say it with food

"If you have something to say, say it with food," is a phrase not unique to this specific place. It's something that, while not generally verbalized so explicitly, is played out in many places urban, suburban and rural. I'm in a number of community groups and I am happy when the 'build community' goal is spurred along by people bringing hand crafted foods. Most of you are likely familiar with the poster "How to Build Community," which features advice such as "turn off your TV" and "go for a walk" and "sit out on your front porch." I'll add "bring along hand crafted food." The world would be a much better place if more people had their hands in a mixing bowl when they did not have their hands in the soil of the garden. Just be sure to wash your hands inbetween.

Skiing Bonus Round

This extended late winter weather has provided a bonus round of cross country skiing. It’s a particular kind of cross country skiing – sliding on what yesterday was a layer of slush but this mornings is a hard crust.

Throughout most of the winter, I have my favorite trails to follow and like a meadow vole I stick to those runways. Must be my goal orientedness (is that a word?). I like to know how far I skied and how long it took me to do so. The past few mornings, though, I’ve gone off track. Off track in a good way. I just go out and go in which ever direction I feel like going with no real plan. I don’t know how far I’ve gone. I do know it’s been great fun.

A topo map of our property would look like a blank piece of paper. There is not a single contour line. Sounds like a boring ski, and I generally do prefer skiing in some topographic relief. But these aimless wandering skis over our flat terrain have been a real delight. First, skiing over the hay fields brings out a Walter Mitty feeling of skiing across the trackless arctic (except it’s only for an hour and I get to retreat to a warm house*). Also, the prevailing NW winds over the winter have driven the snowfalls into drifts downwind of the scattered shrubs. Sliding up and down and around the drifts offers another Walter Mitty feeling of skiing big moguls.

It’s not all fantasy though. And it’s not about ‘oh, now I feel recharged to get on with the day’s tasks.’ Or not totally anyway. And it’s not just ‘oh, good, I’m burning off that delicious but very large piece of home-made apple pie with an all butter crust I ate last night.’ Not totally. It’s mostly an in-the-moment, having-fun- right now kind of sensation. The idea of ‘as much fun as you can have with your clothes on’ did go through my mind. The other aspects are added benefit, but it’s all about the fun. It’s the same sensations derived from bicycling down an open road. And that season is coming real soon.

*I recently finished Adam Gopnik’s book “Winter: Five Windows on the Season.” It’s a good read, wildly rambling through history, humanities, sports, global climate change. His contention is that winter only became thought of as a pleasurable time of year once central heating was invented. I would agree with that. Winter activities are enjoyable only if one can then go back to one’s nice warm abode. 

Remains of winter

Several days ago, winter made an encore performance. We got a few inches of new snow on top of the snowpack. We also had cold overnight temps that firmed up the snowpack. Before that, it was starting to rot, which made for a certain sinking feeling when the ground drops out from under you as you walk or even ski across. There's the expression about having the rug pulled out from under you. Is there an expression about having the ground drop out from under you? Falling into 2' of rotting snow makes for a tricky extrication exercise.

Yesterday through today, winter made a curtain call. Not quite an encore. Not everyone was encouraging winter's return to the stage. For the past several ski sessions I have thought that it would be the last of the season. I think there's a few more left but I do feel some degree of infidelity to skiing. The sun angles are such that I can't help but think about cycling while skiing. That must be a sign that it is time to indeed bid winter a fond farewell. Well sometime during the month of April anyway.

The snowbanks are starting to recede a bit, too. One advantage of the snowbanks is that they lend a degree of topographic relief to an otherwise flat plain.

Ecology of a cracker childhood

If you're interested in how place informs one's life, you should read "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood," by Janisse Ray. It's Janisse's story about how she grew up in a south Georgia junkyard but developed a strong sense of place around the pine woods and from the base provided by her devoted but troubled family. Several of us here at the University plan to use it at as a common reading across several of our classes -- English, Biology, Psych, Sociology, Communications. One of the ideas I need to do a better job of in my Ecology class is to show these science students that science facts are an important part of communicating information about natural resources conservation, but stories are very important, too. I'll explain that's why we're reading a Ms. Ray's very engaging story in addition to technical texts and articles.

