Raising Hare: A Memoir

 

Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton

Nonfiction

2025

Narrated by Louise Brealey

Finished on 4/29/2026

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.

I did not expect to enjoy Raising Hare was well as I did! When I first learned about Dalton's memoir, I associated it with H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, which I read in 2017. (Does anyone else look back on a review with astonishment that it was written almost a decade ago rather than two or three years??) While I liked Macdonald's book, it's not one that moved me with the same tenderness as Raising Hare. 

Dalton educates her readers on the differences between hares and rabbits, as well as other details about the life and history of the hare. I have deep respect for the author who rescued the leveret, but did not cage or attempt to adopt it as a pet. She did not name the small creature, nor did she confine it to her home. I thought it was remarkable that once old enough to leave the safety of Dalton's home, it returned day after day, joining Dalton in the house, eating the oats provided for nourishment, as well as giving birth to its own leverets behind the curtains in Chloe's study. Each time the hare disappeared for a few weeks, I felt a sense of foreboding, worried that it had been attacked by a fox or raptor (or run over by a car or tractor), and breathed a sigh of relief when it returned from its adventures. 

Part memoir, part natural science, Raising Hare is both entertaining and informative. It's a beautiful story that I won't soon forget. The audiobook is read by Louise Brealey, whose lovely narration added to my enjoyment. 

Highly recommend!

Note: I understand the print edition includes illustrations. All the more reason to order a gift copy in order to take a peek before wrapping!

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

 

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

Nonfiction

2024

Finished on October 20, 2025

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight.

Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.

In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

Random Thoughts...

Began reading on January 1st. Reading one journal entry each day. [This didn't last. I wound up reading some here and there, but not every day.]

Inspired to look up each bird mentioned by Tan on the Cornell Lab website. Listened to the bird calls, as well as noting physical characteristics that Tan has mentioned in her notations. Started watching Cornell Lab FeederWatch Cam at Sapsucker Woods, which is highly addictive. So many birds to see. Chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, cardinals, woodpeckers, jays, doves, tufted titmice, finches, etc.

Humor in sketch captions - gorgeous drawings of the birds! I was going to list my favorites, but they are all lovely. What a talent.

Tan is a very involved backyard birder:

Now that the migrants are returning in greater number, I have added more feeders to each of the four locations: the patio, the verandah, the office porch, and on the other side of the bathroom window. Sichuan Sunflower Seeds. Vindaloo Suet Mini Balls. Farm-raised Mealworms. Vegan Nectar. Spicy Suet. Nuts & Chews & Bugs. Nyjer Nirvana. Graines Pour Oiseaux Sauvages. Alaskan Taste Water. These are signs of my descent into madness.

Hand feeding a hummingbird – amazing!

Tan mentions the Camp Fire and the loss of the town of Paradise (Nov 2018) and as I read this entry, L.A. County was burning. When we drove through Oregon last summer, the smoke was so thick from the fires out there, and like Tan, I wondered how the polluted air would affect the birds. Do they fly far away to get out of the smoke?

Tan is very curious. She ponders the sounds of a hummingbird as it approaches a feeder or circles her head. Clicks and chirps that are accompanied by a tail swing. What is the purpose of these noises and movements?

What I Leaned:

Auricular – feathers around ears?

John Muir Laws advised his nature class to talk to yourself to encode details into memory and understanding while watching birds/animals.

Mention of a fake dead crow to ward off crows in backyard. One of our neighbors did this and it seems to have worked. We have a lot of crows with noisy babies in the spring. Might have to try it…

“Hummingbirds use sticky spider webs to bind together a strong flexible nest that attaches like rubber cement to a branch and expands as the babies grow.” (p. 48)

"When people compliment bird drawings, mine or others', saying they are 'better than Audubon,' they don't realize that there is a lot more that Audubon did than simply draw feathers on a bird, apart from being a racist slave owner. He took on the feat of drawing all the birds in America, tracking them down, capturing both their habitat and a signature behavior. (p. 112)

I enjoyed Amy Tan's birding journal, which spans five years (September 2017 to December 2022) and includes 132 drawings, sketches, and color illustrations by Tan. This is not the sort of book to read quickly, but rather over several weeks or months. 

