Does the natural world communicate with us? (1/10/2026)

I have started to read a book by Robert Macfarlane entitled “Is a River Alive.” In the introduction he writes that his 9-year-old son asked him the title and premis of the book, and when he told him, his son said: “well, that is going to be a short book, of course it is.” Reading this I wondered whether nature or the natural environment is talking to us. I am a pantheist and would like to argue that even rocks, stones, and clouds are alive and communicate with us, even though they do not have DNA.

This idea reminds me of a post I wrote some time ago entitled: “Does the world love us.” These are interesting questions. I know that I love the world. I take a walk with my dogs in the woods behind our home almost every morning. I wrote about this in 2018 (The Old Man and the Woods), where I describe taking a walk with our previous dog Jake. To think I called myself old more than 7 years ago. I had just re-read Hemingway’s book “The Old Man and the Sea,” and felt inspired by it. I just used the title to spin off the title of my post.

I try to live in the moment whenever I am out in nature. I always look around, take it all in and try to learn. For example, I love large beech trees; I like their elephant skin like bark, and I love their root spread. During the past years I have tried to make an inventory of the large beech trees in the woods behind our home. I do this by getting off the trails and bushwacking. To date I have found 17 bigger trees. I have no idea how old they are, but I always wonder if they were planted by folks that lived back there before it was converted to park land, and unlike the pines, oaks and maples these beeches were never harvested.

One of the beeches I found the other day

I am in LOVE, whenever I am in nature. Even in times like the other morning when we ran into Blondie, the blond coyote and our two dogs go absolutely insane. But as the song goes “Love hurts,” and I often find it more entertaining that aggravating, even if their howls and barks are deafening and they are trying to pull your arm off (yes, we always walk them on the leash). Those coyotes are getting bolder. Early in the morning, around 2 am on January 1 and 3 they were in our neighborhood, just a few houses over. Their howling and japing woke our dogs, and our dogs woke us. It was crazy.

But back to our woods. Before the invasion of the English settlers, the woods behind our home were the home of the Kiskiack tribe, a group that was part of the Powhatan Confederacy. Kiskiack means wide land or broad place in their native language, and it also seems to be the name of the town they lived in, near the current Yorktown. From what I can determine, the woods must have been cleared in spots for agriculture using slash and burn. Corn was their main crop. The area was also used as hunting grounds.

The Brits eventually cleared large tracks for the cultivation of tobacco. Our woods were part of something that was called the Edgehill Plantation, although there was no actual plantation house. The area was straddled by two roads: Warwick to York and Hampton to York (later on Warwick was incorporated into the town of Newport News). During those times, our region was a very active participant in the Revolution and later the Civil War. I wrote a tongue in cheek post about it once <here>.

I do not exactly know what happened after the civil war. It was around the 1930s when our immediate area was taken over by the National Park Service and most likely the Newport News water works. Recently, we examined the tree rings of a large pine that had fallen across our trail, and someone cut the trunk to allow passage. Dating it by counting the tree rings showed us that it was approximately 80 years old. It appears that the tree probably germinated around the 1940s and was allowed to grow without much interference. This again dates to a time just after the annexation of the area by the Park Service. The tree was one of the bigger ones and is located in an area with some of the largest trees in the woods behind our home.

There is so much to explore and think about when I walk through nature, listening to nature talking to me and to each other.

The beeches so far

A good haul today, we found 3

Roots 3 (11/1/2019)

As most of you know, I make a feeble attempt to grow bonsai. I have been trying to do this (or faking to do this) for the past 30 years or so, and I feel I have not much to show for. A few of my trees may be getting there, but I still feel lost at times. One way to get learn more about it in the past was magazines and books. Nowadays, it is YouTube to the rescue.

As I mentioned before, one of my favorite YouTube channels is the “Bonsai Zone”, which is put on by the Canadian Nigel Saunders. Nigel has come a long way over the long years; however, I have one complaint. His videos are very long and tedious at times. Nigel literally tries to show you every step in the development of a specific tree that he is working on that specific day and the videos may run longer than an hour or more, which he thankfully cuts up in parts. I understand from a podcast that I follow, that YouTube encourages long videos on their most watched channels, and yes, I will keep watching Nigel. He is absolutely great. Currently I would not be able to do any better, although me wife keeps suggesting that we start a channel as well (The Naturalist Zone?). She proposes that she would handle the camera. My wife is a fanatic knitter (sometimes to my benefit) and she watches YouTube knitting channels. One of these channels (Fruity Knitting) even captured my attention because of the way they produce their program. They knit on their project, but they intersperse it with interviews of other knitters, go to shows, visit farms or regions, you know it.  It is full of documentaries and interviews while they also knit and give trick and how-to advise.

