Seasons on the Escanaba River

Spring

Summer

Autumn

 

Winter

Nature Awareness Journal

I love the four seasons and winter has always held a special place in my heart ever since I was a young kid building snow forts and claiming victory over the ever growing mountain of snow at the end of our driveway... courtesy of the Green Bay City snowplows, of course.

The earth is resting now in its peaceful and well-deserved slumber, but the world has not gone entirely dormant…birds still visit my yard and find shelter in the pine trees and nourishment at the feeders I keep filled for them year round.  Deer and rabbit tracks lead me along meandering and diverging paths and I find that the woods are at their best during these cold and snowy months.  Places that were inaccessible to me in the summer and fall have let down their guard now that there is a foot or more of snow covering the ground.  I can hear the wind coming from miles away and I brace myself for it—my arms open wide, waiting in eager anticipation for the frigid blast of rushing air to wash over and through me. 

Nature Awareness Journal

I love the four seasons and winter has always held a special place in my heart ever since I was a young kid building snow forts and claiming victory over the ever growing mountain of snow at the end of our driveway... courtesy of the Green Bay City snowplows, of course.

The earth is resting now in its peaceful and well-deserved slumber, but the world has not gone entirely dormant…birds still visit my yard and find shelter in the pine trees and nourishment at the feeders I keep filled for them year round.  Deer and rabbit tracks lead me along meandering and diverging paths and I find that the woods are at their best during these cold and snowy months.  Places that were inaccessible to me in the summer and fall have let down their guard now that there is a foot or more of snow covering the ground.  I can hear the wind coming from miles away and I brace myself for it—my arms open wide, waiting in eager anticipation for the frigid blast of rushing air to wash over and through me.  

Nature Awareness Journal

Living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I am surrounded by natural scenic beauty.  It’s everywhere I turn and I can’t help but feel a bit spoiled and rich.  Lake Superior is only a two- minute walk from my office and my favorite beach a 15-minute drive out of town.  I live 30 minutes “in-land” and am blessed with the opportunity to own property where I can have my gardens, raise animals, lose myself in the vast magical woods of my backyard, and take my dogs for long walks on the numerous hiking trails that begin just outside my door.  Wildlife is abundant and although there are others houses that dot our private road, we enjoy a relative semblance of solitude and privacy.

I spend the majority of my lunch hours (when I’m not running errands for work or picking up egg layer crumble at the animal feed store), exploring places that have been my favorite haunts for more than 20 years in the city where I work but no longer live.  A person can never go wrong spending quality time with Lake Superior in all her serene and turbulent moods.  One of my favorite hangouts during the past year has been Park Cemetery, a place brimming over with nature and history located smack dab in the middle of an urban neighborhood of a small northern town.  That place serves to remind me what I always knew as a kid growing up in a much larger city three hours south—that nature is all around us and we don’t have to take long day-trips to the country or state parks to immerse ourselves in it.  Nature’s voice can be drowned out by the traffic and city noise, but she still speaks to us…we only have to learn how to tune in to a different frequency.