Archive for category Nature
Farewell Summer … Hello Fall
Posted by Abby Quillen in Family life, Nature on September 22, 2010
Happy First Day of Fall! We plan to celebrate the day with a meal harvested from our garden (and CSA box) and by lighting the first fire of the season. You can find simple, inexpensive ways to celebrate here.
Where I live the sun rises at 6:57 a.m. and sets at 7:10 p.m., giving us nearly equal amounts of light and darkness. (You can find out when the sun rises and sets where you live here.) Tomorrow night, look for the harvest moon – the brightest full moon of the year.
I love fall, but it’s feeling a little too much like fall around here. Usually September is dry and sunny in this part of Oregon, but this year it’s been raining a lot. We dug out our sweaters and rain clothes several weeks ago. We’ve been waking up to the sound of rain drops on the roof and water running through the gutters. Our maple tree is turning scarlet. The garden is covered with soggy leaves. Fall’s here – ready or not. We’ll miss you, summer.
Today is also World Carfree Day. According to the World Carfree Network, “people from around the world get together in the streets, intersections, and neighbourhood blocks to remind the world that we don’t have to accept our car-dominated society.” You can find out about a few of the celebrations planned here, and you can join the fun by ditching your car today and walking, biking, or hopping on public transportation instead.
Are you celebrating today? I’d love to hear about it.
Celebrate the First Day of Autumn!
Posted by Abby Quillen in Family life, Nature, Simple Living on September 15, 2010
The first day of fall, or the autumnal equinox, is September 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. On this day, the sun hovers above the equator, and most of the world enjoys nearly equal amounts of light and darkness. In traditional agricultural societies, the harvest season was drawing to a close, and people were working overtime to prepare stores for the winter months. The equinox was a time to relax, celebrate, and enjoy the bounty of the harvest, while they anticipated the scarcity or monotony of their winter diet. In modern times, autumn is a time for new beginnings – a new school year, new clothes, new friends, a new outlook.
Cultures around the world celebrate the first day of fall.
Asian Moon Festivals
The Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese have been celebrating the equinox with Moon Festivals, or Mid-Autumn Festivals, for 3000 years. In China, families and friends gather to admire the mid-autumn harvest moon, light lanterns, burn incense, and plant trees. They prepare mooncakes – a noodle-like dough filled with bean or lotus seed paste and duck egg yolks or other fillings, which are then steamed, baked, or fried.
Japanese Autumnal Equinox Day
In Japan, the fall equinox is a national holiday. The seven days starting three days before the equinox until three days after is known as Higan. The Japanese spend Higan holding family reunions and visiting family graves, offering flowers, cleaning tombstones, burning incense, and praying. Ohagi, sticky rice covered with adzuki-bean paste or soybean flour, is a popular offering to the deceased.
Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah is a two-day holiday that falls on the first and second day of the month of Tishri on the Jewish calendar – usually between September 5 and October 5 on our calendar. This year it falls from sunset on September 18 to nightfall on September 20. Rosh Hashanah is the “day of judgment” in the Torah. Observors abstain from work and spend the day in the synagogue. A shofar (ram’s horn) is blown many times to waken listeners to the coming judgment. People reflect on mistakes made in the last year and plan changes for the new year. Many observers also practice Tashlikh, or “casting off” on the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. They fill their pockets with pieces of bread, walk to a natural body of water, and empty the bread into the water, symbolically casting off the previous year’s sins. Apples or bread dipped in honey is common Rosh Hashanah fare.
Native American Harvest Ceremonies
Many tribes once celebrated the end of the harvest with equinox ceremonies. The Cherokee gave thanks to all living things at a Nuwati Egwa festival and the Chumash of southern California held a sun ceremony at the end of September. The Miwok in Northern California still celebrate the acorn harvest with a Big Time Festival on the last weekend of September. Traditionally, the Miwok relied on the acorn for food. In the fall, they harvested the fruits, cracked them, ground the meat into meal, rinsed the meal to remove its bitter tannins, and made acorn mush, bread, or soap. At modern Big Time festivals, Miwok and other California tribes perform traditional dances, play hand games, and tell stories.
