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Fall Photos
Here are photographs from northern New Mexico this fall. It was one of the prettiest and longest falls I can remember there. We were on the lookout for bear when we went outside. There were native sunflowers and goldenrod. The sunflowers attracted chickadees who were fun to watch as the little acrobats gathered seeds. The oaks, which usually only turn from green to yellow to brown, put on a beautiful display of orange and reds this year too. Deer were fun visitors. We had three large bucks along with younger ones, does, and fawns visit us on a daily basis. When we were outside, they would stop grazing to gaze at us and then return to their business. Wild and planted gooseberries were a nice addition to strawberry-rhubarb pies. They gave a nice zing to whole wheat muffins. I don’t know what the purple flowers were, but I loved them. We planted on our deck–out of deer reach–cherry tomatoes, squash, chiles, rhubarb, chives and other herbs, eggplant and traditional flowers like pansies and petunias. The first frost of fall can overlap the last frost of spring so the growing season is short. This year the frost held off and we got more from our container garden than usual.
A Walk in the Woods–bears, snakes, and spooky woods…oh, my!
A Walk in the Woods
by Bill Bryson
The Appalachian Trail, a little over 2,000 miles of challenging terrain, is a test that hikers of all ages, genders, and experience levels attack in various ways. There are parking lot visitors; they drive in, look around a bit and perhaps picnic, but do not actually hike the trail. Section hikers traverse parts of the trail at various times with a few completing the whole trail over the course of a lifetime. Then there are a few hardy souls who are full thru-hikers; they keep at it from south to north until they complete the trail.
As you might imagine, hiking the Appalachian Trail is an endeavor that requires a lot of planning and the purchase of expensive equipment to get the lightest weight gear possible. Carrying a forty pound backpack all day over rough terrain with formidable ascents and descents is a difficult task indeed. Author Bill Bryson who has written a number of travel books relates in A Walk in the Woods his experiences on the Appalachian Trail with Stephen Katz, a former school chum he had traveled around Europe with twenty-years prior. Much of the book describes the harsh realities of the hike and the delightful relief of their occasional forays into civilization to replenish supplies and sleep in a real bed. Some of the book relates their changing relationship as they confront the trials of the trail together as well as anecdotes about the interesting people they meet along the way.
Bryson’s writing style is comfortable. The descriptions are detailed without being overblown, and there is just enough history of the trail to give the reader an understanding of why it is the way it is. Often humorous, it provides an interesting read taking the reader into a once in a lifetime experience on the Appalachian Trail.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Travel
Notes: Some profanity
Publication: December 26, 2006 (first published May 5, 1998)—Anchor Books
Memorable Lines:
But even men far tougher and more attuned to the wilderness than Thoreau were sobered by its strange and palpable menace. Daniel Boone, who not only wrestled bears but tried to date their sisters, described corners of the southern Appalachians as “so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them without terror.” When Daniel Boone is uneasy, you know it’s time to watch your step.
I was beginning to appreciate that the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation, that the whole point of the experience is to remove yourself so thoroughly from the conveniences of everyday life that the most ordinary things—processed cheese, a can of pop gorgeously beaded with condensation—fill you with wonder and gratitude.
And all the time, as we crept along on this absurdly narrow, dangerous perch, we were half-blinded by flying snow and jostled by gusts of wind, which roared through the dancing trees and shook us by our packs. This wasn’t a blizzard; it was a tempest.
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