However, I really like the Bonsai Zone by Nigel. One thing Nigel emphasizes in his shows is the development of a good spreading root system before you concentrate on anything else. Nigel will actually take his viewers on walks to the park and the neighborhood to look at the roots and spread of or real trees. This has made me really conscious of the roots of my bonsais and of the trees I see growing around me during my walks.

I mentioned in my previous post that recently we spent a weekend in Westmoreland State Park. In addition to hiking in that park, we went for a walk in Caledon State Park, which is down the street. During these walks, I could not resist taking pictures of roots while thinking of Nigel’s message. What amazed me was that the American beech had what looked like the best or maybe the most obvious root development. 

I saw this beech in Caledon State Park and was duly impressed by its beautifully spreading root system.  These roots will feed a healthy tree and keep it thriving for a long time.

The roots of this beech growing in Westmoreland State Park are somewhat one sided; However, this tree was on a deep slope and the other side was less visible.

Another healthy root system on this beech.  This one is growing in Westmoreland State Park.

I actually found an oak with a beautiful root system at Caledon State Park.  Not that oaks don't have them, but this one was obvious and it was nicely above ground.

Now, this red maple had the strangest root.  It looked like a bulbous root where the small trunk came off.  I wonder if it was grazed or cut before.  Just very strange. 

I have written a number of posts on roots, ranging from our personal roots <here> to the roots of plants <here>. There are three more posts on roots and my bonsais, just look at the label section on the right and click on roots.

I also teach (preach) about the importance of roots in my workshops. In my soil workshop, I mention how the bulk density of soil will affect root growth. Bulk density is an indication of how tightly the soil particles are packed together and the tighter they are, the more difficult it is for the roots to push through the soil. A lot of traffic over the soil (like construction traffic, vehicles or simply foot traffic) will increase the bulk density and will make it difficult for plants to grow. In my soil amendment workshop, I tell folks how plant roots actually take up nutrients; while in my plant workshop, I speak about the symbiotic relationship between plant (roots) and mycorrhizae. 

You get the idea, roots are very important.  Furthermore, I tell my students that for the vegetation it is also “You are what you eat”; that the vegetation you see growing is a reflection of the soil, and that it all starts with a healthy root system. This is important in nature as well as in my bonsais.

The old man and the woods (12/27/2018)

It was early in the morning, the old man and his dog decided to go out for a walk in the forest that was located behind his home. The air was crisp this particular morning in December. The soil was moist. Actually, it was very wet. It had been a very wet year, and all the rains this autumn had not helped. Sections of the trails were flooded and when you got off the trails, you could never see what was hiding under the dense layer of fallen leaves and pine needles. Not that this is all bad, this part of the world is known for its “bottom land forest” and these woods are definitely part of that ecosystem. The old man’s home should have never been built where it was, in a wetland ecosystem, but it was built before there were any laws that prevented or at least regulated that.

Jake the dog was easily bored and when he noticed that the old man took his regular trail, the old man’s canine companion hesitated. Like some other times he just stood there in protest ready to turn around and go home. While it is a requirement in these woods to leash dogs, the old man hardly ever leashes his. Jake does not stray far from his side, and the only real mischief he gets into is eating deer pellets or what the old man coins “doggie probiotics.” So, there is no way for the old man to force the dog to join him.

There are; however, two remedies to entice Jake in joining the old man on his walk in the woods. That is bribing the dog with cookies or going off the trail and bush whacking. So, off the trail it was this time. However, the return trip always involves the trail anyway. While simply walking down the trail is often meditative, having done it so many times, bush whacking is always fun. There may be a rotten out stump hidden under the leaves and then all the sudden he would sink ankle or even sometimes shin deep into the ground. Having the groundwater only an inch or two under the surface would mean shoes full of muddy water. In addition, the woods are littered with fallen trees and branches. Sections of the woods have a dense stand of low bush blueberry, the only plant that the deer in these woods do not seem to browse. While this does not slow down the old man, Jake has trouble with the blueberry plants the branches are touch and they hit him in the snout and eyes, and the old man tries to avoid the densest stands as much as possible. However, the lowbush blueberries grow in the driest parts of the woods, which is nice on these wet days. 

