 Sleeping Giant from Emerald Mountain - January, 2025 Sam Berns’ 2013 TedX Talk, “My Philosophy for a Happy Life,” is on my mind for many reasons. He was 17 when he spoke, and he lit up the stage with his humor, enthusiasm, descriptions of his challenges, and his approaches to those challenges. Some slices of his life he shared via pictures: he and his closest “goofball” friends, he and his supportive family, a video of him performing with his high school marching band on his specially engineered snare drum, and a snippet of the HBO documentary about him, “Life According to Sam.” Sam had a rare genetic disorder called progeria: Progeria (pro-JEER-e-uh), also known as Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, is an extremely rare, progressive genetic disorder that causes children to age rapidly, starting in their first two years of life. Children with progeria generally appear normal at birth. (Mayo Clinic, Feb 1, 2018) What is remarkable about Sam is not that he had this condition, but how he chose to live his life. In his TedX talk, his approach to a happy life is a description of how to live life fully, and realistically. Fully because he whole-heartedly pursued his interests and deeply appreciated the friends and family who loved and supported him, realistically because he shared that he sometimes had bad days, and his strategy to move through those difficult times. What his talk elicited in me wasn’t so much count-my-blessings-that-I-do-not-have-to-cope-with- progeria-in-my-own-life, but rather the feeling of rising to a challenge. In some ways, Sam handed over the playbook of what to do when life throws this or that at you, how to keep marching towards the end zone, staying in the game because you keep playing, because you keep overcoming, because you are clear about what is meaningful in your life and you have the vision that you can do what you set out to do. Sam Berns’ Philosophy of a Happy Life:
Watch the TedX Talk: Sam Berns - My Philosophy for a Happy Life Originally published April, 2023
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 Sun Rising On Gnarled Tree - Eye to Eye, Emerald Mountain, October, 2025  Snow, Fog, and Witches' Brooms - Stairway to Heaven, November, 2025 It's 5:00am. I switch on my light, wrap myself in my fleece-lined flannel while still under the warm covers, and reluctantly get out of bed. While my tea water boils I look out the window to determine my clothing choices - the snow is blowing sideways and there’s plenty on the ground. Shortly after 5:30 I head out the door, swathed in layers from head to toe, headlamp beaming into the dark, my Salomon spiked running shoes biting into the icy snow. By the time I make it back, around 8:30, I’ve done battle with Mr. Grumpy in an old work truck outfitted with a plow up on Fish Creek Falls Road, avoided SUVs filled with eager families racing down Steamboat Boulevard to the ski mountain, and, though I’ve been snacking and sipping from my running vest, I’m hungry, tired, and ready for some hot coffee, even if it is decaf. That was my Saturday morning routine last winter. I was training for the Run Through Time trail half-marathon in Salida last March, and my daughter and I compared notes on training all winter since she was doing it too. Most of my Saturday long runs involved some version of a blizzard, although there were a few clear mornings that were so frigid I got colder as the hours went by. That’s winter training. I would not say that I looked forward to those long run days - and most especially I dreaded the run-ins with the foul-tempered snowplow driver. But I was highly motivated to get the miles in, wanting to be as prepared as possible for Salida. This year is different. My daughter and I are doing the full trail marathon in Salida this coming March. After a decade away from trail running (with the sole exception of the half-marathon last March), I started training on Emerald Mountain in August. But instead of my long runs being something to be gotten through, I’ve discovered that running Emerald Mountain is my favorite thing to do. I’ve written about some of the things that make Emerald special (There’s No Place Like Emerald Mountain Part 1 of 3, and Emerald Mountain - More Than A Gem Part 2 of 3). But I’m also aware that it is running specifically that makes my time there so fulfilling. There is something singularly satisfying when trotting along those trails. Ducking under gnarled and blackened tree boughs on Eye to Eye’s crazy maze-like switchbacks. Climbing the steep Stairway to Heaven, knowing that it is getting me to the top as quickly as it can. Hudson alternating between sunny clearings and patches of woods ominous and dark from trees tightly packed. The quiet peace and long views to the west on Wild Rose, delicately sprinkled with a touch of white. Of course this could all be experienced at a walk. But it is the running, where even at my slow pace, there is a brief moment when both feet are off the ground. With each and every stride, I am flying, just that little bit. It could also be the endorphins. I’m up there long enough for the endorphins to come and go, and return again. The trail marathon, with its 4000 