Mid-Autumn Musings
Cathy Koos
As I write this, the weather has turned from blistering heat to pleasant balmy days and chilly evenings. I can still enjoy my morning coffee on the deck and the evening mosquitos have turned tail and headed elsewhere. Yesterday evening, I heard sandhill cranes as they return from their Arctic summers to winter in the central valley.
Figure 1 WIKIPEDIA
Halloween is tomorrow night, for those of you that celebrate, and All Saints Day follows right behind. When I was a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, tonight (October 30) would be Mischief Night. Apparently, it’s a Mid-Atlantic event only. My dad talked about Mischief Night as the night they tipped over outhouses and put paper bags of dog poo on someone’s doorstep, lit it on fire, rang the doorbell and took off. Things were much tamer when I participated. We stuck to toilet papering someone’s shrubs, throwing kernels of feed corn on windows, and soaping car windows. All (fairly) innocent fun.
Figure 2 Wikipedia
Autumn is always a time of change and planning for me. What projects will I work on to sustain me through the long dreary days of winter? Autumn with its colors is always inspiring. On one of my daily dog walks, I collected some windfall bits of oak branches with a lovely assortment of encrusted lichens and a sweet little acorn. I added them to an ever-changing display of nature on my desk, along with interesting rocks, feathers, and found skulls. The skulls will go to my friend in Nevada. Once I gifted her with most of a fox skeleton I found in melting snow. I often wonder about these critters and their life stories.
This quarter on the CNCHnet journal, we have a number of announcements from the CNCH 2023 Conference committee. The 2023 conference will be in San Luis Obispo. There are a number of options for traveling – by air, by car, and by Amtrak. As the dates approach, more announcements will be coming! Look forward to seeing you there!