17 September 2022
A workshop on writing about nature. Perfect…just what the Universe ordered.
We meet at Knowlton Hill Preserve, George, Marcia, Emely, and me. Four people from different backgrounds with one important thing in common: a love of nature. After a brief introduction led by George, the workshop facilitator, we separate to ponder and write. And here I sit, in my chosen spot on the small knoll in the field leading into the Preserve.
The sights, sounds, and smells abound. Shades of green surround me, dotted with the occasional purple and white clover, this field’s last sources of nourishment for the pollinators as summer comes to an end. Beyond the field, a forest line of oak, maple, beech, and ash showing just a hint of color change; a signal that autumn approaches.
Small yellow butterflies dance from blade of grass to clover and back, a reminder my Mom is near. Dragonflies join in the erratic flights, all skimming the top of the field before making a sudden inexplicable choice to land again. The smell of freshly mowed grass from a neighboring property is delivered by the wind, mixing with the sweet scent of slightly damp earth that wafts from beneath where I sit.
Birds can be heard calling from the trees, their voices mixing with the sound of crickets and grasshoppers. So many crickets and grasshoppers, singing from where they hide between the blades of grass. I listen carefully, trying to hear each voice. A beautiful a cappella performance. A honeybee, indifferent to my presence, assesses a clover flower nearby. A cricket jumps on my leg; seemingly to bring my attention back to him. A bold move from this tiny soul.
Whether in my back yard or in these cherished preserves, the benefits of nature are undeniable. Having the opportunity to sit quietly and experience the moment, free from external demands, helps to bring life into focus…encourages me to be like the bold cricket.
Cheryl Baker
The Grand Old Oak
I am sitting on a stone slab bench in the sun, near a very big white oak tree in a mature forest. A blue jay is welcoming me with constant chatter. The tree is spreading its branches out horizontally telling that it was growing in an open field and in an old stone wall. This grand old oak is making a lot of shade on its south side. The bench has been used as a dinner table by a squirrel, maybe a chipmunk as there are the outer shells from a shagbark hickory tree.
The blue jay has been quiet for a while, the forest is quite still. A leaf has come fluttering down with the slightest breeze and stillness in this forest. A bee buzzes by, a little chip sound in the distance. A shiny green beetle is on a rock, now moving across the forest floor ever so slowly.
I am now sitting in the shade, on a flat stone looking at the tree from a new perspective. A few large dead brown limbs are now noticeable. The bark shows lots of age with such rough pieces at the lower part of the trunk and smooth, very artistic bark higher up with patterns of black and white stripes. The quiet is now broken by a cat bird that is making itself known.
A few feet down the trail are red partridge berries, pale yellow and orange bittersweet berries and red dewberry leaves adding color to the predominately green and brown forest. A few dead limbs from the oak are found on the ground hidden under lots of vines. The Grand Old Oak: What is its circumference? How old is it? How long will it live?
Marcia Kilpatrick
The Pond
There are no immediate dangers here at Knowlton Pond. There are no alligators, no poisonous dart frogs, no just-awakened-bear to gobble me up in a post-hibernation haze. There are no giant prehistoric birds of prey that can sweep me up and fly away. No small mythical beings are waiting to whisper in my ear of sweet delights past the bush. No, there are no dangers here.
Instead, there is the pond and all that it is. Just by the bank, I can see rocks, sunken wood, and the brown-green muck and murk.
All those rocks, I wonder what they are. How many types of rocks are there? Just how old are they? Some may be as old as the earth, formed from those very hot magma eruptions sent from the core. Then turned cold and solid when they metamorphosed into schist, granite, and slate. There are too many; many too small, many too deep, many too in-between forming, and many too unidentifiable for my knowledge to know.
I cannot see past that thick carpet of cyanobacteria blooms that give the lake its greenish hue. The more they bloom the less is seen. Only the jutting peaks of rocks break through the carpet and viscous mud to create stony islands above the blooms. The limbs of branches poke out like a sunken boat’s bowsprit. A pirate ship graveyard within Knowlton Pond.
But I’ll observe closer to the banks for a moment. It’s no more than a foot of saturated soil, nary a blade of grass in its area, with an obscure impression of what could have been a boot. The water ebbs to and from its edge, leading into the opaque brown-tinged water before the algae take over. Sand and vegetation scraps float and swirl here. They churn in circles and disperse ever so often that when I catch that opening of the lake, I see far below the surface and eye all sorts of misshapen mounds of mud. But just as quickly, the murk advances back in. And again and again, it churns and disperses, churns and disperses.
And what of the fish that live underneath? The fish only ripple the surface to catch those unfortunate bugs that dared to skirt the pond. The fish do not show themselves at all. They are too sensitive to predators. I have yet to see a feral fish, the only ones familiar to me are those already butchered and filet, or kept in well-regulated tanks. It brings to mind how oceans are barely known, for their fish are much larger, sharper, faster, and deeper than those here. With enough luck, I might see a flash of scales of whatever fish calls this pond home.
I think those might be water lilies just beyond the floats of algae, where the flowers and pads form floating islands. They congregate towards the eastern part of the pond, towards the center where they find clearer waters. The sun shines brightly there, scattering shards of light on the water that in turn make those pearly pink floras glow like snow. Too bright and beautiful for eyes to look prolonged. White-clad socialites, but come winter, their pink will wilt and they’ll sleep away those dreary New England days below the iced exterior.
There are sounds here too. A brush of leaves, or an echoing squawk, but no form to connect it to. They peer and speak from lush treetops, hiding in the nook and crannies of those old oaks. Whispering amongst each other as they eat berries and bugs in delicate paws. Others watch with their sharp eyes, poised perfectly still on thick branches, their thin bird feet holding around the wood, and observing.
But not one appears to let me lay eyes on it. I know squirrels live here, I know that pretty robins nest here, I know handsome hawks patrol the skies here. I can only listen to their chatter, and involuntarily take up the status of a fly on the wall, hoping to put a muzzle or beak to words. Only once in the very beginning did I see a brown-looking bird sit on the rock I am currently on. But no sooner did I lay eyes on it did it fly away and disappear. No animals venture near me, nor will I to them. I’m too scared to. There are no immediate dangers, but my own fear of small animals and the average mosquito.
Emely Ricci
JT Workshop II
It’s mid-September. A pair of sulphur butterflies begin their dance just above the waving grass on Knowlton Hill’s drumlin. Whirling together, becoming a living DNA helix, they rise into the September sky until they are gone, truly vanishing in the blue.
We are poised here, living a blissfully warm, quiet day in late late summer. Last night the mercury plunged into the low forties. The month of August, Connecticut’s hottest August on record, is a memory–and will soon feel like ancient history. The forest that surrounds this hillock is still green, but it is a muddy green, like an artist’s palette that’s been much used. There is nary a red or yellow leaf to be seen. This afternoon’s light southerly breeze is something to treasure.
It’s the kind of a day I could fall asleep in the grass, ticks be damned. I kneel down to smell it, catch a snifter of summer while I can. The dried clumps from a recent mowing have the satisfying odor of hay bales. Am I having a genetically programmed human response to this perfume, another DNA reminder, this one of 10,000-year-old agricultural harvesting? It’s a good day for imagination. Hmmm. I think I’ll cherish the sun and just look.
Mysteriously, the sulphurs are low again, tiny wings working hard. I’ve been searching, but never saw them descend. Flowers are sparse now, slim pickings for sulphurs and the occasional monarch. Clover is about all that is left here from which to collect pollen. A precious resource, as is the one I too am soaking up while it lasts.
Join us next season?
George Jacobi