Just in case you're curious, Janisse Ray is a conservation advocate, runs a farm in Georgia and teaches writing. I have not read her other books yet but highly recommend "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood."

Warming up

It is cold out with minus double digits overnight and  +/- single digits during the day. Bright sunshine really helps but it's still cold.

Skiing today I felt like the older cars we used to have that required a little bit of warm up before driving them off. (Today's cars do not. They are made to start and go. I see people warming their cars up, often starting them with a remote starter, so that they will be nice and toasty when they get in. I also see people leaving their cars running while they run into the store for 'just a few minutes.' For the sake of the air we all breathe, I wish they would be willing to be a little cold for the few minutes it takes modern cars to start putting out heat.)

I felt like the older car today, not the newer car. I'm not old enough to have achy joints that need to be loosened up, but I did notice that my hands were cold starting off. My body said "It's cold, I'm going to keep the warm blood in my core area. Sorry hands, you'll have to wait until we know it's safe to send some out to you." My hands saud "Oh don't worry about me," meanwhile thinking of the next time they're called on to convey food. Then we'll see if they remember this incident.

After about 10 minutes I was all warmed up and my hands got their warm blood and were happy. I guess it was cold out if I'm imagining conversations between body parts.

.....

Somewhere I saw a quote in which a character in the story said to another character "You couldn't live in a dry country." I guess it was kind of a taunt. Up here we could say to others "you couldn't live in a cold country,"  Some could reply back "you couldn't live in a hot country." Those in the middle of the country could say "you couldn't live in a -10 one day then 50 the next then back to 20 the next country." And some would reply "Um, well, I could but I don't think I'd like it."

Lost in thought and not because that's unfamiliar territory

Today I had a chance to ski to one of my favorite woodland sites.

I visit the site frequently in summer and fall with my ecology class to take forest composition data (and to show the area off to the students) but otherwise I don’t get out there on my own. I’ve been wanting to ski back to that site but it’s not on the way to anywhere I often go and just far enough away to require a special trip. Today I was in luck. I had a meeting and this site was on the way. The weather recently turned against us skiers: we lost a good deal of snow in the recent deep thaw. The trails on our place have bare ground showing. But I gave it a try on this site anyway.

Turned out that snow conditions were OK. Yesterday’s flurries left a light dusting over the hard pack left from the thaw. It looked like this area had gotten some extra lake effect snow before the thaw, so enough of the base survived.

First was the ski in to the trail since the road was closed for the winter. The one mile of skiing on the 30 ft-wide, snow-covered roadway was easy but not especially scenic. The trail was more than scenic.

I know this woodland well. I know and even have data (the class-collected data) to show the rich diversity of flowers and the forest composition. It’s a maple/yellow birch/yew forest with scattered oaks and spruces and firs, and hemlocks and white pines over by the lake. The large, widely spaced trees; lack of early successional species; pit and mound topography; and abundance of coarse woody debris across decay classes indicates that it’s taking on some old-growth characteristics. That’s been quantified. I also know, but don’t have hard data to prove, that’s there’s just something about it that makes this an especially pretty forest. I make that unsubstantiated claim to the students. They don’t feel the need to write that down. They know it won’t be on the test.

What I wanted to see today was the winter contrast.  And it was a contrast. The coarse woody debris was mainly covered up. There were no tracks except for one set of squirrel tracks. I did make a note of the hemlock regeneration in the patch of hemlocks for thinking more about at a later time. Not a lot of natural history action to see. What there was to see was a quiet forest under a thin blanket of snow. And that same ‘just something about it that makes it a lovely forest’ was still there.

I found myself not so much lost in thought as lost in lack of thoughts. That feeling of health, beauty and goodness took over. Issues that were bothering me before became the trivial annoyances of life that they actually were. That’s a feeling I like. 

Paying attention

Sorry open fields. You only got the dismissive ‘very nice’ like one would tell a budding young artist about her work when one was sincere but not really paying that much attention. As I skied the first part of this morning’s loop, my mind was on the start-up phase of a new project instead of on appreciating the natural scene I was skiing through. The track was well packed through open fields. It didn’t require any higher order cognitive skills to navigate. My mind wandered. At least I wasn’t mulling over controversies and issues of one of my other projects. But neither I wasn’t adhering to the guideline “When I am skiing, I am skiing.”