Nature is still very active in the woods observes the old guy. While most of the deciduous trees appear dormant, the pines may still have some activity during the warmest parts of the day. A close observation of one of his favorite beech trees in the woods the old man stood still to examine the bark. There he observed insects that where hiding in the crevasses of the bark. At first look they appeared to be dormant lightning bugs that had bedded down for the winter. Birds abound in these woods and little warblers appear to have an eyesight in a wavelength that allows them to pick out bugs like this from the crevasses in the bark from quite a distance away. Obviously, the birds had not discovered these guys yet. Maybe they’ll survive till spring.

A little further in the woods, the man discovered group of yellow coral mushrooms poking out through the leaf litter. A wet log was covered by tiny small paper-thin mushrooms and a little further down the trail he discovered a tree trunk that had the white hairy mass hanging from it. Hen-in-the-woods, an edible mushroom; but let it be. 

Coral Mushroom sticking its head out from in between the leaf litter.

These little (papery-thin) guys were growing on a rotting log

These hen-in-the-woods were growing on a dead trunk of a maple tree.
The trunk closest the camera was still alive.

It was an exhilarating morning, walking off the trail, just anywhere where there was no standing water. But now it was time to find the regular trail and return. For the man it was time to hit a familiar path and enter a somewhat meditative state and for Jake to linger behind once he noticed this was the road back home which was worse than taking a familiar path. It was a time to absorb what he had seen and experienced that morning, to be in the moment, and not to have his thoughts clouded by what was going on it the world around him. Clouded by the pressure that these types of lands will be under in other states thanks to the policy of this insane government of ours.  Or clouded by the thread of having to postpone retirement and an even  longer working career because of a bizarre stock market.

Thanks heaven these thoughts were interrupted by some other shit, or better by what appeared to be coyote scat (or shit) on the trail. It could be fox scat as well, but it was the size of what a dog would deposit.  The poop were full of hair; whatever deposited the turds there must have swallowed the poor animal skin and all. The last interesting find in these woods before returning home after a satisfactory walk.

Still not sure who laid that heap of scat.  It appeared to consist of mostly hair, so it was a predator (a fox or a coyote?). 

Nothing better for Jake than to explore one of the ephemeral ponds out in the woods.  While Jake is not a hunter he enjoys the shallow ponds and just drink some of the water and smell the banks.  He does not like to go too deep.  Being a male dog, his wee-wee is his depth gauge.

Newport News Park (2/7/2015)T

This morning we again experienced that sometimes the road well traveled is not the most exciting road.  It is great to bushwhack through the woods and see where it leads.  We decided that the trails we always seem to walk was just not for us today.  The sky was blue, the air was crisp and we were not interested in finding the straightest line or the fastest ways between two points.  This was also evidenced by the mountain bike trail we crossed at times bushwhacking this morning.  Mountain bike trails seem to wind back and forth through the woods, not making much headway, but who cares.  It is the exercise that counts, or it is the trip that counts in my eyes, not the destination.

During our walk today we went through an area that was obviously cut over 20 or 30 years ago.  It is mostly covered with hardwood trees, and to our surprise there are some really large trees left.  Most of them are large beech trees.  The following is one between the "abandoned road" and the golf course.

But as I said we soon stepped off the "abandoned road"into the nature preserve, to just enjoy the trip, and nobody cared about the destination.  The dogs just love smelling everywhere and Jake, our pseudo lab loves deep pellets, which we now have coined doggy probiotics.  We just walked keeping the sun in mind, and figuring that if we kept the sun at a certain angle we would eventually make it to a trail that leads directly to our home.  We did not care if it was straight or what we would be running into.  Naturally it was one of the biggest beeches out back (I know of one or two more out there) that made us deviate from the course we had plotted in our mind, but that's the fun of it.

In the background you can see the general circumference of the other trees in the area.  It makes you really wonder why the foresters did not harvest these few beeches when they were at it.  Currently, with the advent of mechanical tools beech trees seem to be favorable trees throughout the world; they have very hard weed, and even here in the U.S. they seemed to be likes as lumber.  But I thank whoever for not harvesting these beauties.

The weeds behind our house have remarkably much relief, with some of the low areas occupied by the vernal pools that I write so much about (look in the labels for Grafton ponds, ephemeral ponds or maybe the Mabee salamander).  The last photo here shows a picture of Jake (one of our dogs) on a root crown of an oak near a pond.  I was impressed by the burl on the oak.  It seems that they are actually preferred by specialty wood workers and can fetch a lot of money,  

Amazing all the things you learn walking out back and when you are looking and enjoying yourself.  Sometimes not traveling the shortest distance between points give you the most bang for your buck anyway in enjoyment, relaxation and just fun.