It’s Falling—Part 2

As Fall comes on, birds forage for the last remaining sweet berries—either stocking up for their migration south or enjoying their last treats before being forced to eat dry, tasteless seeds on wintry days for those who remain here. I like to examine the clearing’s deciduous trees, looking for their old nests, hidden beneath canopies of leaves during the summer, but now exposed by the fallen leaves.

As I write, a large flock of grackles just descended on our dogwood trees, stripping every berry in just a few minutes. Luckily for the year-‘round avian residents, we are beginning to load up the bird feeder, since they were robbed of their berries by the invading grackles. If truth were to be told, I think the local birds favor the meaty sunflower seeds continually delivered to their feeder, spurning the bland dogwood berries.

Our neighborhood avian tenants begin to congregate in the Fall. Their summertime competitive engagements are now forgotten, as their offspring have either departed for new environs or joined the band as adults. The newly-formed flock hovers around the bid feeder, urging me to stock it with ever-increasing amounts of seeds. The flocking also boosts their safety—now that they can no longer evade predators by hiding in bushes or dense trees. In a cooperative group many eyes are better at avoiding being on the lunch menu for a hawk.

Fall also impacts many types of plants. It’s the time for them to propagate seeds for next spring’s rebirth. Some of those seeds get eaten and lost to plant reproduction, but they put out such a prolific harvest that a few find fertile ground for a renewed life next year. Some hide at the center of enticing fruits—indigestible and waiting to be pooped out later, at some distance away. Some seeds have become adept at latching onto animals’ coats and people’s pant legs—counting on help to spread their latent promise. Some simply count on the wind to blow them hither and yon.

Then last but (I’d like to believe) not least, Fall has its impact on us humans. For weeks in mid-to-late summer we fret over the lack of rain—watching one promising thunderstorm after another bypass us and dump on city folks, who just get annoyed by the showery inconvenience. Cheated of shower after shower, we water and water, in a struggle to keep plants healthy and growing. Now in the Fall those plants are preparing for dormancy. They no longer need water. We are reprieved!

Another wonderful gift of Fall to us is the disappearance of biting insects. We can once again pause and enjoy our surroundings, without being hassled by mosquitoes or gnats. Good riddance, suckers! I can now turn to more strenuous labors—cutting and gathering firewood, digging and transplanting, policing and cleaning the grounds—without heavily sweating and dehydrating myself in summer’s heat. My thoughts begin to turn towards indoor winter activities of writing and crafts.

Possibly the most iconic example of Fall for us is the return of the wood heating season. As plants enter their dormancy for winter, the woodstove is completing its summer dormancy. Thankful for my earlier labors that have seen a full winter’s supply of firewood set by, I’m ready to reawaken the stove for its frosty duties.

Welcome, Fall! You bring us such appreciated change.

Grackles Stealing Dogwood Berries

It’s Falling—Part 1

By mid October it’s clear that Fall has arrived in the northern Shenandoah Valley. Up to now we’ve had a few sporadic hints of autumn, but they were immediately followed by a few days of warm Indian Summer. But Fall is surely upon us now. Change can literally be felt in the air—a combination of sights, smells, sounds, and the touch of autumn molecules on your skin. It’s so refreshing!

Fall is a dynamic interim period, when the stasis of summer yields to autumn, followed by the stasis of winter. Days grow perceptively shorter now, the climate crisps, winds heighten, and temperatures tumble. Frost lurks around the next corner. Despite the fact that Nature is preparing for death and dormancy, Fall paradoxically seems a time of quickening. It rouses one’s spirit as it prepares the land for the coming hibernation.

Autumn is a celebration of summer’s bounty—when we harvest and take stock of what the garden has produced. The last fresh samples of the garden’s gifts are relished—knowing that it will be the better part of a year before we’ll be enjoying that newly-picked taste again. We’re fully thankful, however, for all we have been able to set by; stocking up the freezer, in canning jars, in bags of dried veggies, and have waiting in the fruit cellar.

Fall is a verb. Of 25 definitions for Fall in my dictionary, the first 17 treat the word as a verb, as an action. Moreover, Fall is an intransitive verb, because, first and foremost, it is an action verb. We experience the doings of its impact. Fall is dynamic—it moves, it IS. It’s on the road to somewhere, and we are caught up in the excitement of the journey and in anticipation of the destination. After the doldrums of late summer, we’re finally going places! Fall is in the driver’s seat and is taking us there.

Fall’s impact on Nature is profound. Deciduous trees quit drawing sustenance from their leaves and begin severing their connections, sealing off the interface at the leaf stem. As the leaves begin to disconnect, they lose their green chlorophyll color, change to red or yellow or orange, and float to the ground. Fall derives its name from this shedding of leaves.

Insects prepare either to die or to over-winter huddled under those discarded leaves. Colonies of wasps wrap up their summer’s labors, as the workers begin to perish, while the queens—full of eggs for the following spring—seek their winter’s slumber. Colonies of bees begin to huddle closer together to provide the warmth they need to survive the winter—bolstered by an ample supply of nourishing honey they’ve laid up during warmer times.

Next time: more impacts of Fall.