Nature got me back, though. The next part of the loop required my full attention to squeeze through the shrubs and trees and over and around the downed logs. That gave me time to notice the woodlands a bit more. Then nature commanded my attention as I came out of the woods into the stream valley. Bright, slanting morning light on a quarter mile stretch of open stream and wetlands with woods up on the banks. That got more than an ‘very nice.’ That got a ‘oh, yes, wow.’

Nature also got the last laugh. While finishing up the loop, my mind started to wander again only to be brought up short. Nothing fills one’s gloves with snow quite like a hands- first dive into the snow caused by the old ski-under-a-shrub-branch-that-foot-can’t-fit-through routine. After some muttering, I was back on my way only to find myself back into the snow having caught my pole basket in a shrub on the upswing. That elicited some actual vocalizations not meant for others to hear. So OK nature, I get it. In the future, I will  try to remember “when I’m skiing, I’m skiing.”

Know the other guy's place

This blog is about knowing more about where you live – to know your place. The idea is that by knowing your place, you’re more likely to appreciate your place and to work toward stewardship of your place. It’s also about using place making as an economic development tool.

This past holiday break, we did our usual, wonderful, family visits. Our visits take us to quite contrasting places: a now 4^th generation family farm in farm country where the farms are getting ever larger (‘tho not our family’s), to sprawling suburbs (including aging neighborhoods and newer neighborhoods that even have restrictive covenants), to a walkable, livable downtown area of a smaller town. Each place has its merits. We know each of those places; some were our own places at previous points in our lives.

It occurs to me that in addition to knowing your place, we should also get to know each other’s places, since in our family, place seems to be correlated to political leanings. Given the polarized politics we seem to have gotten ourselves into as a nation, maybe by knowing each others’ places, we can partly come to see things from the other guy’s  perspective and appreciate each other’s viewpoint. Where we’re from and how we have interacted with that place provides some insight into why we think the way we do. At college, ‘where are you from’ is often the first question new acquaintances ask one another (soon followed by ‘what’s your major?’) It’s not just small talk. Knowing someone’s background – i.e., their place -- and interests helps us know them. By getting to know each other, we may even come to realize that all those people who disagrees with us politically are not necessarily just idiots.  Well, not all of them anyway. 

The future of shopping

I recently heard on the radio a report about the future of retail. Apparently in the future, the stores will 'hear' you coming by detecting the approach of your cell phone. That will bring your purchasing history up and the staff will be able to greet you by name and then direct you to the merchandise you're most likely to be interested in. The interviewer asked about the creepiness factor involved. The interviewee suggested that once we see that it will save us money and result in a more fulfilling shopping experience, we'll be all for it. No thanks. I think I'll stick with my hometown stores that don't have to pretend like they know me. I sometimes don't know quite how to respond when a checkout clerk at major retailer X, after reading my name on my credit card, thanks me by first name for shopping at this store. I am friendly enough about it, but I can't help thinking "You don't me!"

I like it when the clerks I actually do know engage me in authentic conversations. That did not happen instantly. It happens after many times of choosing to go to the small local retailer and building an acquaintance. Even that took some getting used to upon moving from busy town to small town. At first I did find it a bit annoying that the check out clerks thought they had to chat up each customer. Now that I'm one of those customers I do kind of like it.

A few thoughts for early December

Three to four inches of fresh powder on frozen ground. Nice conditions to ski around the campus loop. Just enough stick on the kick, nice slide on the glide. Or something like that. ‘Tho in my case it isn’t so much kick-and-glide as shuffle and shamble.

It was also nice to have my polymorphous, two-dimensional companion alongside. I did not realize how much I had missed seeing shadows. It had been cloudy for day after day until this recent high pressure brought nice clear skies. Around town, people remarked on the nice weather. Cold but clear. And no one even said ‘oh but we’ll pay for it later.’ That’s the response one often hears when we have clear, sunny days in winter. It’s not pessimism. It’s that we often get sloppy days after clear days when low pressure moves in after high pressure and drags gloomy skies along.