Create some autumn traditions.
Why not pick some activities that you enjoy and celebrate the first day of fall? Here are a few ideas:
- Establish a table-top, shelf, or mantel to display a seasonal tableau. On the first day of fall, replace the summer decorations with leaves, ornamental corn, gourds, jack-o-lanterns, acorns, pine cones, or whatever symbolizes fall in your family.
- Collect books about the seasons at yard sales, used-book stores, and thrift shops year-round. Choose a special basket or shelf for them, and change them out on the first day of each season. Or take a trip to the library a few days before your celebration. Some of my family’s favorite fall picture-books are: Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White; Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert; Autumn is for Apples by Michelle Knudsen; Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell; Fall is Not Easy by Marty Kelly; and It’s Fall! by Linda Glaser.
- Read aloud from The Autumn Equinox by Ellen Jackson.
- Make Chinese lanterns and hang them in the house or on the porch. Click here or here for a how-to.
- Visit a local orchard, pick apples, and make apple cider, sauce, or pie.
- Invite friends over for a harvest feast, prepared with foods from your garden or the farmer’s market. Traditional autumn foods include: pears, squash, pumpkin, apples, stews, and mulled ciders.
- Bring a pile of blankets out to the porch, yard, or park, cuddle together, and tell stories about your best or worst back-to-school memories.
- Go on a nature hike and enjoy the crisp air and colorful leaves.
- Day and night are equal, so it’s the perfect time to talk, as a family, about balance – the importance of it and ways to create more in your lives.
- After the sun sets, grab a pair of binoculars, cuddle under blankets, and star gaze. Taurus, Cassiopeia, Pegasus, and Ursa Minor reappear in the night sky around the equinox.
(Updated version of Aug. 31, 2009 post.)
Have you started any new family traditions lately? Are you going to celebrate the first day of fall this year? I’d love to hear about it!
Just One Small Change
Posted by Abby Quillen in Nature, Simple Living on August 25, 2010
Photo Credit: Matthew Hull
When I was writing my New Year’s Resolutions series, I went on the lookout for simple and inexpensive ways we might live better in 2010. And it struck me how much we might be able to improve our lives by making just one small change.
For instance what if someone committed to a daily walk? That alone could bring better health, relaxation, improved sleep, connection with neighbors, and more quality time with family. And if the walk replaced a car trip, it could even save some money. Every small change I thought of had a similar snowball effect.
Recently I heard an interview with William Wittman, a life coach in Seattle. He talked about an easy daily exercise that he recommends to his clients and insists he’s seen it bring huge changes to people’s lives. He calls it “Owl Ears and Owl Eyes”. The idea is to go outside first thing in the morning, stand still, and look up, down, and side to side without moving your head while listening closely to the sounds around you, first the loud ones, then the quieter ones.
Wittman says that by connecting with nature like this first thing in the morning, we connect with what’s meaningful in the world. And by focusing on looking and listening, we can’t help but quiet our mental chatter and relax. He says he’s seen this one small change motivate people to get healthy, find fulfilling work, reach out to friends, and on and on.
I think Wittman might be on to something. Awhile ago my neighbor put down black plastic over the garden in his backyard, which attracted ducks – sometimes sixty of them at a time. And now each night the ducks circle over our neighborhood in groups of four or five, flying lower and lower until they’re just overhead. (I wrote about it before here; my neighbor has since built a pond for the ducks.)
I’ve been shocked at how much this random, natural (and free) event has improved my family’s quality of life. Most nights we go outside to watch the ducks, and we chat with our neighbors, connect with nature, and enjoy each other’s company. Just one small change really has added up to so much more.
(Originally posted on March 16, 2010)
What do you think? Has one small change ever made a big difference in your life?
Kick Nature-Deficit Disorder
Posted by Abby Quillen in Family life, Health, Nature on August 16, 2010
Most of the new parents I know are anything but negligent. They take their toddlers to story time and enroll them in swim courses, dance classes, and music lessons. They serve fresh vegetables, read picture books, learn baby signs, and take workshops in infant massage and child development. A story time leader at my local library jokingly refers to my generation of moms and dads as “PhD parents.”