Simply lovely. 

The Wild Trees

 

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston

Nonfiction

2007

Finished on November 25, 2024

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. ~Rachel Carson

Publisher's Blurb:

Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.

The canopy voyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.

The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called “fire caves.” Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one’s death.

Preston’s account of this amazing world, by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, is an adventure story told in novelistic detail by a master of nonfiction narrative. The author shares his protagonists’ passion for tall trees, and he mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to tell the story in The Wild Trees –the story of the fate of the world’s most splendid forests and of the imperiled biosphere itself.

I picked up a copy of The Wild Trees at Eureka Books a couple of years ago on one of our road trips down to Santa Rosa. Having previously read Damnation Spring (Ash Davidson's novel, which is set in the California Redwoods), I was curious about Preston's work of nonfiction about the same location. It's been years since I've read The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer, two of his nonfiction narratives, but I remembered how both books were page-turners, so I grabbed a copy of The Wild Trees from the local interest display.

While not as engrossing as Preston's earlier books, The Wild Trees held my interest (mostly) and I learned not only a lot about the Coast Redwoods, but also about tree climbing techniques. There is a lot of detailed information on how Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and Preston himself climb these enormous trees. And they don't just climb straight up (using a variety of ropes and assorted tools), but they traverse from tree to tree (skywalking), branchwalk, canopy-trek, and even sleep in treeboats (hammocks). The last time I can remember climbing a tree was in fourth grade. We had a large mulberry tree in our front yard, which my best friend and I would climb and snack on the juicy berries while hiding from my younger brother. I would bet we weren't more than 8 feet off of the ground. I can't imagine climbing 350 feet, which is about the height of some of these ancient old growth redwoods.

As I mentioned in my review of Damnation Spring, I am well-acquainted with Northern California due to our many RV road trips down Highway 101 from our home on the Oregon coast. Preston mentions places we've either camped or enjoyed roadside lunches (Chetco River, Crescent City, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Redwood Creek, Prairie Creek, Avenue of the Giants, Founders Grove, Eel River, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Eureka, etc.), which made it easy to envision where the old growth forests exist.

Things I learned (all info is based on 2007 publication date):

• The coast redwood is the tallest species of tree on earth. The tallest redwoods today are between 350 and close to 380 feet in height--thirty-five to thirty-eight stories tall.*

• Nobody knows the ages of any of the living giant coast redwoods, because nobody has ever drilled into one of them in order to count its annual growth rings. Drilling into an old redwood would not reveal its age, anyway, because the oldest redwoods seem to be hollow; they don't have growth rings left in their centers to be counted. Botanists suspect that the oldest living redwoods may be somewhere between two thousand and three thousand years old--they seem to be roughly the age of the Parthenon.

• By the measure of overall size--the volume of wood--the largest species of living tree on earth is not the coast redwood but the giant sequoia, a type of cypress that is closely related to the coast redwood.  

• There are very few birds in the redwood canopy. Redwoods produce poisons in their wood and needles that discourage insects from feeding on them, and consequently many species of birds that feed on insects go elsewhere to look for food.

Preston's book is chock-full of detail, whether it's about tree climbing or the multitude of organisms that live in the redwood canopy. From beginning to end, he introduces numerous students, naturalists, biologists, professors, and experts in the field of botany, so many that I created a list of "who's who" in order to keep track of key players. The writing gets bogged down in spots with the intricate details of not only climbing techniques, but personal information of these folks (dating, marriage, divorce, work life, etc.), making for an uneven read. I rarely skim a book, but I skipped over a few pages and didn't feel as if I missed anything critical in this wordy story. I do know that I will never not take advantage of looking up when in a grove of redwoods. They are magnificent trees. On the other hand, I also know that I have no desire to spend the night in a hammock at the top of any tree! I am curious to know how much the technology of drones has changed the way in which redwoods are measured and studied. I'll bet there are still those who prefer the old-school method of climbing these majestic trees.

