Fall-ing in Love Again

American Lady with Blue Mistflowers and Rudbeckia

I am so happy that Fall is here. I'm not talking about pumpkin spice or sweater weather. I love fall because this is when the wildflowers are at their peak and the butterflies arrive in force. The bees and wasps will have been busy all summer, but the butterflies like to wait until the flowers are at their tastiest and most beautiful. It's my favorite time to lead kids on hikes at the Nature Center. We see so much! Spiders, caterpillars, butterflies, stick bugs, mantises. Fall is full of life. I learned to love fall wildflowers when we lived in Florida and I worked at Morningside Nature Center. I got to know the flowers of the Longleaf Pine Sandhill there, which is one of the most beautiful things ever. Click here to read my blog about it: https://earthteachme.blogspot.com/2013/09/morningside.html I started my flower garden at home to attract butterflies when I saw how they loved the wildflowers in the sandhill. The flower show in our garden starts small in the spring with welcome but small sprouts of green and flashes of yellow and pink. But by fall it is a mad burst of purple and gold, tall stems tumbling over each other. I could barely walk the path through the middle of the garden today because it had grown so thick. But the result is a moving carpet of rainbow colors, buzzing, fluttering, and chirping. The birds, rabbits, squirrels and deer love it too. 

Katydid

Fall is the time that I get to step back and just admire and enjoy the fruits of my labors. It's my reward for the sweaty work planting, watering and weeding that I do in the spring and summer, though admittedly, nature does most of the work. It's a joy to just step out the front door and be surrounded by such beauty. I take far too many pictures. It makes me happy to see other people pass by the yard and stop for a picture of their own. A runner yesterday waved and said "¡Que Rico!" and blew kisses to the flowers. It makes me feel good to provide a nature sanctuary on a busy corner where campus buses drive by every few minutes and commuters line up at the beginning and end of their day. I love this garden.

On the Bus Route--Goldenrod and Asters Abound

American Lady, Blue Mistflower, and the Commuters

Fall is also hurricane season. It's been a wild week. On Thursday we watched the destruction in Florida as hurricane Helene grew to a category 4 storm.We anxiously waited for it to roar over the top of Athens during the night. I took pictures of the garden on Thursday, fully expecting that it would all be smashed flat by the storm the next day. But Friday morning we woke to light rain and some wind gusts and found that we had come through mercifully unscathed. The storm had taken a more easterly path. But then we saw the terrible damage as it tore through up the eastern half of the state and up to the Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky. There was some damage in our town, but nothing like what happened all around us. We feel very lucky--the devastation and loss is shocking. Some of those communities will never be the same again. Our garden was untouched.

The Day Before the Storm 

Then on Sunday we started getting reports of a toxic chemical fire in Conyers, about 40 miles to the west, and to be prepared to stay inside with windows closed if the chemical cloud started to drift our way. Luckily the fire seems to be under control and the cloud has not made it here yet, though it looks like the toxicity would be diluted by the wind by the time it got here if it did. But 17,000 people were told to evacuate, many to Athens. Crazy. What's next? An asteroid? Volcano?

Not smelling any chlorine because the toxic cloud was far away, I took a walk around Lake Herrick, where I used to walk all the time and in January had started writing about for an exercise in exploring place. I've been avoiding going there--it just makes me sad since the nursing student was murdered there in February (see previous blogs). I hadn't been there since June. I decided to go see if I could find any of the birds that had been reported after the hurricane (I didn't). It was nice to walk the trails again, but it still felt sad. This summer the university installed numerous emergency call boxes throughout the woods as a safety measure. I understand why they put them in, but for me, seeing the bright red light in the woods just reminds me that it is a sad place. I'm just not sure I can write about my connection to the place any more. I get distracted by the misery. So I am letting that "Journey in Place" project go. I'll certainly go back to Lake Herrick over and over again. But reflecting on my feelings there is too sad, and I feel like having the project hanging over me has been a burden that kept me from being able to write at all. I've been stuck. But walking home from Lake Herrick, I saw my garden up ahead in the distance, all full of movement and life, and I felt relief, and the urge to write about it. Just the nudge I needed. Thank you, garden, for giving me joy, beauty, and peace.