But with all the scheduling, classes, and shuttling around, we may be in danger of neglecting something that’s actually more crucial to our children’s health and development than workshops and classes – unstructured playtime in nature. Numerous scholars and environmental psychologists are sounding an alarm, arguing that kids today are at risk for developing what Richard Louv, author of the 2005 bestseller Last Child in the Woods and Chairman of Children and Nature Network, calls “Nature-Deficit Disorder”.
Humans need to experience nature.
Both adults and children have an innate affinity for the natural world and an urge to connect with other forms of life which Harvard researcher Edward O. Wilson coined “biophilia”. Unconvinced? Consider the following findings:
- Workers who could view a nature setting from work were more satisfied, felt better challenged by their jobs, and reported better health than co-workers who couldn’t view nature. (Kaplan, R. & Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)
- Surgical patients randomly assigned to a room with a view of trees required less pain medicine, healed faster, and were discharged sooner than those with no window or a view of a brick wall. (Ulrich, R. (1984). View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery. Science, 224, 420-421)
- A view of green plants and vistas helped highly-stressed rural children relieve anxiety. The more plants, green views, and access to natural play areas the kids had, the less stressed they were. (“Nearby Nature: A Buffer of Life Stress Among Rural Children.” Environment and Behavior. Vol. 35:3, 311-330.)
- Girls living in inner-city Chicago Public Housing with views of greenery had more self-discipline, increased concentration, and reduced impulsive behavior than girls the same age living in identical housing in more barren areas. (Journal of Environmental Psychology, 22, 49-63.)
Unstructured play, especially outdoors, benefits kids.
We don’t just need a view of nature either. We need to get out in it. Research, like studies conducted by doctors Hillary L. Burdette and Robert C. Whitaker, has shown that playing outdoors alone or with friends, siblings, or parents not only helps kids stay fit, it helps them :
- pay attention
- solve problems
- sleep better
- interact with others
- avoid depression, anxiety, and aggression.
Kids are communing less with nature.
The research may be in, but those long summers many of us remember from childhood, where we roamed the neighborhood, collected bugs, made mud pies, and headed out for week-long family camping trips seem to be going extinct. Children’s playtime fell 25% between 1981 and 1997, and that trend has undoubtedly continued in the last decade. Moreover, by 1990, the radius kids were allowed to roam shrunk to 1/9 of what it was in 1970.
Why?
- We’re busy. Americans work about five weeks more per year than we did in 1970. And the bad economy is making people even more hesitant to take time off. When workers are able to take a few days off, many feel they should stay connected to work via cell phones, laptops, and blackberries.
- TVs, computers, video games, and hand-held electronic devices compete for our attention. The average person watches more than four hours of TV a day.
- We’ve become scared of nature. The widespread fear of sun exposure in the last few decades (possibly resulting in an epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency) exemplifies how anxious many of us have become about the Great Outdoors.
Six easy ways to re-connect with nature
1. Institute a family green hour.
If you’re a scheduler, pencil a “green hour” into each day. At that time, let your kids enjoy unstructured playtime in the backyard, a garden, a neighborhood park, or another safe and accessible green space.
Remember, connecting with nature is necessary for adults too. During your family’s green hour, get outside, work in the garden, draw or write in a nature journal, or just relax and observe your surroundings. You can connect with other families who schedule a daily green hour here.
2. Take a nature walk.
Pack a lunch and head to the forest or the city park. Nature walking is not the time for feeling the burn. Set a slow pace and observe birds, plants, tracks, insects, scat, rocks, and the sky. Bring along binoculars, a magnifying glass, field guides, or just your curiosity.
3. Feed the birds.
Install a bird feeder outside one of your windows, and observe the birds that come and go. Feeders don’t have to be expensive. Kids can even make their own. Read up on what kinds of birds live in your neighborhood. Different birds like different kinds of feeders. Don’t stress if you don’t see any action right away. It takes awhile for birds to find a new feeder. Attract even more birds to your yard by designing a bird-friendly landscape.
