Au Naturale (10/18/2019)

The nice thing about teleworking or telecommuting is that it allows me to go for long morning walks with my dog Jake (I wrote a long post about it here). As I mentioned in my previous posts, we have cold mornings again, which knocks down the chigger, tick and mosquito population, and I can go out back into the woods again. One of my walks is about a mile and a half (2.4 km) long. It brings me through our neighborhood and then into the National Park which runs in the City Park. The City Park or Newport News Park is the woods I write about in my blog all the time. 

The look back after just entering the National Park from our neighborhood.  Don't tell anyone, but here is when Jake is off the leash and allowed to go his own pace and forest bathe as well.  He is too old to get in trouble and just enjoys smelling and looking around as much as I do. 

I noticed today during my walk that the second that I stepped over the boundary between our neighborhood and the National Park that my gate slowed down, my shoulders relaxed and even my breathing calmed down. I felt that my jaw did not clench and the space between my eyebrows relaxed. It was actually amazing. I was suddenly going for a stroll. 

Now when we walk our dog(s) (our other dog died almost a year ago now) in our neighborhood, we go with a purpose: to walk the dog, and/or to get some exercise, get our steps, raise our heart rate. In the woods, I go forest bathing, experience nature, enjoy myself and let nature come over me. I realize, when I walk through our neighborhood things have gotten slower. Jake has gotten older, and my knee has not been very happy lately. 

But it is somewhat boring walking in our development, you have seen that front yard only so many times; you meet the same people (dog walkers). Only once in the nearly 20 years that I have lived here have I been met with excitement; well actually three times, counting the other two times that I was almost run off the road, once actually breaking my ankle. The really exciting time was when I saw a well-proportioned nude lady walking through her living room. This happened about 15 years ago, so who knows, since I have been living here 20 years, maybe within the next 10 years I will be confronted with such a delightful view again (no nude guys please). I wonder if this is why I am somewhat tight when walking through our neighborhood, full of anticipation?  I just hope my poor old heart can take it when I get my next view to a nude lady in a window and that this millisecond exposure is not the end of me. While this may be the ultimate existentialist experience as I describe in a previous post <here>, I don’t want to go into cardiac arrest for something minor as that. I want to go out in a big way. 

However, it is those strolls in the woods that keep me going. Every day, I am just amazed by how the sun comes through the trees. What leaves have fallen off the trees. Yesterday, I was greeted by the call of a hawk; actually, it was probably warning me to stay away, or warning others of my presence. Today, I heard the call of birds that mimic the call of the hawk: blue jays. There was a caterpillar hanging by a thread from a leaf of a wax myrtle. There is always something to see or to explore. 

One of my favorite (small) forest trees, the sassafras is shedding its leaves.  Stay tuned, I am planning to write a post about this species one of these days.

Sunrise in the woods, I love the way the sun comes through the canopy and plays with the fallen leaves on the forest floor.

Folks it is really true, nature is not scary; it actually is good for you to go out there. Nature is good for your health and a one-time exposure can last you a week to two weeks. Just be safe and when you are a newbie to nature, go with someone you who has experience and who you trust. Lastly, enjoy and stroll, don’t be in a hurry.

Remember nature? (10/8/2019)

The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus is believed to have said “It is not possible to step twice into the same river.” The reason being that even seconds later conditions in that river have changed. Different water molecules would be running by and touching your legs, aquatic organisms have moved and even particles of sand and sediment have been washed away, down stream. You yourself have aged and you are not the same as a split second ago. This may be scary when you think about it, but on the other hand it could also be comforting.

I was thinking about this when I finally dared to venture out into the woods behind our home again. The night-time temperatures finally dropped below 60° F (15.5° C), which means the chiggers go into hibernation and it gets less uncomfortable to venture into the woods. 

The woods have definitely changed over the past half year. For one when we last walked outback (as we call it) is was very wet and we had to dodge puddles. However, we have been in a drought, lately. I do not think it has rained for at least a month and instead of coloring, the leaves are shriveling. I am just hoping we don’t get a forest fire back there. While it would be good to have a good ground fire in the woods behind our home as I discuss in some of my posts, it is so dry that I fear for a crown fire and our homes.  It has really become a climate of extremes.

