amazed as a child would be, one who understood that autumn leaves did not stay in the air indefinitely but who had not yet learned about spider’s silk.

Though I rarely encounter dangling leaves, mushrooms offer great practice for beginner’s mind as well. In fact, I find them magical even though I know what they are. … Read the rest

No Going Back

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Knowing the natural world from being in it bodily, not so much from any kind of formal study, I am not surprised that climate change has made me feel topsy-turvy. Radical shifts from what had been normal manifest even in my yard and the woods around me. This year the already unsettling autumn-turning-winter part of the year has been even more unsettling. The timing of leaves coloring varies some every year, but this year it was all over the place. Tulip Poplar and Black Gum are always first and the oaks last, for instance. But this year lots of trees were turning when the Poplars started. Many oaks, especially red oaks, colored and dropped just after the Poplars, before the maples had barely started their show. Yet a few oaks held high crown leaves as usual, becoming achingly scarlet just before letting go, the last of the color to fall.

Thankfully, the forest floor is still familiar. As the last reds become scarce, my eyes are adjusting, able to see a fall rainbow of muted tones. From pale peach through every kind of caramel and copper, multiple moods of brown, and deepening grays, the decomposing leaves and fallen bits of trees perform a constant show of change. The textures, shapes, and patterns are a collage that turns audible when you walk through it, sounding off your footsteps. It is a ritual I have come to depend on, one that has happened every year of my life. Nature used to be

… Read the rest