4. Watch the sky.
If you can see the stars from your backyard or patio, make a weekly stargazing date with your family. Find tips for what to look for each week here. You can also track the moon’s cycle here.
If you can’t see the stars from your abode, check out your local astronomy club. They often host free dark sky meet ups, where you can look through telescopes and learn about the constellations from dedicated stargazers.
5. Stare at the Clouds.
Connecting with nature doesn’t have to be hard work. Stretch out on the grass and gaze up. If you like what you see, check out the Cloud Appreciation Society’s website, or get your hands on a copy of one of their books: The Cloudspotter’s Guide and The Cloud Collector’s Handbook.
6. Take a Camping Trip.
If you’re trying to save cash on your summer vacation this year, camping is the way to go. You’ll need some basic gear – a tent, sleeping bags, a flashlight, water, a first aid kit, and plenty of food and water. You’ll probably also want a lantern, camp stove, and a good book.
You don’t have to go far from home, but the more off the beaten path, the better. Resist the impulse to overplan. Enjoy waking with the sun, spending long days wandering and relaxing, and talking and singing around the campfire at night. (Tip: leave the cell phone in the car.)
(Originally posted as Kick “Nature Deficit Disorder”: 6 easy ways to nurture your family’s connection with nature on July 6, 2009.)
How does your family connect with nature? I’d love to hear your ideas.
Wish Upon a Star … Tonight
Posted by Abby Quillen in Nature on August 12, 2010
Credit: Jasen Miller
It’s the perfect night for stargazing. The Perseid meteor shower peaks around 11:00 p.m. BST. It’s caused by particles from Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle burning up as they streak into Earth’s upper atmosphere at 135 000 miles per hour, and it only happens once a year.
According to Science News Daily, “With cloudless skies and in a dark viewing site, observers can expect to see between 60 and 100 shooting stars each hour … Even in light polluted cities you will still see around ten an hour.” You can get an estimate of your local viewing conditions here.
So head outside tonight with your lawn chairs and hot chocolate … and make some wishes.
(Many thanks to Dick for letting me know about this.)
Guest Photo Essay
Posted by Abby Quillen in Family life, Nature on August 10, 2010
It’s been an unexpectedly crazy week in these parts. I’ve been working on some last-minute writing assignments, contending with an email outage, and preparing for our trip to Colorado next week. So my husband graciously offered to go out and snap photos for my Wednesday blog post.
I was curious to see what he would come back with, so I agreed. He was gone for awhile … a long while. I nearly went out looking for him. And here’s what he came back with. I’m not sure they all relate to the New Urban Habitat (i.e. the Plymouth Volare), but they give you a good idea what my husband thinks about (i.e. barge-like cars from the seventies, bikes, hops … and hummingbirds?). They also present some interesting vignettes of our neighborhood.
All photos taken by Aaron Thomas. (Thanks, Aaron!)
As mentioned, we’ll be out of town for most of the next two weeks visiting family and friends in Colorado. So after this week, I won’t be back here live until September. But I’ll be re-posting some greatest hits from the archives while we’re away and checking in when I can to read comments. I’ll see you in September!
Explosion of Color
Posted by Abby Quillen in Nature on August 9, 2010
My son is learning his colors, so we spend a lot of time talking about “wed”, “lellow”, “gween”, and “bwue”. This weekend we went out for a walk with the camera for the first time in awhile and couldn’t believe how many beautiful flowers are blooming right now. It’s an explosion of color.
Adventures on Foot
Posted by Abby Quillen in Health, Nature on July 21, 2010
Appalachian Trail. Credit: Jasen Miller
I’m reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, a hilarious account of his adventures on the Appalachian Trail (AT). Of his first day on the trail, Bryson writes:
It was hell. First days on hiking trips always are. I was hopelessly out of shape — hopelessly. The pack weighed way to much. Way too much. I had never encountered anything so hard, for which I was so ill prepared. Every step was a struggle. The hardest part was coming to terms with the constant dispiriting discovery that there is always more hill.