It has been so dry that the ponds have dried up, and even the puddles in the road which usually stay wet throughout the year are dried up. The largest pond behind our home has just a little pool left in the middle.  I am not sure if it has fish in it, but it usually has a healthy turtle population and I wonder how they are faring.  All ponds behind our home are ephemeral (with the possible exception of the large one) and they are fed or reflection of the groundwater levels.  This means that the levels usually fluctuate 5 to 6 feet every year; however, this year they seem to have dropped more than that.  Surprisingly, some of the grass along the trail was still green, while the grasses in the lawns in the yards of our subdivision are browning up. The entire south-eastern U.S. appears to be drought stricken this year, and the temperatures are way above average for the year. 

This is a picture that I took two weeks ago of the large pond and the water has dropped even more.

During our car ride back from our Century bike ride on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (which was fun, by the way), we were listening to NPR’s Weekend Morning Edition Sunday. They interviewed Larch Hanson, a seaweed harvester in Maine. Larch quoted Wendell Berry from one of his essays in “What are People for?” Berry wrote: “People are for preserving memory of place!” I guess that is what I have been doing with my blog posts over the years; trying to document the subtle changes in the woods behind my home. However, at times, while blogging, I can’t help myself and I also try to document the changes in my thinking and the society and of course in the politics around me.

A photo of my wife and I taken by fellow cyclists during the century ride this past weekend on the eastern shore of Maryland.  We had a lot of fun.  It was cold and very windy (first cold day, hence the packed in look).

Hanson said in his interview: “The water remembers us!” I would like to make an argument that nature remembers us, as well. Whatever we do to her will come back to haunt us, as we are currently experiencing with global warming. Yes, what we are seeing will likely accelerate, and Heraclitus’ philosophical outlook on life will become more and more apparent. Nature around us will start changing faster and faster and not for the better, and soon we can talk about the good old days. This is why, as Wendell Berry mentioned, we better preserve the memories of how nice it was back then (read now) by documenting it in our writing and photography while there is still time.  This is what I try to do in my writing and I hope you do that too in your form of communication with your friends and loved ones.

Six random thoughts (9/27/2019)

It has been an interesting few days here in Virginia, or here in the US. I will try to go through some of them point by point, more to chronicle what is going on and what is on my mind. Most of it should probably not be new to many of you, but so be it.

1. We are in a drought here in eastern Virginia and we have a heat wave. Temperatures are still around the high 80s (or above 30°C). Normal temperatures should be somewhere in the low 70s (20°C). Our trees are wilting, the leaves are shriveling up and I actually have to water with city water. It seems that the hot, dry weather is not going to break for another week or so.
2. On the other hand, we had 40" or 100 cm of rain in coastal Texas, again.
3. Guess this is all a sign of global warming, the dreaded climate change. We had a huge conference at the U.N., which culminated in a weird standoff between the current occupant of the Whitehouse and the young climate activist Greta Thunberg (watch her speech <here>).
4. The climate week ended with a worldwide strike and we participated! (See the photograph below). I found it very important to join the youth and our Unitarian church members in standing up for the future of the world. I wanted to show my solidarity. As I often write in my blog, I think climate change is the most important issue facing humanity.
5. We are intensively training for a 60 mile bike ride in two weeks. This has raised my metabolism so much that in the past month I lost 5 lbs and it seems I am always hungry. The issue now is going to be adjusting after the bike ride. I would love to keep losing, but winter is supposed to come and that seems to curtail my biking. Climate change seems to impact spring and autumn more than the extremes: summer and winter, or the extreme hot and cold spells.
6. Finally, I have been glued to the news about the news about the possible impeachment of the current occupant of the Whitehouse. It seems that he runs the place like a mafia boss but with less class. What a surprise. It seems to be far worse than what Nixon did.

I tend not to post pictures of my ugly face but here is one of me during the Climate Strike on September 20th, 2019.  It is kind of a shame that the news of the corrupt occupant of the Whitehouse overshadowed all this and the conference on climate change at the U.N.   

Some six random points that I want to make sure that are recorded in my blog and on the Internet for posterity. Not that I expect that the climate conference and the revelations in Washington are not going to be etched in the psyche of this nation, the internet, or even this world.  However, I want to make my small contribution to it, just like me previous post, where I revisited 9/11.