"It helps us know how the forests work as a whole and how the trees work as organisms," she said. "Then we can help them out if they're having problems--and they are having problems. It occurs to me that I have a fairly cynical outlook on so many things in the world today--this insane world. But as long as we still have these trees, there's hope for us." 

*The tallest living tree is Hyperion, which is located in the Redwood National Park, and is 380.8 feet.

On Island Time

 

On Island Time by Hilary Stewart

Nonfiction

1998 University of Washington Press

Finished on August 1, 2021

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

By chance, writer and artist Hilary Stewart finds herself buying property on Quadra Island, off the east coast of Vancouver Island. Then she begins a search for the ideal house design and moves into a new life.

Through anecdotes and 200 drawings, she shares her delight in discovering the small wonders of the natural world. Wandering the island's beaches, forests and lakes, she gathers seaweeds, mushrooms and berries. Ever curious, she expands her knowledge of wildflowers, lichens, lowly beetles and more. Her encounters with deer, bats, raccoons, frogs, snakes, birds and other wildlife are, by turns, humorous, exasperating and poignant. And she constantly works at enhancing her three acres of garden, meadow and forest jungle.

Hilary Stewart also offers glimpses of the people and events that make up island life: learning local ways and history, attending Native peoples' ceremonies, observing the water dowser, helping to discover petroglyphs, circumnavigating Quadra by boat, coping with wild winter storms, taking part in the annual eagle count--and drumming up the full moon.

Here are the many pleasures and occasional frustrations of life on a small island. It's a life attuned to the natural world, sparked by the joy of discovery, flowing with the seasons, the weather and the tides--on island time. 

There is something about islands, particularly those in the Pacific Northwest, that call to me. In 2007, my husband and I joined my father and stepmother on a two week cruise through the San Juan and Gulf Islands aboard their Richardson cabin cruiser.  We explored Anacortes, Friday Harbor, Reid Harbor, Roche Harbor, Sidney, Brentwood, Cowichan and Victoria. It was an amazing vacation.

Later that year, I picked up a copy of On Island Time while we were on vacation (visiting my mom and stepdad) on the Oregon coast. I took it back to Nebraska where it sat, unread for the next 14 years! It took moving to Oregon and living in a similar environment to that of the author's before I finally felt compelled to pick it up. The timing was perfect. I don't think I would have appreciated all the details about moss and ferns, eagles and great blue heron, banana slugs and raccoons while living in the Midwest. I didn't know anything about nurse logs, scotch broom or bracken until we moved to Oregon. Berries from salal and and huckleberry, as well as salmon berries, were a puzzlement. Were they poisonous or edible?? I can now identify them, as well as elderberry. I can recognize an oyster catcher by its red stockings and bald eagle by its cry. We may not have made it as far north as Quadra Island back in 2007, but I know it would feel familiar if I ever found my way there now. 

On Island Time is a lovely book filled with beautiful line drawings (by the author) and interesting anecdotes. I read it over the course of several months, many times thinking of local friends who would appreciate Stewart's insight into a quiet life surrounded by a forest, as well as the ocean. 

The Lady Mick

Sunrise over Friday Harbor

Washington State Ferry

Departing Port Sidney

We didn't make it to Quadra Island on our 2007 trip, but I still dream about someday traveling on those northern waters again.

Migrations

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

Fiction

2020 Macmillan Audio

Read by Barrie Kreinik  

Finished on July 15, 2021

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. But as Franny’s history begins to unspool—a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime—it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds. When Franny's dark secrets catch up with her, how much is she willing to risk for one more chance at redemption?

Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.

After reading several glowing reviews by fellow bloggers, I couldn't wait to read Migrations. I recommended it to my book group (based on those reviews) and we chose to read it in August. Given that I don't read a lot during the summer, I decided to get a jump start and began listening early last week. I was surprised that it was such a quick listen and I finished well ahead of the August meeting.

