December: Nature at Rest

December 31, 2022January 1, 2023 ~ melaniereynolds ~ 27 Comments

_{Lake Crescent 2016 By Melanie Reynolds}

Welcome to 2023!

My New Year’s gift to you is the picture above. Lake Crescent, located near the Hoh Rainforest, and one of the quietest places in the United States according to the Gordon Hempton’s project, One Square Inch of Silence.

To listen to the beauty of the Olympic peninsula and see more pictures visit Gordon Hempton’s website: https://onesquareinch.org/breathing-space/

“SILENCE IS NOT THE ABSENCE OF SOMETHING,
BUT THE PRESENCE OF EVERYTHING.”

-Gordon Hempton, Founder
One Square Inch of Silence
https://onesquareinch.org/

May you find peace and Joy in the new year!

Between the holidays and the crazy weather, I doubt many of you were quiet or restful for very long. This month’s photo submission was a bit of a washout. I kind of suspected this might happen. Life, like all forms of energy has its own ebb and flow similar to water. I’m neither sad nor disappointed.

Please join me in thanking Lisa Troute and Tracy Abell for their photo submission!

So cute!

_{Gopher Tortoise By Lisa Troute Jupiter, Florida.}

The Gopher Tortoise is a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in its native territory of the Southeastern United States. It is the only tortoise found naturally east of the Mississippi River. They can live up to 40-60 years in the wild and 90+ in captivity. (https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/reptiles/gopher-tortoise/)

Lisa says that a lot of animals use the tortoise’s burrows including snakes and small animals. I found this 1:45min clip on PBS Nature about how these other animals also rely on the burrows for safety during fires and hurricanes. This makes the Gopher Tortoise a Nature-Led hero in my book! Wolverines and Badgers might also make nice burrows, but they’re rarely inclined to share their home with others.

_{Unknown bird nest. Barr Lake State Park, Colorado. April 8, 2021 Tracy Abell / Another Day On the Planet}

While Tracy captioned her picture as “Unknown bird nest” I had fun playing Forest Detective and we think we know whose nest this is. Our guess is that it belongs to a Bullock’s Oriole. This type of nest is called a “pendant nest”. I did my original search calling it a “hammock nest” and some other people searched for it calling it a “sock nest”. Whatever you want to call it though, it’s an interesting nest and I love it!

Thank you again Lisa and Tracy for giving me interesting pictures and non-rabbit holes to follow!

Finally, let’s just call this bonus content. Do you need more inspiration for getting excited about nature? Well, check out this lovely fellow and his Becorns! This is a true pleasure to watch. I also appreciate that he has a calm, casual voice similar to my own.

Video belongs to: David M Bird

Nature-Led New Year’s Goals?

If you’re the kind of person who likes to make goals for the new year, what are some of your goals for 2023?

Can you think of how to make these or other goals, Nature-led goals?

Future Photo Submissions:

January: Moss Due: January 31st (Posted Feb 1st PST)

February: Unexpected Blooms and/or Ferns Due: February 28 (March 1st PST)

Fine Print: Photo Submissions Guidelines

Email to: natureledlife@gmail.com, Subject line: Photo Submission for [month] (Multiple months of photos in one email is fine.) Image: Attached as a .JPEG or .PNG file preferred. Captions each picture: Subject in the photo (if known), State/Providence & Country, Date (optional). Your name as you want it to appear, Your blog link (if you have one.) Feel free to add any interesting notes about a picture. I love interesting stories behind things! Let me know if it’s just for ‘my eyes only’ or if I can share any part of it with your photo. Pictures must be your own or you have permission from the Photographer to share it. All copyrights belong to their owners. This is just a free, fun, community site about nature.

As always, THANK YOU for being here and being part of the Nature-Led community!

But wait there’s more! Here is Dinah’s on the cusp photo submission for “Nature at Rest”!

On Black Beach looking North, Australia. By Dinah. Dec 31, 2022. https://moreidlethoughts.wordpress.com/

Interactive: Trees & Paths photo submissions

July 28, 2022 ~ melaniereynolds ~ 23 Comments

First Request for submissions

Hello Nature-Led Friends!

It’s been a while since we’ve done any interactive activities, so here are two easy ways for you to participate and get out in nature or at least be inspired by it! It would be really exciting and interesting to get a variety of submissions from different regions and countries.

AUGUST PHOTO CHALLENGE: Unknown Paths SUBMIT BEFORE: AUGUST 31st

I always want to know what’s “over yonder” whether it be around a bend or over a hill. Paths that disappear out of view invite us to make new discoveries.

North Vancouver Island, British Columbia By Melanie Reynolds, 2018

In Japan, curved stone paths are the bane of drunks and demons alike. It is both an aesthetic design choice and a belief that one can lose the hot pursuit of a demon upon a crooked path.

Submission: Please submit a photo, illustration, or mixed media art project of a pathway that you find interesting.

Original submission or submitted with permission of the artist. Artist retains all rights to their work. It’s recommended that you watermark your art and/or fill in the meta data of the photo if you are concerned about copyright.

You email should include: Your submission as a .JPEG or .PNG file, General location (State/Province & Country), your name/the Artist’s name, and a link to your website if you have one.

Email to: natureledlife@gmail.com Subject: August Submission

The Prize: My love and gratitude for participating.

SEPTEMEBER PHOTO CHALLENGE: A Tree SUBMIT BEFORE: SEPTEMBER 30TH

Let’s highlight the beauty of different trees in a variety of settings. I’ll admit, I often find it a challenge to get a good picture of a single tree. Let’s how you do.