September 11, a quick look back (9/11/2019)

This will be a very quick post, but looking back at all my "million" posts over the past years, I never really wrote about that day in history (or what we call here: 9/11).

Famous picture Stolen from Wikipedia

9/11 was a day has changed this country, we will never be the same again. We came together as a people for a few days and then plunged ourselves into wars that we are still in.  Soldiers fighting in Afghanistan or still serving in Iraq might not have been born on 9/11/2001.  Since that time we created new enemies and we still have old ones.  We have leaders who don't understand it or don't give a crap about it all.  In addition now they want to nuke hurricanes or send them astray with a sharpie pen.

Most of us know where we were when the towers came down.  I was conducting a vegetation study at the Lakehurst Naval Station (in NJ) on 9/11, when the MP (Military Police) came to check with us and told us a plane had hit the first twin tower.  At that time nobody understood yet that is was a terrorist attack.  It could have been an accident.  

We continued with our work.  However, a half hour (or 45 minutes) or so later, they came back and we were told that the second tower was hit and we were escorted off the base. When we got back to our motel we were stunned watching the news for a while, after which we got in the truck and drove back to Newport News, figuring out that we were probably not going to be allowed back on base for a while.

It was a solemn/stunned six hour drive back, listening to the radio.

Today, I am remembering that day, but doing fine.

Fall is in the air (9/4/2019)

It is September.  Fall is definitively in the air.  A little early maybr, but our two chrysanthemums (or mums) that we have overwintered for years now, are about to bloom.  So are the goldenrod in our back yard.  I am sure that the bees are looking forward to it and to other fall flowers.  Our first major hurricane (Dorian) has devastated the Bahamas and is on its way up the eastern seaboard.  My wife and I are training intensively for another century (bicycle) ride.  We took a long bike ride last evening and it was wonderful to chase our own shadows down the road and to look over the fields in the national park behind our home while the sun was starting to set.  It was gorgeous.  Wow, the rites of fall (not of spring).

This picture was taken recently during one of our training rides.  This is in the Colonial National Park in York County.

At work it is time to plan for next year's workshops, while preparing one more full day class and working on at least two more webinars.  Crazy as it may sound, every time I step in front of a class I have to fend of questions like: "Hey Jan, when are you retiring?" or remarks like "Hope you are not retiring soon!"  Guess I am starting to look old and acting my age.

Honestly, I do have retirement on the brain.  It would be nice hang it up and relax, work on my trees, sail, travel, hike, and just hobby.  However, it would also involve admitting that I am getting old and that the decline is setting in.  I wrote about that in a somewhat rambling post <here>.   But I do enjoy teaching and working with these folks.  I am still hoping that my love and interest for the environment will rub off on some of them and that they will follow in my footsteps and help to protect the environment or at least understand the need and the urgency to do so. 

We ask the folks that attend the workshops to do a review of the class and these are just two of the latest reviews I got in August.  I took a photos because they made a comment specifically about my teaching.

Another point for not retiring is financial.  The stock market did not fair well in August and with the political uncertainty it is difficult to rely on the savings right now.  The stock market rises or declines one or two percent with every tweet or twist and turn by the current occupant of the White House.  It feels like he is just doing it for kicks; just because he can!  There is talk about a recession.  In other words, I am not sure if this is the right time to call it quits, or just to hold on until we finally get rid of him and things stabilize.  That is, if things will ever be the same, or stable, again.  Oh god, here we go again, into my favorite subject of late, politics.  Stop it!

I really like fall or autumn as some call it, except for the annoyances of the storms (which according to statistics are getting more severe thanks to global warming).  It is getting cooler, the air gets crisp, the leaves are coloring and the shadows are getting longer.  I have written about my love of autumn every year except last year (check the keyword or label: fall colors).  

Animals, plants and yes, we people are all preparing for the coming cold season.  The squirrel are digging in my bonsai pots and I think they are hiding oak acorns in them.  All the moss has been dug up and thrown out of the pots, and next spring it will be weeding time.  Of course, they are hiding acorns elsewhere in the yard, as well.  Plants are translocating nutrients to the roots and trunks in anticipation of the winter.  I teach my students that this is the time that weed control may work best.  Even we humans are preparing for winter.  Some of us fatten up in fall, for the cold winter.  We have stored our firewood and are ready to light the stove when it gets cold at night.  Bring it on!