feet of climbing, might take me over 7 hours to complete. Although my longest run to date is only 4.5 hours, that is still tons of endorphin-marination for my body and brain. But the other morning, I realized one of the key reasons that running on Emerald is my happy place. I headed up in a soft rain, which was pleasant until the build-up of heavy clay mud rendered my trotting to a slip-slide-squelch. With a bit more elevation the raindrops became snowflakes, the mud firmed up and gave way to snow. When I reached the top I paused before heading back down. All was hushed. The dark trees stood, eerie in the misty fog, their witches’ brooms prominent. The trail, carpeted in thick white, beckoned as it disappeared around a bend. Eager to accept the trail’s invitation, I headed down. I made my way towards Blackmere (the main dirt/gravel road up to the Quarry), aiming to hit it towards the bottom to avoid the worst of the muck I’d come through on the way up. Thus, I exchanged one trail for another all the way down - a mountain do-si-do: Stairway to Prayer Flag, a quick side step to Hudson, back to Prayer Flag, then Blair Witch to Larry’s. Navigating roots and rocks, up and around curvy switchbacks, pushing the pace on firm ground, tip-toeing through slushy puddles. In the midst of all this, it came to me: play. Yes - play - that was why I loved it up here - I was having a great time! I remembered how much fun Charlotte and I had one morning, even though we got separated, because we were always just missing each other on the trails, always nearby but not close enough to see one another. It was like playing a game of tag with the mountain as our playground. I think Emerald is wise to this. It welcomes the sense of play, and the love of its stories and its history. Emerald Mountain is aware of the fact that there are silly humans like me running around its generous flanks, reveling at the way the icicles drip from horizontal branches as the sun rises, at the glimpse of a chestnut fox darting across a meadow, or a chocolate brown moose tranquilly chewing breakfast. Or the way the Tree Sprite gives me a wink at the end of every run.  Tree Sprite - Emerald Mountain, September, 2025  Autumn View of Sleeping Giant from Emerald Mountain - September 2023 Thanksgiving is here. That means turkeys are the main focus: running races (Turkey Trots), pre-orders at the grocery store or meat vendor, discussions of how to thaw, how to cook, to brine or not to brine, to deep fry or rotisserie, and so on.
My Thanksgivings growing up in southern California had a fairly set pattern. We left early, though never early enough to avoid the 405 traffic to my grandparents. My uncle’s family and ours would all converge by late morning, and each year my grandma aimed to eat at 1:00. We were usually lucky to sit down by 5:00. The hold-up was mostly due to waiting on the turkey. The males gathered in the tiny TV room to watch football, everyone squeezed onto the two armchairs, my cousins wearing out the reclining mechanism on Grandpa’s. We females would hang out in the kitchen with Grandma, snacking on enough sour cream onion dip and potato chips to last until next Thanksgiving. When I was in high school, my grandma and I would sneak margaritas - she’d make them from these packets of powdered drink mix. I fancied myself quite the sophisticate, sipping from the salted rim of my glass, and I didn’t at all mind the turkey delay. Why is it that turkeys are such an integral part of the holiday we call Thanksgiving? Also, what are all those red things around their faces and necks? As it turns out, turkey was not necessarily a part of the “first Thanksgiving,” a feast held by the Wampanoag people and English settlers in 1621 at Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts. Most likely that meal included geese, ducks, and even seafood like lobster. It most likely did not include sweet potatoes with marshmallows or green bean casserole. The association of turkey with the Thanksgiving meal is largely due to the author Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote the 1827 novel Northwood. In that novel, she described a New England Thanksgiving in great detail, including the turkey as the key component of the Thanksgiving meal. She lobbied to have Thanksgiving designated a national holiday, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the presidential proclamation to make it official. Wild turkeys are native to Mexico. European explorers brought wild turkeys back with them and thus turkeys were domesticated in Europe. The English settlers later brought domesticated turkeys with them to North America. Benjamin Franklin wrote that the turkey, a respectable bird and one native to the Americas, would make a more fitting choice as the nation’s symbol than the bald eagle. Wild and domestic turkeys differ from one another in various ways:
Turkeys can run - fast! - approximately 25 mph. Domestic birds can fly into trees for safety, but their wild cousins can actually fly. It is only the toms who gobble, usually in the spring and fall, to attract the hens. The wild turkeys don’t just gobble, they can make almost 30 different calls. Unique Anatomy Wattle - loose red skin attached underneath the beak, turns a bright red when the bird is excited. Snood - flap of fleshy skin that hangs over the beak, also turns bright red with excitement. Beard - wobbly area on the chest made of keratin bristles. Sources/Learn More