I enjoyed the book once I settled into the alternating time periods, but I didn't love it as many of my friends did. None of the characters were especially likeable, but the premise of the tale was intriguing and I was eager to find out more about Franny. The timeline shifts were abrupt and I grew weary of the teasing out of details pertaining to Franny's prison sentence, but I kept reading, determined to find the beauty in the narrative. The big reveal at the end (which I guessed early on) wasn't at all surprising, but it didn't spoil the story to know it in advance. 

Barrie Kreinik does a wonderful job with the narration of the audiobook. Her pacing and accents are spot on, which made for an enjoyable listening experience.

I'm looking forward to my book group discussion. Maybe then, after further consideration, I'll bump my rating up to 4-stars. At this point, while I can recommend the book, it's not going to hit my Top Ten list for the year. 

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Isaac's Storm

 

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

Nonfiction/Science

2000 Vintage Books (first published in 1999)

Finished on December 19, 2020

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy.

Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.

My husband read Isaac's Storm many years ago and said it was a very good read, so I added it to my nonfiction TBR collection where it lingered for a couple of decades. I finally pulled it from that shelf and added it to my stack for the Nonfiction November reading challenge (which I extended into December). This was not my first encounter with Erik Larson's writing (I listened to Dead Wake in 2015) and while I appreciate his extensive research, it took me well over 100 pages to get interested in this book. That is just about the time when he starts describing the actual hurricane and the horrific affect it had on the community of Galveston. At that point, I was spellbound and couldn't stop reading.

I've lived where earthquakes, tornadoes and blizzards are commonplace, but I have never lived where the threat of a hurricane is a way of life. After reading Larson's account of the Galveston hurricane, I hope to never have to worry about that particular weather event! I'm also thankful for the advances in weather forecasting, although even with that modern technology, people still continue to lose their homes, businesses, and quite often, their lives as a result of the destructive nature of hurricanes. I can guarantee that I wouldn't be one of those individuals who chooses to remain with their house! 

Passages of Note:

Waves form by absorbing energy from the wind. The longer the "fetch," or the expanse of the sea over which the wind can blow without obstruction, the taller a wave gets. The taller it gets, the more efficiently it absorbs additional energy. Generally, its maximum height will equal half the speed of the wind. Thus a wind of 150 miles an hour can produce waves up to 75 feet tall. Other conditions, such as the chance superimposition of two are more waves, can cause waves to grow even bigger. The tallest wave on record was 112 feet, but occurred amid steady winds of only 75 miles an hour. 

and

As soon as they reached the Texas coast, however, they changed shape again. Whenever a deep-sea swell enters shallow water its leading edge slows. Water piles up behind it. The wave grows again. It is this effect that makes earthquake-spawned tsunamis so deceptive and so deadly. A tsunami travels across the ocean as a small hump of water but at speeds as high as five hundred miles an hour. When it reaches land, it explodes.

and

At 7:30 P.M., the wind shifted again, this time from the east to south. And again it accelerated. It moved through the city like a mailman delivering dynamite. Sustained winds must have reached 150 miles an hour, gusts perhaps 200 or more.

The sea followed.

Galveston became Atlantis.

While I didn't love Isaac's Storm, I'm glad I finally got around to reading it and learning not only about the history of this particular Galveston hurricane, but also a little bit about meteorology. 

The Rural Life

 

The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Nonfiction/Essays

2003 Little, Brown and Company

Finished on December 6, 2020

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

A yearlong meditation on the deep joys of country life.

In the pages of The New Yorker, Harper's, the New York Times, and his acclaimed books Making Hay and The Last Fine Time, Verlyn Klinkenborg has mastered a voice of singular lyricism and precision. His subject is the American landscape; not the landscape admired from a scenic overlook, but one taken from a rusty chair propped against the worn siding of a screened-in porch, or from the window of a pickup driving down an empty highway into the teeth of an approaching storm. He has a keen appreciation of the peculiarly American tableau--a Memorial Day parade, or a boy riding a bike down the middle of a dusty street. Whether reporting from a small farm in upstate New York, a high pasture deep within the Rocky Mountains, or the bricked edge of a city shuddering in the wake of a "sudden Tuesday," Klinkenborg follows the momentum of the seasons in a language as simple, unsentimental, and exacting as life itself.