………

The city has a new place-making initiative to reshape the, well, shall we say, overlooked back side of part of our downtown. The back of that stretch of businesses that face the waterfront is not the most attractive part of our town. It could be a natural funnel to draw people to the adjacent downtown streets. That's the idea of the place-making initiative.

It was a well-organized and well-attended meeting. People shared their aspirations for what that part of our downtown could be. Open space for civic events, kind of a town square concept, seemed to be a common theme. This project runs through next summer, when a concept plan will be provided by the consultants with the hope that the concept plan will guide development and spur a search for funds to carry out the plan.

The meeting illustrated a sense-of-place concept I had not thought of until reading about it recently in a place-making blog, namely, the role of good governance. We have our share of shady insider deals in our town, as in any, but they are not institutionalized in the city government. From my perspective, our city government is open. The city commission and administrators really do listen at public listening sessions and projects do seem mainly to track public desires. We would not be considered an especially progressive town, but we do have some projects addressing land use planning and other sustainability ideas. Things move slowly, but that has the advantage that we’re not lurching from one new idea to the other.

……

We were considering dropping our subscription to the local paper. That’s a shocking move for us. “You gotta subscribe to the local paper,” we’ve always said. “How else will you know what’s going on?” Admittedly part of knowing what’s going on is seeing which of our students are in the police blotter feature. But it’s also a way to know of upcoming events. In speaking to other residents after some event, I often hear “I never even heard that was coming up.” I try not to say “Well I can’t help it that you’re un-informed.”

I’ve been reading about successful local papers that go beyond the police blotter, high school sports, obits and legals. Papers that have in-depth, local content. Ours needs more of that. Our next small town to the south has a weekly that does. We subscribed for a few years, but let our subscription lapse since learning about happenings in the neighboring county didn't have a favorable cost/benefit ratio for us. 

We would have gone Sunday only with our local paper, but that is not an option. (Reading the Sunday morning paper is a long-standing tradition in our household, even if it takes some effort to stretch the reading of the local Sunday paper out to 20 minutes). So we’ll keep our subscription for now. The next time our local paper runs duplicate stories from one day to the next, (it’s even been known to do it in the same edition), misses out on reporting what could have been a good local story, or drops another feature from its coverage, we’ll think again about whether to continue our subscription. We want to support local media but not as a pity purchase. We look for value that we can’t get elsewhere. Maybe Warren Buffet will buy our paper and fortify it.

An outsiders perspective

A few weeks ago, we made quick trip to see the extended family for a fun event. Flew out Friday morning, back Sunday night. The family event, a wedding, was great and it’s always nice to see extended family for a fun event. During the travel time, I ended up reading Prairie Spring by Peter Dunne. So it was fun reading about the part of the country I was traveling to. As someone who grew up in the plains and prairies, I was interested to see what one of those easterners had to say about some of my favorite places. I wanted to see if he got it right. I also recalled that sometimes it takes an outsider to do a good job of interpreting a place (I seem to remember something from history class about Alexis de Tocqueville’s contribution to America’s understanding of itself). I am happy to report that Dunne did indeed get it right.

The book documents the travels he and his wife did across the Great Plains during spring time. Lots of good info about birds (Dunne is a well-known birder) and plants, but even more so the book was about the people who live in the plains are working to conserve what they love about their place. Dunne uses good creative non-fiction technique to make for an informative and fun read. (As a biologist, I’m as eager to read dense technical info as anyone, but for a fun read I have to admit that bringing in the people can make it fun).

I also ran across what to me is a sad commentary about reading about the plains and prairies while flying over them. A marketing blurb on the back of a different plains and prairies book – one I did not buy because I did not like that marketing blurb – said that this was the book to read while flying over the middle of the country to let you know what was going on down there while you’re flying over it. Yikes. I guess if that’s your attitude about the plains and prairies, we’d just as soon not have you drop by!

As fun as it was to see family, I did manage to sneak off to the local wildlife area. The elk were especially cooperative, standing in silhouette against the afternoon sky on the first small rise from the road. The bison were not so cooperative but were still easy to see a bit farther off.