Originally published November, 2023  Hudson Trail on Emerald Mountain - October, 2025  There’s running trails, and there’s running on Emerald Mountain. Yes, Emerald really is that special, for many different reasons. First off, its history. The first known inhabitants were the Yampa (also Yamparika or Yampatika) Band of the Ute People, for which Emerald Mountain and Steamboat Springs were summer hunting grounds. The Ute People call themselves Nuuchu, which means “the human” or “the Ute.” The Utes stewarded the land, the plants and the animals in the Rocky Mountains until they were forcibly relocated to reservations in Utah and Southern Colorado, where they aim to continue their traditions, language and ceremonies and ancestral heritage. After white settlers arrived, the mountain was known as Quarry Mountain and Onyx Mountain. The quarry itself, as I understand, was instrumental in Carl Howelsen’s staying in Steamboat long enough to hold the first Winter Carnival and to start what is now known as the Winter Sports Club. The Flying Norwegian was ready to move on, but James Crawford made sure that Howelsen, a stone mason by trade, had plenty of work using stone mined from the quarry. There are still buildings on Lincoln in which Howelsen’s work can be seen. At some point in the decades that followed, the mountain became known as Emerald and that is the name that stuck. Fast-forward to the early 90’s. Gretchen Sehler, a ski instructor and avid mountain biker, had the vision of a network of recreational mountain bike trails on Emerald. As it turned out, Gretchen also had the gumption, persistence, know-how and relationship-building to make that vision a reality. That reality is truly a gift to all of us in the Yampa Valley. It was Larry Johnson who first introduced the Sehlers to Lyman Orton, who owned much of the land on Emerald Mountain. An enthusiastic biker himself, he was supportive of the trails being built, and sold the land to the City - for the same amount he paid for it, $300,000. Gretchen and her late husband Marc Sehler took trail building courses through the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) in order to have a solid understanding of how to build a good trail: sustainable and fun to ride. They would design, walk and meticulously flag each trail, following a formula which allows a ratio of grade to flat so that rainwater and meltoff can be absorbed or dispersed naturally, without the use of waterbars. Trails designed this way are built to last, as erosion created by rapidly moving runoff are minimized. As a runner, the bonus of trails built this way is that I’m never climbing or descending straight up or down for a long period of time - there is an undulation that creates a rhythm and relative ease to my effort. Gretchen also formed relationships with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and United States Forest Service (USFS), as well as with the City of Steamboat Springs and with Routt County Riders (RCR). The RCR worked closely with the City, who secured grant money needed for the trails project. Though several entities were involved, the glue was Gretchen. She realized the crucial role of relationships, and nurtured them to create win-win outcomes. Sometimes this required serious patience, for example waiting out a change in leadership to move forward, but Gretchen’s tenacity produced results that continue to benefit Routt County residents and visitors. Gretchen and Marc held volunteer work days to actually build the trails they’d so carefully laid out. Some days, so many folks showed up to help that people were turned away because there were no more tools available. This was truly a community effort from beginning to end. So maybe that is a part of what I feel when I’m up there trotting around. That sense of local engagement, caring and respect. Gretchen has even overheard kids speaking up to protect “their” trail to an unaware mountain biker: “hey, knock that off, I helped build this trail!” What pulls all these factors together and pushes the Emerald experience over the top are the trail monikers and iconic treasures that have popped up over time to mark them. Rather than arbitrarily assigning trail names, Gretchen says the trails earned them - there’s a story behind each name.
***** Every time I run, lope, walk and stumble around the trails of Emerald, the stories of the people who made this place possible are with me. There is a sense of awe whether I’m gazing at a jaw-dropping vista, deep in the evergreens, breathing in that sharp yet earthy scent, or running on a carpet of golden aspen leaves as the sun lights them up. Sources A very special thanks to Gretchen Sehler, for her vision, her decades of trail work, and her willingness to share some of the stories with me. Tread of Pioneers: Background on Ute People City of Steamboat Springs: Indigenous Peoples of Yampa Valley Recognized Steamboat Pilot: What’s in a Name? 