The AT is 2,160 miles. It runs from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, traversing 14 states. According to Bryson, 1500 people set out to complete it each year, but only 300 people make it to the end.
Despite Bryson’s eloquent descriptions of the miseries of trudging day after day through endless forests weighed down by a gigantic backpack, I’ve always dreamed of taking an adventure on foot when my son’s older. I love to walk, and I hope I’ll get the opportunity to tackle at least some portion of one of these trails someday.
- The Colorado Trail (CT)
The CT stretches almost 500 miles, from Denver to Durango, traveling through six wilderness areas and eight mountain ranges and rising to 13,334 feet. I’ve done day hikes on many portions of the Colorado Trail, and every part I’ve visited is beautiful. (The below picture is actually from a stretch of the 401 Trail near Crested Butte, Colorado, but it gives you an idea of what makes hiking in Colorado worthwhile.)
Colorado Scenery. Credit: trailsource.com
- The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)
The PCT zigzags 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington. It passes through six of the seven ecozones in North America, including deserts, mountains, and old growth forest. Three hundred hikers attempt the entire trail each year, walking through the Mojave Desert, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite, Crater Lake, and the Columbia River Gorge.
Pacific Crest Trail. Credit: nordique
- The North Country Trail (NCT)
The longest hiking trail in the U.S., the NCT stretches 4,200 miles from New York to North Dakota. It spans mountains, forests, and prairies and skirts Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.
North Country Trail. Credit: Daniel Morrison
We have no shortage of long hiking trails in the United States. The National Trails System totals 60,000 miles in all 50 states. It’s longer than the Interstate Highway System. If you’re looking for a place to hike, or just want to dream of your own adventure on foot, you can find lots of information about America’s hiking trails at americantrails.org.
I’d also like to take a hut trip someday. On these adventures, you spend the day walking in the woods. Then instead of sleeping on the ground or on a platform in the outdoors, you sleep on a bed in an inn. Huts range from rustic cabins to grand lodges. Europe abounds with hut hiking adventures. The accommodations in the Alps are supposedly quite luxurious; think: “arugula salad, beef consommé, entrecôte steak, and fine cheeses”. But you can also take hut trips in Colorado, New Hampshire, Georgia, Glacier National Park, Yosemite, and other locations around the U.S. You can learn more about hut hiking here.
Have you ever taken an adventure on foot? Would you like to? I’d love to hear about it.
A Snapshot of Waste in America
Posted by Abby Quillen in Nature, Social movements on July 8, 2010
Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman
Pounds of trash the average American generated in a day in 1960:
Pounds of trash the average American generated in a day in 2008:
Percentage of U.S. municipal solid waste that was recycled in 1960:
Percentage of U.S. municipal solid waste that was recycled in 2008:
Percent increase in the amount of waste recycled in the U.S. between 1960 and 2008:
Number of aluminum cans Americans use each year:
65 billion*
Percentage of aluminum soda cans that were recycled in the U.S. in 2008:
48.2
Percentage less energy it takes to make a can from recycled aluminum than to produce a new one from virgin materials:
90
Number of plastic bottles Americans throw away in an hour:
2.5 million
Number of years it’s estimated it will take for a plastic bottle to degrade in a landfill:
Pieces of plastic the UN Environment Program estimates float in every square mile of ocean (2006):
Number of plastic bags found in the stomach of a gray whale that beached near Seattle in April 2010:
Percentage of the world population that lives in the U.S.:
5
Percentage of the world’s timber and paper resources Americans consume:
33
Pounds of paper the average American uses every year (2002):
Pounds of paper the average South American uses every year (2002):
Pounds of paper the average African uses every year (2002):
Percentage of American paper waste that’s recycled (2008):
Click on the hyperlinks to see sources for statistics. *All other statistics were compiled by the Clean Air Council.
This is part of a New Urban Habitat series: Snapshots of America. Part one was A Snapshot of Car-Usage in America and part two was A Snapshot of Education in America.
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