Red Eye Special

Hark, Sweet Cricket

Through the late summer and early fall our woods resound with the relentless cacophony of raucous insects. Cicadas, crickets, and katydids maintain a constant racket—cicadas taking the day shift, katydids covering the night shift, while the crickets are freelancers who set off any time (most all the time) they please.

I’m amazed at the amount of acoustic power these tiny critters can generate. Some folks consider the sound of a cricket to be melodic. Not me. Occasionally one of these noisemakers decides to invade the house. Oh, joy! Legend has it that a cricket in the house at the end of the season brings good fortune. So our luck must be on the upswing, because we've had several fall cricket invasions the last couple of years. This gift of cricket luck seems to me to be a mixed blessing, however.

While I can't attest to any good luck brought us by our most recent singing resident, I can confirm that he can become extremely irritating. His favorite singing spot is in the kitchen, behind the freezer. He seems to know that the little echo space he’s found augments his calls, while the body of the freezer keeps me from getting at him. For much of the day—and far too much of the night—the cricket sends out his raucous call, oblivious to the fact that no eligible female can respond to him while he remains in the house.

On the third morning of his visit, as Mr. Cricket began to call, I noted with excitement that he had moved! His irritating noise now came from under the computer. Aha! Maybe this was my chance to get him. If I could manage to capture him, I could escort him back outdoors and invite him to sing in much closer proximity to his fellow (female) critters.

Getting down on my knees, I gazed into the tangled maze of computer wires. Of course, as soon as he sensed my presence, he fell silent. I retreated. He soon began his call. I advanced. He stopped. We engaged in this dance a few times, until he got a bit complacent and continued his calling even when my face was close by.

There he was, hiding under a glob of wires! I grabbed a plastic cup—hoping to plop it down over him and prevent his escaping back behind the freezer. I lifted the cup, aiming at him, but he ducked farther back. Soon we were doing another type of dance, as the cricket feinted in one direction and I followed with my cup at the ready.

Eventually, he hopped into the clear. With great precision, like a skilled Samurai warrior, I aimed my cup and trapped him! I grabbed a card, slid it under the cup, and carefully lifted the makeshift cricket cage. Walking outside, I headed towards some brush where another cricket was calling. I lifted the cup and Mr. Cricket took a mighty leap towards freedom. I smiled, waved goodbye, and retraced my steps to the once-again quiet house.

The culture that created the legend of receiving good luck from a house cricket would possibly frown on my deed. Did the capture and banishment outdoors of this cricket cancel his gift of good luck? Did my unkind thoughts about the cricket's racket even foster a little bad luck? I don’t know, but I choose to take solace in the possibility that the cricket would have slowly perished of starvation behind the freezer (despite the many popcorn pieces that have fallen back there, over the years). I choose to believe that I saved him from much anguish and suffering so that at least I might be free of any cricket curse.

Paper Wasp Nest (There are TWO species of wasp sharing this nest)

Our Private Images

I’ve written before about the mental images we humans construct (on July 8 and 12 of this year)—how the impression we create of an object in our mind is a fragmentary and incomplete depiction of reality. (In those postings I described how our mental image of a tree contrasts radically with what the tree really is.) After we form these images, all of our future behavior is based on that incomplete, and usually flawed, impression. In a way it’s amazing that we can function this way at all, but evolutionary experience demonstrates that these imprecise images work quite well for us. They are neither accurate nor complete, but they do the job!

So our mental image is our attempt at capturing the useful (to us) essence of the actual thing, but that image and the object are two very different and separate entities, right? Well, maybe not. The image I create in my head—that collection of electrical signals—in some sense makes the object part of me. The tree and the mental image of it may be entirely different things, and yet they are intimately bound together. In a way, I have made the tree a part of me. It can be an instructive meditation to become more conscious of the deep connection that we have with the world around us, and thus how it has become part of us.

We humans also share our images with each other. So, is the image I’ve created in my head the same as yours? I don’t think we really know, and I’d guess that in several ways they differ. Yet we both are human, we both have essentially the same kind of senses, and we use them in very similar ways. We share a similar consciousness. We also share a very descriptive language. When I describe to you my image of an oak tree and you later gaze at it or touch it, the image you then form in your head probably closely matches the one you had previously constructed from my description.

This situation is quite different in the case of a description I might paint for you of a movie I just saw. When you later watch it, you might wonder if it’s even the same movie. This brings in a whole set of emotional responses that color our images—responses that we individually have to our sensory experiences. I’m trying to stick to images of physical things here. It’s tough enough to get a handle on them, trying to keep the emotions out of it!

When we compare our human mental images to those of another species, it’s a wholly different situation. Their senses are fundamentally dissimilar. My image of a fly and that of a spider’s must be hardly comparable. Furthermore, I can’t talk to a spider to compare our respective images. A dog who howls at the moon must have a very different mental image from me, a creature who has viewed photographs taken by Apollo astronauts who once walked there.

Our images are, by definition, very private things. Mine may resemble yours, but I can’t really know what your images are like. I try to keep in mind that although our images may be very different, they are just as valid or relevant to each of us.

Wooly Bear Caterpillar (Will it really be a cold winter?)