Alder in the Fog, At Home in Washington State, By Melanie Reynolds, 2022

Many cultures have stories about how different tree species inhabit spirits, special properties or symbolism. For example, the weeping willow is a symbol of death and grieving of a loved one in various cultures.

Submission: Please submit a photo, illustration, or mixed media art project of a tree that you find interesting.

You email should include: Your submission as a .JPEG or .PNG file, General location (State/Province & Country), your name/the Artist’s name, and a link to your website if you have one.

Email to: natureledlife@gmail.com Subject: September Submission

The Prize: My love and gratitude for participating.

Don’t let me down! Please participate! We would all love to see a diversity of interesting submissions. You have a month for each. It’s okay if you don’t consider yourself and “artist”, just give it a try!

Side Note: I’m currently recovering from surgery and working on my dark fairytales book. Content here might be a bit sporadic over the next two months. These photo submissions will give us all something to look forward too. Thank you!

A Nature-Led Halloween

October 27, 2021 ~ melaniereynolds ~ 9 Comments

In the U.S. we celebrate Halloween on October 31st every year. Oddly enough, when I searched “Which countries celebrate Halloween?” I found a listing of the “Top 14” countries (Wait, 14? Yep.) and the U.S. wasn’t even included on the list! Well I suppose we can’t be first of everything, all the time. At least IRELAND, the birthplace of All Hallows Eve made the list at number 10. Who made this list? Author unknown. Let’s take this ordered ranking with a pinch of salt because no one saw fit to attach their name or justification for it.

One of these years I would love to visit our neighbors to the south, aka Mexico, to experience Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead.) What a wonderful cultural tradition to feast with the spirits of deceased family members in a day of love and remembrance. Everything about it is visual eye candy from the sugar skulls, painted faces, beautiful dresses and black suits.

Here in the U.S. kids run around in the dark going door to door yelling “Trick or Treat” and receiving candy. We pretty much just ignore the “Trick” part of the equation. If you’re considered mean, or if the kids are just mean, you might get eggs thrown at your house, but that’s not very common. If you don’t want to give out candy just keep your porchlight off and the little gremlins will ignore your house like moths looking for the next porchlight to gather around.

I’ve always enjoyed Halloween, myself. I think its fun to dress up and be something different for a night.

Last year, I was sad to think the kids wouldn’t get to celebrate Halloween as usual and while we did have to do things a little differently, many of us still had a lot of fun. I took my son and many people left candy out, so that it felt more like a scavenger hunt. A few neighbors dressed warmly and tossed candy up and over for the kids to catch like pop-up flyballs at the baseball stadium.

This is what I did: We had our window blinds open and waved at the kids as they came to grab a bag off the line. Normally we get eight or nine trick or treaters with a bunch of candy leftover, but last year we got at least 20! I have no idea what to expect this year.

I’ll be doing this same “Clothesline candy system” again this year.

The vaccine was just approved for children 2-11 years old this week. They’ll be receiving 1/3 of the adult dose. Hopefully many kids can start getting vaccinated by Thanksgiving (November 25th.)

What is Cultural Appropriation? Dressing up to mimic a person of another race in a stereotypical or satirical way. Hollywood was guilty of this for a number of years, often trying to generate comedic value from it. Look no further than Micky Rooney’s character Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961). I don’t think we need to ban everything with offensive content in it. Put a notice on it calling it out for what it is and lets do better to eliminate these prejudices moving forward. Indigenous people’s regalia (headdresses and dress) are not Halloween costumes. They are religious and cultural artifacts. It’s good to admire people of different backgrounds and ethnicities, but don’t attempt to change your skin tone in the name of some misplaced attempt at authenticity. It’s offensive. If you weren’t born Black, don’t put on a “Black face.” When in doubt, go as a tree, or a dog, or some other non-human being. They have no idea what this craziness is all about and aren’t likely to get upset about it. The family dog would love it if you dressed up as soft and fluffy as they are for some couch loafing time.

When I was a kid I alternated between two costumes that I loved from grades 2nd to 6th grade, Generic Princess and the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz. My nose kept falling off so I guess I was really just a kid in green face paint. I’ve also been a pirate and Cleopatra. My last “costume” was as a tired mom. It was really cold that year so I threw on my fuzzy bathrobe over my overcoat and walked around with a thermos full of coffee. Somewhere around the eighth house visited I got some Kahlua poured into it. That was nice.

How to make it a Nature-Led Halloween:

Re-use decorations for as long as you can year after year. (Simple is best in my opinion. It takes me 15 minutes to put up/put away Halloween each year and I’ve had these things for at least ten years now.)

Be mindful about the decorations you put outside. Is it secure from the elements like rain and wind? Does it have the potential to trip or tangle up people or animals? Do not use fake spiderwebs or netting outdoors. These have been known to harm and kill owls, bats, and small birds.

Use natural decorations like pumpkins that can last for weeks, often times all the way to Thanksgiving. Then compost them when they get moldy or if its an edible pumpkin or gourd, eat it before it has a chance to go bad.

Use natural elements from around your yard to spruce up a display or flower container. You can use dried leaves on a length of twine to create a banner.

Prices are getting quite high these days for a lot of items. I really wanted some flowers, so I bought the most inexpensive ones I could find and added some fern fronds from the yard to give the arrangement more height and variation. I like how it turned out. What do you think?