Notes from my Knapsack 5-16-19

Notes from my Knapsack 5-16-19

Jeff Gill

 

Graduations and commemorations

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Denison commencement ushers in a season of graduation events all around us, from colleges to high schools, other programs (I still remember my son's preschool graduation better than many other events from more recently!), let alone the impending end of school.

 

Children will be afoot and a-pedal all around us, or at least I hope they will be, and we drivers and motivators on powered vehicles of any sort need to be a little extra on guard for their return to the weekday, daytime landscape.

 

The baseball games down at Raccoon Valley Park, Wildwood full of young voices, the longer lines for frozen custard downtown, all are part of telling us we're into summer, even before May ends.

 

My own feeling is that once the yellow daffodil flowers brown and fade, and the dogwood blossoms of whatever hue drop from their branches, then spring is over. You might say that summer has not started, but spring has sprung.

 

It's cool for sure on the bricks as the Farmer's Market opens, but there's coffee for that; even the afternoons still aren't too hot, but the sun is high enough in the sky to press warmth into the soil and trigger growth. Our frost free date is just past at mid-May, and the tomatoes may safely go into the ground. Memorial Day can be cool or hot, but rarely too hot, and that weekend also brings the first "Concert on the Green" up behind Bryn Du on May 27.

 

What I hope for in any family is more time outside. The rail-to-trail path along Raccoon Creek, sidewalks in the village, and the walking paths extending beyond; the Denison Bio-reserve trails, up Sugar Loaf, down Lancaster Road to Infirmary Mound Park or out into the township to Lobdell Reserve of Licking County Parks. They're all options, and "no child left inside" is still a call to our community to promote time and experiences in nature.

 

My own favorites times afoot are the hour before and the one after daylight; pre-dawn strolls I don't take often enough, and evenings I too frequently get home after dark, but those are the times I hope for to just get up and get going.

 

Animals are about, smaller than deer but not just the bugs. Possums and, yes, skunks; rabbits and groundhogs dash about. Raccoons I see less often than I might wish, but they're smart enough to avoid the roads more than their marsupial cousins. Foxes and coyotes, squirrels and chipmunks, even field mice and voles if you know where to look.

 

Whatever your age or education, this is the time of year to graduate from indoor classrooms to Nature's classroom, the learning environment without ceilings but plenty of canopy, lacking solid flooring but often good footing if you have the right shoes.

 

Credit is transferable from one ecosystem to another, and there are few pre-requisites other than basic safety and awareness (especially if you're walking or running before the sun rises). And I'd call it good news that you cannot, in truth, graduate from the school of the out-of-doors. There's no commencement scheduled, it's simply a curriculum for life long learning.

 

See you outdoors!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he does not walk as much as he should or would like to. Tell him your favorite stroll at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.