In the tradition of E. B. White and Henry David Thoreau, Verlyn Klinkenborg gives us in The Rural Life a fresh view of our greatest subject, the ordinary beauty of daily life.

My dear friend Nan (Letters From a Hill Farm) gifted me this book many years ago and back in January, I decided to read a chapter each month. I've tried to read other books like this over the course of an entire year and this is the first time I've succeeded! As with any collection of essays, I enjoyed some more than others, particularly those that remind me of our early years in Nebraska. We lived on three acres, just outside the city limits, and after living in San Diego for 20 years, it felt like we were living the rural life. We had a creek running through our backyard, turkeys visiting on a regular basis, and even a small herd of cattle showing up one day as I was mowing on our John Deere tractor. As I read Klinkenborg's ruminations, I found myself nodding in agreement, recognizing situations from my life as a "country mouse." Thank you, Nan, for sharing this lovely book with me. 

Notable Passages:

Every year about now, I feel the need to keep a journal. I recognize in this urge all my worst instincts as a writer. I walk past the blank books--gifts of nothingness--that pile up in bookstores at this season, and I can almost hear their clean white pages begging to be defaced. They evoke in me the amateur, the high school student, the miserable writerly aspirant I once was--a young man who could almost see the ink flowing onto the woven fibers of the blank page like the watering of some eternal garden. It took a long time, a lot of pens, and many blank books before I realized that I write in the simultaneous expectation that every word I write will live forever and be blotted out instantly.  (January)

All the days with eves before them are behind us now for another year. The grand themes--rebirth and genial carnality--have come and gone like a chinook wind, bringing a familiar end-of-the-year thaw to body and spirit. Now the everyday returns and with it the ordinary kind of week in which Friday doesn't turn into Sunday--and Saturday into Sunday--as it has for two weeks running. It's time for a week in which each morning throws off a magnetic field all its own, when it's no trick telling Tuesday from Wednesday just by the sound of the alarm clock or the mood of your spouse. (January)

If deep cold made a sound, it would be the scissoring and gnashing of a skater's blades against hard gray ice, or the screeching the snow sets up when you walk across it in the blue light of afternoon. The sound might be the stamping of feet at bus stops and train stations, or the way the almost perfect clarity of the audible world on an icy day is muted by scarves and mufflers pulled up over the face and around the ears. (January)

From solstice till equinox, summer lasts only ninety-one days and six hours, a little longer if you count from Memorial Day till Labor Day. It seems like so much time. but the closer you get, the smaller summer looks, unlike winter, which looks longer and longer the nearer it comes. From a distance--from April, say--summer looks as capacious as hope. This will be the season we lose weight, eat well, work out, raise a garden, learn to kayak, read Proust, paint the house, drive to Glacier, and so on and so on and so on. This will be the season in which time stretches before us like the recesses of space itself, the season in which leisure swells like a slow tomato, until it's round and red and ripe. (May)

Beside a country road near the town of Hygiene, Colorado, stands a cottonwood that turned completely yellow the second week of August. To southbound cyclists that tree lies hidden, lurking beneath a sharp dip in the road. They coast along in summer's full incumbency--the scent of hay practically creasing their foreheads--when all at once the asphalt slopes away, and that lone cottonwood presents itself, its leaves shimmering in a bright wind that suddenly seems autumnal, full of the brittleness, the clarity, of fall. (September)

For some reason, every stage in this advancing season has brought with it a feeling of incredulity. A few weeks ago it seemed unbelievable that the leaves should be turning so soon and then that they should have dropped so promptly. Now, just this week, it seems incredible that snow should have fallen out of a goose-gray sky, skidding eastward toward the missing sun. I wake up thinking, "November already," and realize that "already" is a word that's been with me all autumn long, always measuring how far behind the season I feel. (November)

It takes no imagination to stay synchronized with the shifting of the season, with the retracting daylight or the sudden gathering of a wet morning wind that gets behind your ears and under your hair when you feed the animals. You don't really even have to pay attention to keep up with the calendar. But you do have to be ready to part with the days that have already passed. September took far more than a month this year. It probably took two months, the one our bodies lived and the wholly different month we lived in our minds. Time fell out of gear for almost everyone. 