Pearl Crescent on Rudbeckia

Cabbage White on Blue Mistflower

Yellow Collared Scape Moth on Blue Mistflower

Fiery Skipper on Blue Mistflower

Buckeye on Blue Mistflower

American Snout on Blue Mistflower

Ocola Skipper on Blue Mistflower

Swamp Sunflower

Leafcutter Bee on Blue Mistflower

Ailanthus Webworm Moth on Blue Mistflower

Georgia Aster

First Monarch of Fall

Journey in Place: Healing

Lake Herrick Memorial

It's been almost 2 weeks since Laken Riley, a young nursing student, was murdered in the woods a few blocks from my home in Athens, GA. After a little more than 24 hours of uncertainty and fear for public safety, the police announced that they had arrested a suspect and that there was no longer an immediate threat. It appears that the crime was a terrible, random act. Laken was a runner and was out on the trails in the woods where she often ran. She told a friend where she would be, and then she didn't come home when expected. It was just a random and needless tragedy. Grieving UGA students held a vigil early last week for her and for another student who had taken his life the day before. The community is still in pain. The crime has become an issue much bigger than Athens because it is believed that the suspect is an undocumented foreigner. In these highly charged times, immigration is a white hot topic and politicians have seized on it. I don't want to go much further into that here, but I have to say that it has been very distressing to see our local tragedy playing out in the national, and even international news over and over again and I find it to be opportunistic and exploitative. 

Bloodroot Meadow

When I wrote my last blog entry I was in shock. I was in mourning for the death of a joyful young woman, for her family and friends, and for our community's loss of its sense of safety. How could this happen in a place that I and just about everyone I knew considered to be safe space and a refuge? And how could such an awful thing happen in a park I had come to love, right in the spot I had been writing about for weeks in an exercise about exploring place? I wasn't sure at that time that I would ever be able to go back. I didn't know if I would be or feel safe, or how it would feel to be there knowing that a young woman's future had been violently snuffed out, right there. 

Round Leaf Hepatica

A number of friends who read my post commented, wisely, that the danger is always there, especially for women, but that we can't let this stop us from living and enjoying our lives. And I know this is true. Deep down I knew I would I would eventually get back to Lake Herrick and continue to hike and explore as I have done in the past. But this really shook everyone up, especially before a suspect had been charged with the crime. Several kind people offered to accompany anyone who felt unsafe on runs or bird walks, walking to the parking lots, etc. The University and the City of Athens are taking measures to improve safety, and I'm sure it will make some difference. Now, 2 weeks later, I am pretty sure I will feel ok walking alone, but I will take more precautions. My husband wants me to carry a whistle, and I won't go out owling at night or do early morning birding without someone with me. There are some remote places that in the past I have explored on my own. I will bring a buddy with me now. Not because things suddenly became unsafe, but because this murder reminds us of the ever present danger. The police may have arrested this particular man, but as long as there are other violent or desperate or mentally ill people out there to seize on an opportunity, they will do it. It sucks but it's reality. 

Trail Through the Flowers

Several readers commented about this "wounded place", a term I feel is especially appropriate for Lake Herrick. That's what this is to me now--a place that has absorbed trauma and sadness. It will take a long time to overcome that wounding. I was able to go back and walk the trails in the woods this week, first with my husband and later with a friend. Though the trails had re-opened days before, we were hesitant to go there too soon out of respect for the young woman's family and friends who were still in deep mourning. When we did go, the whole place was unusually quiet. We went during the first weekend of spring break and there were very few people around. It was peaceful and reverential. We felt a little apprehensive walking the trail so near where we think the violence occurred, in case we encountered some bit of police tape or tracks or some other evidence of what had occurred there. But we did not see any of that, and soon our hesitancy was replaced with appreciation for the blooming wildflowers and birdsong and a beautiful blue sky. My husband and I walked and smiled and even took a selfie in the bloodroot meadow. When we walked, my friend and I chatted about life and watched a turtle tromp down the creek to a dead end. It felt almost normal. But if I let my mind stray away from the nature and beauty, I immediately remembered where I was and what had happened there and it made me sad again. Nature is a wonderful healer, but it will take time. We won't forget but our community will heal. 