Haven’t written much this month about place (travel makes the stack of papers to grade get so much taller!). I must get back into the habit. Writing about experiences does help one get more from the experiences (you English profs out there are saying ‘duh!’). In the mean time, we do have skiable snow. Time to get out on it.

today's random thoughts

Met someone today who is from the Upper Peninsula  but, as she puts it, has to work downstate sometimes. She told us about how when she crosses the Mackinac Bridge she always rolls down her windows and opens the sun roof on her car to flush out the downstate air with good, clean UP air. She admitted that this time of year, it makes for some cold air in the car.

UP - not a separate state, just a separate state of mind.
...

We live out of town and typically come straight home after work. We don't spend many evenings in town, but tonight I had a meeting that kept me in town 'til dinner time, so I availed myself of some local food and drink. I walked downtown from campus for the exercise, the think time and to see what there was to see. After my dinner, the walk back to campus took me past the laundromat. Since it was dark outside, it was like looking in on a picture. Nothing says college town like seeing a student studying while doing laundry in the laundromat.
...
I'm not a particularly smiley person. I'm no grouch, just not necessarily one of those people who always are smiling. But when I see something just that's just so fun to see, I can't help but smile. Tonight I pulled into a store parking lot to go get a few things I needed. A grandpa and grandson were making their way toward their car right by where I was pulling in. Grandpa and grandson appeared to be having a great time, so I could not help but smile as I pulled up and walked by. Grandpa must have seen me appreciating the scene.  'Hi, how are you doing," he stated, to which I simply replied quietly 'Good!' A minor moment. It brought to mind a recent news report that I had heard about a study that showed how smiling at a stranger leads to good feelings in both parties involved. I have to agree with that study. It did feel good. I'm still not a particularly smiley person, but when the occasion present itself I guess I am.

closed storefronts, but wait...

I don't like seeing closed storefronts. Well, I guess no one really does, but having lived in places where the downtowns are plagued by closed storefronts -- any knowing of rural midwest towns that most of the downtown is now closed storefronts-- they make me especially sad.

I was downtown the other day and the closed storefronts looked kind of forlorn. I know they're just closed for the season, but I still can't help but feel a bit of melancholy (not sure of the part of speech here, but I know it's not 'feel melancholonic'). We're not a resort town. We don't lose that much population in the winter and we make up for it with the college students in the fall and spring. The only businesses that close for the season are the DQ, the two burger shacks on the river and the fudgey row businesses. So it's not that sad. While the signs say "Closed for the Season, " they then dispel any doubts with their declaration of "See You Next Spring!"

Making a healthy walk healthier

Wednesday AM. Sitting here at my desk, feeling like I need some exercise. Got about 50 minutes before my morning class starts. But I need a destination. I can’t just walk around just to walk around. Coffee shop! 15 minutes each way, just enough time for a coffee and something sweet to eat.. “Yea, but,” says the voice in my head, “weren’t you just there yesterday eating something sugary?” Hmm. Yes I was. Maybe too soon for another sugary treat. “And aren’t you about out of extra-budgetary cash from doing that pretty often?” Right again. “Better pick another destination.” How about the bookstore? So I walked downtown, past the coffee shop, just around the corner and perused the new local interest books. I’ll go back and get Visiting Tom and let you know in a future post how I liked it . I kept my eye on the time so that I would not get engrossed and thus late for class. Got back with 5 minutes to spare, having gotten some exercise, having found a new book to add to the very long list of books to read, and with a net expenditure of calories this time.

It's all in the context

I was hiking with the students my eco lab through a forest this fall in a cool, drizzly day.
"Ew, it's stinky," said one of the students. "It smells like rot."
"That's the smell of our forested wetlands," I replied. "I rather like the aroma."
Some of the more outdoorsy students concurred with my point of view but we all agreed that it's not an aroma considered pleasant by all.
It occurred to me that what I really like is the associations I have with that aroma. It makes me think of enjoyable days spent hiking around the forested wetlands taking in the scenery, getting out in a natural area, learning new plants and pondering how that ecosystem functions. It is all in the context.

Enjoying the fall weather bike style

So OK, the sleet did sort of sting on my face. Not the most favorite part of my bike commute yesterday. I tried to time my ride between the squall lines but didn’t hit it quite right. All day, we had wave after wave of rain and sleet for several minutes with about 30 to 45 minutes of sunshine in between. Forty five minutes of clear weather would be just right for the ride home. But I was delayed a bit in leaving so by the time I got away it was ½ way through the clear, which meant I’d encounter a squall. But after the sleet, the last half the ride was in clear weather. A nice ride overall.

