"New Year's day and a newly fallen snow, completely covering the ground. So pristine in the early morning sun it makes me wonder why no one ever sings about dreaming of a white new year. A fresh start." – Klaus, from Weathering Winter: A Gardener's Daybook






August 14

Conducting a short two hour nature writing class at the USFW was poignant reminder for me to start taking some of my own advice a little more seriously – get outside! Stay in touch with nature! Sketch it out! Write! How easy it all is to talk about and, surprise surprise, how hard it can be to follow through with it yourself. A few things had come together by that moment, 10 in the morning at the Brices Prairie USFW Visitor's Center – a beautiful green building directly inside a wonderfully maintained prairie, stocked full of butterfly weed, compass plants, goldenrod, and abundant dragonflies. Just a week before I had the chance to participate in a day long educator's session at the Leopold shack in Barraboo, only an hour from Madison, and of course the beginning of so much of the writing from Sand County. I met a variety of folks interested in the same things I was. We went through some exercises that we could all then use ourselves further down the road, for nature studies and incorporate into our own classes. A favorite was laying out little plastic sheet of sorts down onto the ground and drawing with markers some indications of a variety of wildlife and water phenology. I drew some long-tailed weasel prints which walked up to a recent fish kill along the river. Some turtle eggs had been crushed, on the drawing, by human footsteps and a little river scooted by at the edge. You know, I remembered remarking to myself, as we were all crouched down drawing such things and looking at our little guidebooks, that of course it takes some real time get back into natural things no matter who you are. A walk down to the shack was quite a reminder of the spartan needs of such a shack. A one room, with multiple beds and shutters as windows drilled to place by large screws and nuts. Mosquitos must have been something here...lucky for the fireplace, I suspect, burning raw wood as something like a smudge fire. Quite a fond memory and one that is so easy to re-write about. Now, this day at the USFW, we walked around that prairie together. I and another fellow who had been a tech arts teacher for years and who was an on and off again writers, we walked along a wide trail through the prairie coming up with ideas for journals and for education. When was the last time I had done this, I asked. The crickets all the way loud as any white noise you might think of indoors. Wind rustling through the long grasses and prairie thistles. Doesn't take much, not really, I was thinking the whole way through, to replace some of those static images we carry around with us all the time, with the far more compelling images and sounds of nature. But you've gotta do it. Talking about things will never work. The teacher, I thought, had better be ready to participate themselves, or it is all for naught...