I’ve shared the story of my nature calendars before (2015: www.dailykos.com/… 2016: www.dailykos.com/...). In a nutshell, I assemble a personalized old-fashioned physical wall calendar each year for my mom, who uses them to note down plans and events. She’s 92 now, and while in very good physical condition taking walks every day and living at home, she has less scope for visiting places in nature than she used to. My mom has done more hiking, climbing, canoeing, snowshoeing and traveling than I ever will, but with less opportunity for that now, the pictures I use in the calendars evoke pleasant memories of good times and beautiful places.
I’ve already assembled and ordered next year’s calendar (theme = flotsam) but I won’t share that one yet, since it’s a holiday-season present and it’s possible she may read this Bucket. Instead, I'll show you 2017’s. There's still enough time for you to make one if this idea interests and suits you. There are a number of online companies that have this service.
The cover is above. Starting with January, here are the rest of the pages, the theme being trees of the Northwest (looking at my selections I realize they’re actually all, aside from the last page, from western Washington, a bit more localized than the whole Pacific Northwest...well, that's where I wander!).
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.
|
For the last page, I assemble a collage of family photos showing places folks have been over the years, related to the theme for the year. This page shows trees in Zihuatanejo (Mexico), the Olympic Peninsula, foothills of the Rocky Mountains (British Columbia), southwest New Jersey, and Snohomish county (Washington state).
The “New Year”, as arbitrary as that may be, is as good a time as any to reflect upon times past and future. Annual calendars are a way to evoke nature amid the hustle and bustle of daily life.
How about today’s nature observations in your part of the world? Please share in the comments!
"SPOTLIGHT ON GREEN NEWS & VIEWS" IS POSTED EVERY SATURDAY AT 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME AND WEDNESDAY AT 3:30 ON THE DAILY KOS FRONT PAGE. IT'S A GREAT WAY TO CATCH UP ON DIARIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED. BE SURE TO RECOMMEND AND COMMENT IN THE DIARY. |