Some of the reluctance that comes with this autumn is mere uncertainty, a sense that no one really knows the score. Going into winter takes confidence, even in a normal year, even if it's nothing more than confidence in one's own preparations. Somehow that's not good enough this year. Like everyone, I find myself wanting the world to be right with itself again, even if only in the wrong old ways. In the heart of the reluctance I feel and hear in the voices of my neighbors, there's a longing for the inconsequential summer we were having not so many weeks ago. Longing is probably too strong a word. Better to say that the memory of what was, for many Americans, an uneventful August exerts a certain attraction right now. But the present is irrefutable. The leaves won't rise again, except on a cold wind. Before long, I hope, that won't seem so regrettable. (November) [Klinkenborg was writing of 9/11, but he very well could have been writing about any month in 2020!]

California Road Trip 2019 - Hornbrook (Part III)

October 2019
Hornbrook, CA
Blue Heron RV Park

Here are a few more photos from our stay along the Klamath River. I really enjoyed watching the great blue heron, as it fished along the banks of the river. Although there wasn't a lot to do other than sit and relax (or hike up the hill behind the park), it was one of our favorite places to camp.

Click on images for larger view.

Wordless Wednesday - Earth Day

The Soul of an Octopus

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
Nonfiction
2015 Atria
Finished on March 13, 2018
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Popular naturalist Sy Montgomery explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus, the remarkable connections it makes with people, and the vibrant community that arises around this complex, intelligent, and spirited creature. Practicing true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, Montgomery befriends individual octopuses with strikingly different personalities--gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma--who show their cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures, creative trickery to get food, and jetting water to bounce balls.

Montgomery also chronicles scientists' growing appreciation of the octopus's problem-solving as she tells a love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

I'll be honest. When my book club picked this book for one of our selections this year, I was less than enthusiastic. Maybe it was the subtitle (A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness) that turned me off. Or maybe it's just that I've never been a fan of octopuses. (No, octopuses, not octopi, as I later learned.) While visiting aquariums, I usually only give the octopus tank a cursory glance before moving on to the otter or penguin exhibits. Not anymore! I loved Montgomery's entertaining anecdotes and explanations about the life (and soul) of an octopus, and learned more than I could have imagined. The book is far from the dull, dry nature read I thought I was in for! Did you know, for instance, that an octopus tastes with its skin? Or that it hatches from an egg the size of a grain of rice. Or that the Pacific Octopus lives only 3-4 years and has three hearts? I also learned that they watch TV and learn from each other. And, that they lay between 67,000-100,000 eggs, but only once. After that, they starve themselves for the rest of their life and die!

Hatfield Marine Science Center

I was so impressed with The Soul of an Octopus and we had a great discussion at our book club. I highly recommend this fascinating book, which may even tug at your heartstrings. It did mine.

Looking Back - Refuge

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
Nonfiction
1992 Vintage
Read in August 1997
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic. 

My Original Notes (1997):

Pretty good, but not great. Depressing topic - multigenerational cancer deaths due to radioactive fallout in Utah. I actually enjoyed the book when it dealt with the family and Mormon issues, but got bored with the ornithology and Great Salt Lake issues. I skimmed some of those. Rod read it, too, and enjoyed it.


My Current Thoughts:

I only have a vague recollection of this book and I'm sure I picked it up after hearing about the author in my Great Plains Lit class. I might enjoy it more now than I did back then.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

 

For more Wordless Wednesday photos,

 go here.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. - Amanda Soule

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