 Lit Gold - Near Fish Creek - October 2025 You’ve probably never heard of Elzada Clover or Lois Jotter. But maybe it's time you should. Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny, is the story of how these two intrepid botanists set out to map the plant life of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The 43-day whitewater journey was a harrowing adventure, but their resulting work continues to influence science today, and has led to greater awareness and protection of that river ecosystem. In 1938, the two women set off from Green River, Utah, with four men and three small wooden boats: the Botany, the Wen, and the Mexican Hat. Hailing from University of Michigan, Clover was a 42-year-old botany instructor, and assistant curator of the botanical gardens, and Jotter a 24-year-old graduate student working on her PhD. The Colorado was considered to be an unruly and dangerous river, where many had died in the attempt to run it. The news reports of the time focused on the novelty of women on the river, and the general consensus that women did not belong on that river. Rather than covering the botanical intent of the trip, reporters drummed up the perils of the Colorado, and wrote about the women applying their make-up and cooking for the men It is true that Clover and Jotter were up every morning well before the men. They did cook breakfast, and they did apply powder and lipstick. But their time was also spent gathering plant specimens. The plant gathering was a tedious process. They needed to get the entire plant, including root, stem, leaf and flower. The specimens were flattened and arranged carefully and placed in a plant press, consisting of layers of newspaper and thin wood strips. This was all carefully strapped down. For cacti, the pulp had to be scooped out, and the specimen laid just-so to preserve the spines. From their work, four new cacti were identified. After hunting plants up steep climbs in the desert heat, they’d go run some serious rapids. The women were not allowed to paddle the rapids (thank goodness that’s changed: currently women make up roughly one-third of Grand Canyon river guides). Sometimes the boats would go through the turbulent water blunt stern-first. Sometimes they’d line the boats - difficult work to climb over boulders on-shore while keeping the boat on a line and walking it down in order to skirt the more burly rapids. Ultimately the crew, with a few changes in personnel, floated into Lake Mead alive and well. Clover and Jotter’s work made it back to the University of Michigan, and the two continued to contribute to the field of botany for the rest of their lives. In 1994, Jotter made another trip down the Colorado with a group of scientists and other “Old Timers” who’d studied the river ecology prior to the construction of Glen Canyon Dam and the creation of Lake Powell. Their observations led to the 1996 policy of the dam releasing large amounts of water in order to stimulate spring river surge and restore some of the river life to the way it was. Though Clover and Jotter are not household names, their willingness to literally risk their lives to gather botanical information is a fascinating story, and their work has impacted anyone who recreates in or cares about the Colorado River. Just upstream from Lake Powell, at the confluence of the Green and Colorado, begins a 41-mile river section known as Cataract Canyon. It was so-named by Powell because of the canyon’s 14 miles of gnarly rapids - so gnarly in fact that Powell and his men did not run a single one of those rapids. When Glen Canyon Dam was built, and Lake Powell filled, over half of Cataract Canyon became impounded, slow water. In recent years, as the water level in Lake Powell has dropped due to overuse and evaporation and drought, the impounded water in Cataract Canyon is diminishing, and is starting to flow again. This has also resulted in some side canyons reemerging. For river runners familiar with this area, two of the side canyons are affectionately known as Clover Canyon and Jotter Canyon, within a stretch known as Botany Aisle. Learn More/Sources
Originally published September 2024  Steamboat Springs Cemetery Looking Towards Mt. Werner - October 2024  Steamboat Springs Cemetery - October 2024 Hallowed: from the Old English halgian "to make holy, sanctify; to honor as holy, consecrate, ordain." (Etymology Online: Hallow) October is spooky month, when ghosts, witches, skeletons and tombstones are a common front-yard sight. October 31 is Halloween, All Hallows Eve, the night where the separation between living and dead is said to be less defined, more ethereal. In the eerie dark hours, we might imagine the spirits rising from their graves to swirl about, misty figures performing their haunted dance. And what of those places where we find graves? Graveyards, cemeteries, memorial parks, burial grounds - what distinguishes one from another? Burial ground is a more general term referring to an area for the burying of dead bodies, an area set apart from the living and a means to honor the dead. It has been thought that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, with