I have always thought it’d be adventurous to be a consistent 3-season bike commuter over a reasonable distance. Many years (and about the same number of pounds) ago, I would sometimes do a 15 mile one-way commute but only on nice days. It required a change of clothes and freshen up in the washroom upon arriving at work so it was not a causal ride. I now have a more reasonable, 15 mile round-trip distance which can be done in street clothes. I frequently ride in during summer; this was the first time I had in October. With the recent addition of a commuter bike (i.e, with fenders and – full disclosure - battery assist) and the with the right rain suit, it was really quite a pleasant ride, aside from the few minutes of sleet. 

I had ridden in to work the previous morning in a warm drizzle which was quite a pleasant ride. I car pooled home that evening, leaving the bike in my office overnight. I car pooled in the next morning then rode home that afternoon. I don't claim to be an everyday bike commuter.

Part of appreciating the place one lives is appreciating and getting out in all weather. And here we have all weather. I don’t intend to ride in the winter. Snowpacked roads are too treacherous (I knew people in Fargo who would put a traction chain on the front wheel of their bike – I don’t need to be that hard-core). And subzero weather is a bit too extreme for me for cycling. But regularly biking in from March through October is quite do-able. People like walks in the rain. Rides in the rain can be enjoyable, too, in their own way. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to forego rides in the summer in shorts to save up my bike riding days for fall rides in the rain. 

When I saw that today’s weather was going to be snow/rain mix all day, I chose to carpool in. Today it was a walk downtown this morning for a coffee instead of a bike ride. It was quite an enjoyable walk in the rain that turned to snow. Looks like we’ll get a little accumulation today. 

Place and Being Organized

Can where you live determine your level of organization? For twenty of the past 22 years, we’ve lived out-of, but close-to, town. Therefore when we’re doing a plumbing, electrical or construction project we have the luxury of being able to go to town the three or four times it takes to get everything we need to get the job done. Our closeness to town is enabling that way (for the two years we lived in town it was still just 3 or 4 trips to various stores per project). But how about those people who live so far from town that they need to be sure to get everything they need the one time they are in town? That’d be impressive.

The people who live outside cell phone range  have to be even better organized. We all used to be a bit better organized that way. It seemed like only a few years ago that I was resisting getting a cell phone because I said it was for people with poor planning. Everyone used to make plans ahead of time. You had a designated time and place to meet. If the other party did not show up within an unstated but somehow mutually agreed to timeframe, well, we followed the unstated but somehow mutually agreed plan B. If one were meeting someone in town, the waiting time could be just 10-15 minutes but for a remote meet it could be up to 1-1/2 hours to wait until switching to plan B. If the other party didn't show up, you’d ask them about it the next time you saw them. Now no one plans, we – me included -- just call to smake and to change plans. It’s a great time saver. No more waiting and wondering for those precious 10-15 minutes. I’m sure our time is much more valuable today compared to years past and taht we put that saved time to high value uses. I don’t mean to sound like a crotchety old guy. OK, it would have been nice to have been in communication with the people I waited 1-1/2 hours for at a remote site and then had to make the call to switch to plan B. Knowing they were delayed much longer than that could have saved me some time and some worry. But come to think of it, that area is probably still out of cell phone range. So I guess there are still some places where planning is an essential skill.

Wayfinding

“You know how to get to our place, you were there before”

“Yes, but that time I rode with someone else/ I followed someone else/ I just did what the GPS receiver told me to do.”

In any of those cases, the individual involved may not know how to get to your place.

I have found an especially good way to learn how to get somewhere. Head off with a vague idea of where you need to go and go. Of course it doesn’t seem like a vague idea at the time. I look at a map and say “Oh, sure, I know exactly how to get there.”

This past week, I was in the KC area. It’s where I grew up. I wanted to visit a particular site, glanced at the map and headed off, knowing exactly how to get there and headed off no map, no GPS receiver.

