Fall is seed time. There is an amazing array of seeds that are ready to fall and sleep and be prepared to spring to life when the earth warms. Nature packages her seeds in such creative ways! Some, like milkweed, burst their pods in silky white billows, carrying seeds like little parachutes over meadows and fields. Oaks just drop their acorns unceremoniously sometimes pummeling those below. Lindens swirl their seeds like the blades of a helicopter, or is that where humans got the idea for helicopter blades? Mullin holds her stalks of seeds aloft for small birds to feast on and spread the rest. Maples twirl down delightfully pirouetting into the ground. Cattails, brown and bursting soft, gauzy fill hide their seeds. Nuts trees are very protective and wrap seeds in hard casings. The abundance and magnanimity of plants preparing for the next generation is astounding! Nature's inheritance is passed on wrapped in so many lessons for us who are students of learning to let go so more can come!
The other day I went to Five Rivers to do a Raptor count. Before the count started I had time for a walk around the Beaver Tree Trail. The pond was still frozen - the ice looked brindled in jade and black swirls. On the opposite side of the pond, the ice was white. I know I have read explanations of what makes the ice different colors, but right now it was enough to enjoy the creativity of colors moving in elegant frozen waves. Icicles hung from the spillway. Reaching down into the water flowing beneath them. The last vestiges of winter. Rushes were bent and broken by winter winds, snow, and ice. Soon, new growth would replace them. The earth was brown with ozzy mud. The kind that is just as slippery as ice. Hopeful trees were budded crimson against the sky. Willows flushed orange, so stark and striking. The sky was layered in soft blues, white and grey. Dampness seeped from the ground and folded around me. The Raptor count is a DEC project which counts the rapto...
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