their larger brain case, were the first to have the cognitive ability to see the dead as in a different state, engaging in what is known as “funerary behavior,” where rites and burials are performed. Earlier hominin were thought to exhibit “mortuary behavior,” also displayed by elephants and chimps, where the living try to interact with the dead, as if the dead are not separate. Relatively recent finds in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa have led paleoanthropologists to believe that Homo naledi, with their much smaller brain case, did indeed exhibit funerary behavior by dropping the dead through a narrow opening called “The Chute.” The bones found are dated to 335,000 to 241,000 years ago, pre-dating by more than 100,000 years the prior earliest known burial. National Geographic: Earliest Human Burial The word graveyard is from the proto-Germanic words “graban” (to dig) and “gardan” (an enclosed area of land). In the Middle Ages, graveyards, or churchyards, were the areas adjacent to churches for the more common folk to be interred, while the wealthy and influential were often buried in crypts under the church itself. As populations increased, these graveyards became crowded - sometimes layers of burials deep. When many died from disease, graveyards were a centralizing place for the disease, making these places problematic, and actually horrific when floods caused coffins to surface and bodies to spill out. Enter the concept of a cemetery, from the Greek word “koimeterion” meaning “resting place.” Cemeteries developed in the U.S. in the 1830’s, and were on neutral ground rather than affiliated with specific churches. They were often located away from city centers, addressing the problem of available space. They tended to have large entrance gates or arches, signifying the separation between the living and the dead. Cemeteries were similar to parks at one point, as public gardens and parks were not yet mainstream. People would visit, picnic and enjoy the day amongst the beautiful grounds and ornate sculpture. Years ago, a couple of my dear clients, a loving husband and wife, told me that their first date was a picnic dinner at a cemetery. It definitely worked for them! Memorial parks take the concept of distance a step further, often with grave markers flush to the ground for ease of maintenance. Rather than a place to stay awhile, they can be impersonal places with their immaculate lawns devoid of unique headstone decoration. Personally I’ve always been a fan of graveyards and cemeteries. The more moss on the headstones and the older they were, the better. When I’d visit my grandparents over the summer in Maryland, they indulged my fascination and took me to many a graveyard. The little churchyards, stones marked with just names and dates, told simply and starkly of the deaths of young children or entire families. Some graves were adorned with elaborate sculpture, others with humble headstones, broken and crumbling. There was an occasional (and strange) upheaval of the ground from beneath a marker. What drew me to these places most of all was a certain feeling. A stalwart oak, with massive trunk and forest-green canopy looming above, offering shade and solace. The permeating silence despite a soft breeze. Below my feet the body of someone who’d once lived, perhaps walked in this same place, a very long time ago. The rough surface of the stone on my fingertips as I’d trace the markings, wondering about their life. The feeling of a distant past touching the present moment, territory both mysterious and sacred. Hallowed ground. Sources
Originally published October 24, 2024  View from top of Emerald Mountain looking south - August, 2025 Scritch, scritch. Huff, huff. Scritch, huff, huff, huff. Uhh! Oooof!!! That’s me trotting down the trail, hitting a rock with one toe and finding myself all fours, having yanked my upper hamstrings but good. I take in the browns, yellows and dark oranges and burgundys of the crunchy leaves under my body. I take a breath. Nothing is broken, I can still hobble along. I dust off my gloved hands and running tights, and move on. I’m here on Emerald Mountain because of the deal I made with myself when hiking the Colorado Trail (CT) last July with my daughter. (The CT Part I and The CT Part II.) As I dragged up and down Thirteeners carrying more weight than I wanted to in my pack, I fantasized about the good ole days of doing Ironman - after all, that was just a one day thing. I didn’t have to get up each morning, unrecovered from the day before, and do it all over again, like I was doing on the CT. The CT experience taught me a lot. My top lessons: 1) Charlotte has the patience of Job and the attitude of sunshine. 