Bloodroot Blossom

SunningTurtles

My Myth--"The Dancers"

For our 4th Journey in Place exploration with Janisse Ray, we were asked to write a myth about something we encountered in our place. Last week I came across this huge oak tree with three trunks. Somehow, in the years that I have been walking these trails, I had never noticed it before. I guess it was waiting for  the right time to reveal its story. Here's my myth--"The Dancers":

Long ago, when humans were very new and just learning, and the earth and its living things were already old, people still understood the language of nature. The people lived in harmony with the earth and its creatures. They shared food and warmth and knowledge. When the people were cold the weaver birds taught them to form fiber into clothing and baskets to hold their food. When the people were hungry the birds and other forest animals showed them where to find seeds and roots to eat. The wasps taught them to build clay pots to cook and carry water. The ants taught them to farm so they could grow their own food. Humans and the other living things shared news of coming storms and dry seasons, when to expect the fruits and migrations and the changing tides. And every month under the light of the full moon, they danced together, sharing their gratitude and friendship. 

Over the years, as they learned more, the humans became enamored with their own skills and tools, and in time they forgot how to listen to the earth. No longer could they hear the signs of the changing seasons and weather. The people became separate from the other living things. They thought they no longer needed to share with the earth and they built vast cities where they once danced together in the moonlight. All that is, but three women, who chose to keep to the old ways. They lived lightly on the earth, and joined the forest creatures to dance on a hilltop every month, loving and thanking their earthly companions. And when the women finally became too old to dance any longer, they grew roots from the soles of their feet and their arms reached for the stars and the moon and they became three trunks of a tall oak tree, growing leaves and acorns to shelter and feed the forest, and dancing together through time. 

Journey in Place: Steps for Befriending a Special Place

 

Rue Anemone and Violet on a Spring day

This post is my response to the week #3 exercises from Janisse Ray's "Journey in Place" course. You can follow her (and join in!) on her Trackless Wild Substack. This week Janisse asks us to write a linear poem listing ways to bond with a place. Here's mine.

Steps for Befriending a Special Place:

• Walk its boundaries--its hills and valleys
• Follow its streams
• Hug some trees. Put your nose against the bark and breathe in deep
• Look at maps and then make your own
• Sit very still and watch a squirrel or deer as it feeds
• Walk every trail
• Lie on your back and look up at the treetops
• Keep a bird list
• Learn the history of the place
• Find a cozy picnic spot and enjoy your lunch as you sit and appreciate the view
• Visit at dawn and dusk
• Create your own names for points of interest--Snaky Elm, Fox Cove, Kingfisher Island, Hepatica Hill, Bloodroot Trail
• Pick a location and monitor the changes weekly, monthly, or through the seasons
• Put your toes in the water of a stream
• Touch the mucky mud. Take a handful and smell it
• Close your eyes and listen for 5 minutes
• Taste some dirt
• Identify the plants and trees
• Look for fish and frogs in its waters
• Record changes through the seasons--flowers, insects, bird and animal populations
• Make a photo album
• Look for insects. Carry a bug jar so you can catch and look closely. Let them go when you're done
• Visit in the heat of summer and on a frosty morning
• Look for animal nests and dens
• Record the temperature at different locations on the same day
• Walk in the rain
• Explore the topography and know where the water goes
• Try to walk up to a turtle without scaring it into the water
• Take a long piece of string and make a circle on the ground. Record everything you see in the circle. Use a magnifying lens and do a deep dive
• Visit in the evening and watch the fireflies come out
• Roll some logs and see what's living under them. Roll the logs back when you're done
• Look for spores on the underside of fern leaves
• Learn some frog calls and go out at night for a frog listening party
• Compare the soil from the hilltops with the soil from down in the valleys
• Hunt for fungus. Turn over mushrooms to look for pores or gills. Make a spore print on some paper. Touch some jelly fungus
• Note invasive species--remove if possible, or if the property is not your own, join groups doing invasive removal projects
• Find a rotting log. Break off a fistful of decaying material and roll it in your hand. Smell the sweet fresh smell of new soil
• Clean up trash
• Take a friend on a guided tour
• Sit in your special place and feel the warmth of the sun and the breeze on your skin. Breathe deeply and give thanks  