I need to modify my previous claim. Yes it is where I grew up but that was many years ago. I would have known exactly how to get there then but now the roads are all different. A while later, , I arrived at my destination (more modification of claims - I arrived at my destination after calling Sis who got me the exact address off her smartphone but  knew better than to offer turn-by-turn directions). But how much more informative and adventurous it was to have driven several miles in a few different directions, seeing many interesting sights and really learning the lay of the land. I saw a farmstead surrounded on all four by a high fence topped with barbed wire (what goes on at that farm?). I saw some very fine equestrian farms. And I saw just how extensive the former munitions plant is and was thus spurred to look up its history. 

If you have the time for some adventure, I recommend the wander around until you find it method of wayfinding. I’ve done it on several occasions and have gotten to know the backroads and byways in several areas that way. And sometimes I even learn a more direct route after taking the circuitous path a few more times.

Beautiful morning

I stepped outside this morning to complete some quick chores before heading to campus. I would say that I stopped momentarily to appreciate the gorgeous morning, but more truthfully the gorgeous morning made me stop and appreciate it. Clear, cool, wet from the overnight rainfall. We’re way behind on precipitation this summer so the analytic part of my mind was saying ‘yea, 0.4” of rain.’ The not-so-analytic, free-format part of my mind was saying ‘Quiet, you. Enjoy the moment.’   So I did.

Being outside is important for me. Natural environs are a tonic. ‘Built nature’ can be too, for me and for all those people who don’t have a chance to get out into natural nature. By built nature, I mean places people have brought the plants in to. These places could be farms, food gardens, flower gardens designed to produce or show off flowers or thoughtful spot gardens that draw people in, quiet them down, get them to think. It’s nature, nature fashioned by people for a particular purpose, but still nature.

One sees large and small versions of these thoughtful gardens in larger population centers. I’m reading a wonderful book about places like that: Open Spaces Sacred Places: Stories of How Nature Heals and Unifies by Tom Stoner and Carolyn Rapp. The spaces featured in this book range from a healing space at an HIV/AIDS center to a healing space at a prison to a healing space in what was a crime and drug ridden neighborhood. If I’m in the vicinity of these amazing spaces, I will stop in. The story of how they were built is as beautiful as the resulting places.

One can find thoughtful gardens in some small towns and rural areas as well. They are not so professionally crafted, but still make their own important impression.  Our area used to have a unique garden/book/artsy shop out in the country that had a garden with a walkway that invited visitors to stroll slowly and think. Unfortunately the shop is no longer in business. I don’t know what became of the garden. I know it took a lot of upkeep. One small town here in the eastern upper peninsula has a community garden, not the kind of community garden where individual gardeners have plots to work (a great, but different type of community garden) but rather a collaborative garden designed to get people to slow down and ponder. Built nature has a place even in small towns surrounded by natural nature.

Attention restaurateurs

Classes started last week. I like to use that first week to get a run-up to the class topics. For example, in ecology lab, we don’t get right into field data collection. Instead, we go out and talk about some concepts of field ecology. I like to get the students thinking about overall concepts that we will start taking data on next week. I also take the opportunity to talk about the role sense of place plays in conservation. I explain that by helping people develop a stronger sense of place, we may be able to enhance their willingness to work toward conserving the features that make their place special to them. That leads to the need to have some people who actually live  in rural areas so that we have people on the ground to advocate for the conservation of those special features. That in turn leads me to describe how someone interested in conservation of natural areas also needs to be concerned about sustainable rural economic development, which wraps right back to sense of place.For the rest of the semester we talk technical details of ecology, not the environment and society aspects. This first week is my chance to discuss those latter features, which I explain are in some ways more important than the science, but are covered in other classes. Maybe a few of these future leaders in conservation will take the message to heart.

Some entrepreneur could help build sense of place here in our town by providing on-the-river dining. We are a river town, yet the closest place on the Michigan side to dine on a deck overlooking the St. Marys River is 15 miles or so downstream. We ate there this past weekend and the river made for great ambiance. I know people who go literally that extra mile just to eat on the river like that. It’d be nice to be able to eat on the river right here in town. Several of us are just waiting for a restaurateur to see that opportunity. In the mean time, we get to-go dinners or bring our own picnic dinners to one of our nice parks on the river. Works OK for hand held food, but a nice sit down dinner on a deck overlooking the river could be quite special.