2) I can do more than I think I can - albeit more slowly than I think I should. I came off the CT ready for a one-day goal, and decided on the Run Through Time Trail Marathon in Salida this coming March. With Charlotte, of course. This may not seem like a lofty goal to some - but for me, it is. My training has two components: increasing mileage (doable over time), and more time on trails (daunting). Years ago I did some trail training, but after a fall resulting in pain and tingling in my hands and wrists, I threw in the towel. I was scared of getting hurt again, so I stopped running trails. In hindsight, I can see that my life got smaller because of that fear and the choice I made. I started to address that fear and live a bit larger last March when Charlotte and I ran the Run Through Time Trail Half-Marathon - when crossing the finish line, I had completed my first trail race. However, the training for that half-marathon was on snowy roads. So when I committed to the full marathon, I committed to running on Emerald. It was time to face my fear. When I headed up those trails on the last weekend in August, it was my first time to run Emerald in a decade. I made it to the top and was proud. But making it through the run without crashing and burning was my #1 point of pride. And though I’ve crashed since then, I continue to run Emerald. I just have to focus and use my core to lift those feet a little higher! Because being up there is worth the risk. Running on Emerald Mountain is special. On Emerald, there is the sense of my body moving along the undulating trail. There is the sight of the sun climbing, beaming down on the aspen: shiny golden fountains erupting out of long white trunks. There is the effort of hoofing it uphill, lungs puffing white clouds into the chill fall morning, and the contrasting warmth of the day at the top. The fun of cruising along switchbacks that double back on themselves, ducking under tree limbs that twist across the trail, blackened and grasping, like something out of Snow White’s enchanted wood. In an ideal world, I would spend most of my day, every day, running those trails. But, since there are things like life, and work, and the injury I mentioned in the first paragraph, resulting in time spent healing, running up there isn’t a daily occurrence. So I keep running on Emerald in my heart and mind most days, and savor the time when I actually get to run there. Do I float to the top, fly like the wind up or down the trail? No. Some days are hard going, and I’m challenged to put one foot in front of the other. But running on Emerald is the best, even on the worst days. Emerald Mountain - More Than A Gem (Part 2 0f 3) Emerald: A Singularly Satisfying Run (Part 3 of 3)  Tree Hoop, Pagosa Springs - April 2024 One afternoon this past spring my parents and I were enjoying the fresh air and warm sunshine in the wooded canyon behind their Little Red Cabin, known in the family as the LRC. We came upon the hooped tree pictured above. Wow! We hadn’t noticed it on previous hikes, and it seemed rather magical. How did this happen? It is possible that one side of that particular branch was damaged, and did not grow at the same rate as the other side, creating the asymmetry that caused the branch to grow back towards the ground. Another possibility is that that low branch was weighted by snow long enough that the branch did not resume growing skyward. It continued to grow downward, causing the bend in the main trunk before the tree righted itself to grow straight up once again. My research did not turn up a definitive reason for the hooped branch of our tree. Regardless of the cause, this hoop - and what I found poking around online - is a testament to the resilience and tractability of trees. Trees have three main parts: crown, trunk and roots. The trunk conducts nutrients, the foliage on the branches (boughs or twigs) conducts photosynthesis, and the roots provide nutrients from the soil. All parts of the tree grow: roots, branches and trunk, and are quite versatile over time and with necessity. I found this article’s illustrated trunk cross-section interesting: Arborist Now.com: The Basic Anatomy of a Tree Roots have hair-like projections which serve to stimulate growth in the current direction, or stop growth if an obstacle is encountered. The root hairs accomplish this by a protein at their tip; this protein causes uptake of calcium for growth, and the cycle continues. The roots can grow out to a distance twice the height of the tree. If the root hairs hit an object, the calcium uptake - and thus the growth - come to a halt. All About Trees.com: Trees Can Grow Around Obstacles Edaphoecotropism, also known as “stress avoidance” is the ability of living tissues to grow around things. The engulfing occurs as the roots and woody tissue of the tree grow towards areas of least stress, thus surrounding or “eating” the item. The objects do not hurt the tree; in fact some articles indicate that the incorporated objects help strengthen the tree. Here are some amazing photos of objects like trucks and fences swallowed by trees: Scenic Hudson.org: Trees that Eat Things. My favorite from this article is the bike tree. A young man headed off to World War I left his bike against the tree, but never retrieved the bike. The tree, in its edaphoecotropic (according to Google this word does not exist, I believe it should) manner, grew up and around the bike, so that the bike is now well above the ground, a part of the tree. I loved the playset in my grandparent’s backyard in Glen Burnie, Maryland, between two towering oak trees. It had a slide that the squirrels would careen down over and over, having a marvelous time. It also had a swing. Long before my time, and the ends of the pole to which the swing was attached had been stuck in the oak trunks. Over time the trunks had grown around and onto the pole a few inches - there’s that edaphoecotropism again. The trees growing like this was a wonder to me, and I never tired of looking at those guardian oaks keeping my swing safe. Sources/Learn More  Originally published June, 2024