Journey in Place: Frame of Reference

Map at the Park Entrance

As I sit at my desk writing I am a bit distracted by the large flocks of Cedar Waxwings and American Robins that have descended on my yard this cold January morning. They are dropping from their sunny perches in the trees down to our small pond that has abundant flowing water, a scarcity today when the temperatures are barely warming up from the teens of last night. They are also feeding ravenously on the berries of the Chinese Holly and Japanese Privet that line my yard. Like them or not, the large and established (albeit exotic) bushes do provide food and shelter for hungry birds.

In our 2nd Journey In Place exercise, Janisse asked us to put our Place in spatial perspective, identifying the location, bioregion and boundaries, and then decide to whom the study should be dedicated. Then came the toughest part, for me at least--we were asked to sketch a map of our Place. After walking the trails and doing some research, I came up what I think represents the way I view my Place. I wish I had the patience to carefully sketch and print beautiful letters, but that just doesn't seem to be me. I get impatient. Here is my map:

My Map

So, about my place. My place is the Oconee Forest Park, a natural area on the University of Georgia Campus. It is located within the bioregion of the Southern Outer Piedmont of Northeast Georgia and is in the Upper Oconee River Watershed. The park consists of 60 acres of hundred-year-old trees on rolling hills that edge a 15-acre manmade lake. It is bordered by an unused railroad track, tennis courts and band practice fields on the west side, a highway ("The Loop) on the south and east, and College Station Road and the Intramural Fields to the North. It contains two manmade lakes, one large one (Lake Herrick) and a much smaller one (Little Lake Herrick). Lake Herrick is fed by a small stream that catches runoff from the 5 Points neighborhood on the north side, where I live. Water from Little Lake Herrick up above, supplies water to Herrick Creek that runs through a ravine and down into the larger lake below, where Herrick Creek picks up again and flows into the North Oconee River to the northeast. 

Boardwalk on hill leads to Bridge across the lake

Big, beautiful oak on the Lake Trail, by exercise equipment

Intramural Field on a frosty morning

One of the platforms the looks over the lake

Mountain Bike Trail and Power Line Cut

Herrick Creek

Hiking and mountain bike trails wind around the lakes, and through and around the forest. Service roads serve as wider trails and allow access for maintenance equipment. Facilities on site include fishing docks, a boat ramp, picnic areas, and a ropes course. A wooden boardwalk next to ball courts leads to a bridge across a narrow arm of the lake. The area serves as an outdoor classroom for forestry, biology and ecology students, and is popular with runners, walkers, bikers, dog walkers, photographers, artists, and nature lovers, both students and the general community. Oconee forest Park is an ebird hotspot. 

Kingfisher on one of the platforms in the lake

Killdeer Chick in an Intramural Field

Stinkhorn Fungi

Fox

Heron in the Lake on a Misty Morning

Snake Tree

Tree Frogs by Little Lake Herrick

Bloodroot Patch

While preparing to draw my map I looked at existing maps of the area online and discovered that some of the unmarked trails actually have names! I learned that my "comfort spot" is located on "Tranquility trail", which makes perfect sense because it exudes peace and calm. "Tranquility Trail" follows the contour of the hillside and over a ridge to the "Birdsong Loop", another favorite and aptly named trail. On a map, I think the Oconee Forest Park looks kind of like a heart. I like the image of it providing lifeblood to the community through physical and mental health, protected habitat, and its place in the watershed, channeling water to the Upper Oconee River. I picked it as my Place because of its proximity to home, and because it was a lifesaver for me during the Covid pandemic when everything else was closed and I needed a place to breathe and think. It has provide me with endless hours of peaceful contemplation birdsong, and discovery. I would like to dedicate my Journey In Place to the people who had the foresight to create this oasis (one of whom was my friend, Walt Cook--more on him and his role another time), the people who are working currently to maintain and improve it, and to my fellow travelers who share it with me.

This is the Place

This is "My Place"

I just began a year-long online project, "Journey in Place" with author, Janisse Ray. The purpose of the project is for the participants to create connection and relationship with a place-- a yard, a park, a city or a region. As Janisse explains, we have become "placeless people" who have lost our ties to the earth we live on and the natural processes around us. We will be going through weekly exercises designed to help familiarize ourselves with a place, whether it be a yard, a park, or a region, and form deeper connections. (You can sign up too by subscribing to her "Trackless Wild" Substack newsletter.)

Woodsy Trail

I'm excited about this project because "place" has been on my mind for some time now. In fact, I wrote a blog about this nearly 10 years ago when I lived in Florida. ("A Sense of Place"--click here to read) I now live in Georgia, very far from where I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and after 8 years here, I still feel like an outsider. I have not lived in Utah for 35 years, yet, when someone asks where I am from, I always want to say "Utah". My roots are there. But Utah is not my home any more. Many of my people that connected me to the state have died or moved away. The city and region have grown so much that I hardly recognize it. The Great Salt Lake is drying up, which breaks my heart. I don't think I could ever move back because the place has changed and I've changed. But there's still this familiarity and the memories. The mountains. The smell of summer. The hard, dry dirt. It's complicated. I live in Georgia but I'm from Utah.

Wasatch Mountains behind the Salt Lake Valley (Taken through a window--excuse the glare)

I will never be able to match the ancestral yearning that I feel when I look at the Wasatch Mountains that rise behind the Salt Lake valley in another place. But I want to get to know rivers, stone outcrops and red clay where I live now. I want to know about the rainfall and temperature patterns. Is this a hard winter? When is the typical rainy season? I want to know the plant, animal and insect cycles. I want to internalize the history of the land, the geology and the people. I want to grow deep roots. 

A Snail Eating Fungus

Curled Oak Leaves that look like clasped fingers

Cranefly Orchid Leaf--Greenery in Winter

Fungus rings an old log

My 1st task was to pick "my place" that I'll be coming to and getting to know throughout the year. I've read comments from other participants and some chose the land they and their families have lived on for generations, or their yard, or a river gorge. I decided to pick a recreation and nature park on the UGA campus, "Lake Herrick and Oconee Forest Park". It is special to me because it is part of my neighborhood, but also because of what it meant to me during Covid. In the early months of the pandemic, our city, like many others, shut everything down. The university closed and sent the students home, and they closed the State Botanical Garden, which is operated by the university. The City made the decision to close the parks and playgrounds to keep crowds from gathering. In the early weeks of the shut down, Lake Herrick was one of the only nature areas in town that was open to the public, and I walked there most days. In times when it felt like the world was falling to pieces, I found connection, refuge and solace walking through the woods and around the lake. As things eased up a bit, the other parks opened again for walking because we realized how important exercise and nature therapy were for us. People started venturing out again, and the university opened the parking garage next to the lake as a safe, socially distanced practice space for brass and woodwind musicians. I'll never forget the lonely sound of a trombone wafting over the lake as I walked one morning in December. It was a weird and difficult time.

Barred Owl Watching

Bloodroot Patch

Within our "place" we were instructed to find what I'm calling my "comfort spot"--a place that draws me and where I can come back to over and again for contemplation and reflection and close examination. I picked a spot on a hillside overlooking tall trees, with the lake in the distance. On one of my walks near here, I discovered a beautiful patch of white Bloodroot blooming on a quiet trail. It was like a finding a treasure.  Another morning I spotted a Barred owl perched near the Bloodroot trail. A couple of hawks were unhappy that it was there and made a noisy fuss. Nearby I watched as a Brown Creeper moved up and down the trunk of a pine tree, and across the road Pileated Woodpeckers tore chunks off of a log looking for grubs. I visited this spot the other day and saw a pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers. It was the first time I'd seen them in these woods for several years and I took it as a sign that this would be a good choice for my "comfort spot". As we say in Utah, "This is the Place". I look forward to getting to know it better. 

Wintery Steam

Mossy Log in my "Comfort Spot"

Looking through the trees at the lake below

Reflections on the Water

"This is the Place" Monument, Salt Lake City