 Arboreal Spectres, Emerald Mountain - December 2023 The first time I saw “Halloween,” John Carpenter’s 1978 groundbreaking horror flick (it banked a whopping $70 million on a measly $325,000 production budget), it was on VHS, and I was hosting a slumber party with my gang of 8th-grade besties. We were all lined up inches from the TV, hanging on the edges of our sleeping bags, when my dad snuck up on us to blare the condor horn. He says it was the original wave, as, one at a time, each girl a fraction of a second behind the one next to her, peeled back from the blast in screaming in sheer terror. To this day, when hearing even the first notes of the main “Halloween” theme, I get the good kind of chills. Why is this? Do people like to get scared? Yes, we like to be scared, as long as there are parameters: we know we are not truly in danger, we have some say (we can leave the haunted house or hide behind the couch during the VHS movie 🫣), and we’re in the sweet spot of being somewhat scared but not absolutely terrified. These days, for example, I accelerate from scared to terrified in the space of one two-minute horror film trailer. The last trailer I watched gave me nightmares for a week. Sad, but true. A few reasons why we like to be scared:
I would also offer the idea that we may like spooky stories because we don’t know it all. These stories may offer glimmers of possible explanations. And I think intrigue is something most of us find compelling. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” -William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” Learn more Article: The Guardian, “Why We Enjoy Fear…” Originally published October, 2022  Evening Gold in the Fish Creek Valley - October 2025 The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost. John Greenleaf Whittier, American Quaker poet, advocate for the abolition of slavery, best-remembered for his anti-slavery writings ***** “The colors are brighter when we’ve had a drought.” “Color is best with lots of rain.” “Oh, the colors start when it freezes.” “It has something to do with the angle of the sun.” “The trees just know.” Having heard these and many more conflicting theories on the fall leaves in past weeks, I thought it was high time I read up on the matter. Here are a few things I learned. Deciduous leaves are luscious with the green of chlorophyll during spring and summer, their growing season. In the process of photosynthesis, the chlorophyll absorbs sunlight’s energy to transform carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar, thus providing the majority of food for the plant. In the fall, shorter days and cooler temperatures signal the end of food production, so the chlorophyll begins to break down. As the chlorophyll fades, the colorful carotenoid and anthocyanin chemicals already present in the leaf are no longer hidden by the intense green. Carotenoid pigments, also found in corn, carrots, pumpkin and tomatoes, are yellow, brown, red and orange. The red, blue and purple pigments of anthocyanin can also be found in berries, grapes, and red apples. Since the tissues of tree leaves are tender and can’t survive cold winters, the leaves are dropped. In this process a layer of cells forms where the leaf stem attaches to the tree. This seals off the leaf, and when the leaf eventually drops those cells have sealed the cut on the tree. This is known as a leaf scar. Most of us will gather up our piles of leaves to keep things tidy. Or to stuff giant plastic pumpkin bags in preparation for Trick or Treat. But those fallen leaves are vital to the health of the forest floor. They break down, adding nutrients to the soil and help provide the sponginess to absorb moisture. Here’s the lowdown on leaf color:
My favorite takeaway is that each autumn is unique in terms of color. With so many variables in temperature and moisture throughout spring, summer and fall, the colors are amazing in their own way each year. As I write this, I’m looking out my office window at a large tree branch covered in…dead brown leaves. Hmm. Perhaps not so amazing. But I notice how the evergreen in front of the less-than-lovely leaves is a beautiful deep green in contrast. I also think what a satisfying crunch those brown leaves would offer underfoot. They, too, make their own contribution to these gorgeous - and fleeting - fall days. More Info Smithsonian: Why do leaves change color in the fall? David Domoney video: Why Do Leaves Change Color in Autumn? Originally published September 2022 |
AuthorJacqueline Denny, LMT Categories
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