Wandering through winter with Edwin and Nellie Teale

Wandering Through Winter
An Adventurous 20,000 Journey Through the North American Winter
New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1965
(Read in January 2017)

Author Edwin Way Teale won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1965 with Wandering Through Winter: An Adventurous 20,000 Mile Journey Through the North American Winter.  This book is the last in a four volume natural history series by Teale, each of which describe a trip he and his wife make, crossing the United States as they follow a different season for each book.  Teale made the first trip with his wife Nellie in 1947 as a way to deal with grief over the death of their only child, David, who was killed in World War II. 

They begin the series with spring, move to fall on the next trip, follow up with summer, and complete the series with winter.  The Teale’s route is different in each book.  For winter they travel from southwestern most point of the US where California joins Mexico to the northeastern most point of the US, somewhere on the coast north of Caribou, Maine.  Their routes are never direct, but are convoluted as they double back to visit a specific place.  The front of this book has a map that shows each season’s route. 

The “adventure” alluded to in the subtitle is very low on the excitement scale. Teale’s writing style initially struck me as stilted and old-fashioned but I got used to it quickly.  Other readers never grow to appreciate it.  One reader described the book as “the most boring book I ever read.”  Teale writes for a more erudite reader than exists today in the general population.

For some reason, I grew to love this book. This isn’t a book about the cold or snow, which one might expect with this title.  The perspective is idiosyncratic.  Teale quotes from Alice in Wonderland when the White Queen said to Alice—“Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  Teale, too, likes to believe and observe the impossible or unusual things as he and his wife wander across the United States.  Fortunately, he then shares them with us, his readers.

Teale spends one of the first nights of the trip in Southern California in the Colorado Desert with a friend and expert on the Chuckwalla Mountain region, Dr. Edmund C. Jaeger who points out that “the desert landscape is monotonous only to the uninformed.” Teale discovers firsthand that on and above the surface of dry land, rapid fluctuations of temperature produce violently shifting air currents.  He and his companions are buffeted by winds gusting to 50 mph that night.  Teale fears he will be swept away, helplessly tucked into his sleeping bag, blown along like a giant tumbleweed.  Teale notices how insects and plants have adapted to the winds.  He watches a small butterfly hook three of its legs around a pebble and then allows the wind to blow it parallel to the ground, a position that offers the least resistance.

Who knew that a bird hibernates for the winter!  Jaeger was the first scientist to observe a hibernating bird, a Nuttal’s Poorwill, and realize what he was seeing.  He banded the hibernating bird and discovered the same bird returned to its small rock crevice for four years running, 1946-1950. 

Teale also writes about:

·         The largest albino squirrel population identified in the United States.

·         Eagle sightings and their comeback from great endangerment, e.g., people in Alaska killed 115,000 eagles from 1917-1952. 

·         Whale watching off the Pacific Coast.

·         Palo Duro Canyon in Texas, a beautiful place that I’ve visited myself.

·         Prairie dog villages.

·         Diamond Crater in Arkansas.

·         A domestic cat sanctuary housing 79 cats.

·         Loner and photographer Wilson Alwyn Bentley, whose life’s work was the study and photographing of snowflakes that are preserved and displayed at his home, now a museum.

Snow crystal

·        Long-tailed salamanders in the Shenandoah Valley that breed in the basement of a cabin that contains an artesian well.

Each chapter title in the table of contents is followed by a list of topics covered in the chapter.  The book also has a detailed index, both of which helped me to go back and find parts of the book that I found interesting. 

Edwin Way Teale

Teale was a self-educated naturalist and a staff writer for Popular Science magazine for 13 years, before he quit to pursue his freelance writing career.  Teale died in 1980, while Nellie lived until the age of 92, passing away in 1993.  Their home, Trailwood, is preserved and managed today by the Connecticut Audubon Society.  

The Kitchen Window: A Throwback Post

I was reminded that I had written this essay when a friend mentioned wanting a window in her kitchen, but she added that all she would be looking at was her car in the garage.  Our kitchen window now looks out on our new cedar fence, a large thermometer Ricky mounted to the fence, a piece of Ricky’s original blacksmith art, a crape myrtle tree trunk, and part of a banana magnolia bush.  Before Ricky and I moved into our present home, we lived in a modest duplex a block from our current residence.   Our previous kitchen window view was more diverse.

Duplex door

*******

I remember my mother talking about a newly constructed house she had just visited.  “Well, it’s very nice but I wouldn’t want it.  I wouldn’t have a house without a window over the kitchen sink.  I want to see outside while I work in the kitchen.”

I agree with my mother.  Even with today’s automatic dishwashers and microwave quick meals from the freezer, a kitchen window is still essential to a well-designed kitchen. 

The view from the kitchen window doesn’t have to be fancy.  A couple of bird feeders and a bird bath encircled by a rather disreputable-looking flower garden are in the foreground of my kitchen window scene.  Despite the neglect I heap upon my flowers, occasionally a large, purple iris, a hardy pink tulip, or lavender hyacinth blooms in the garden.  Each blossom is something to celebrate and ooh and ahh over. 

Tallow tree next to the ditch in autumn

Ditch with autumn leaves from tallow tree

I also have a tree outside my window—a tallow tree.  Tallow trees are considered trash trees.  They grow fast in the Deep South and are proliferate reproducers.   They don’t usually grow large, and they “self-prune” so they rain twigs in the yard.  Our tallow tree is big because of its location beside a four foot deep concrete drainage ditch that guarantees a good water supply.

A community of birds, squirrels, and cats live and play around the tallow tree.  Brilliant red cardinals, raucous blue jays, and red-throated finches have all been observed at the bird feeders that hang from the limbs of the tallow tree.  Woodpeckers and flickers eat insects up and down the trunk. 

One of the neighborhood cats beside the ditch

Behind the tallow tree is the concrete-lined drainage ditch that now has a weathered natural stone look.  A daily parade can be observed from the kitchen window as neighborhood children and an assortment of cats use the ditch as a thoroughfare.   At night the ditch is more sinister, its walls filled with large flying tree roaches.  Sometimes the ditch serves as an escape route for those trying to elude the police.  When it rains, the ditch is a roaring torrent of rushing water, scary to watch.

Flooding ditch  fills garage and garage apartment entrance during torrential rains

Elderberries, honeysuckle and wild morning glories grow along the old wooden fence that separates our neighbor’s yard from the ditch.  Each spring a dogwood with white blossoms peeks over the fence, and a royal star magnolia blooms bravely, almost lost in a jungle of vines.

The window connects me with my neighborhood…with life outside my home.  I wouldn’t have a house without a window over the kitchen sink.  You don’t have to either—hand me that sledge hammer. 

Caroline Dormon's Legacy: A Return to Briarwood

(You can click on any photo to enlarge for better viewing)

A sense of peace and tranquility surrounds Briarwood, the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve, near Saline, Louisiana, even when my husband and I arrived for the annual picnic to find cars parked up and down the road.

A trip to Briarwood Nature Preserve takes you to a place where one woman's values and principles are evidenced in everything seen.  

detail from a brochure about Briarwood

“Miss Carrie,” as Caroline Dormon was known to friends and family, was a cousin of my husband’s grandfather so we try to attend the annual picnics. An added bonus is getting to visit with some of the other Edgertons who attend this event. My husband met Caroline Dormon when he was young and the family visited Briarwood for a family reunion.



Ricky is boy in forefront right and
Miss Carrie is standing in the shadows
(With appreciation for photo provided by Ricky's cousin Edwin Edgerton III)

Briarwood was the summer home of the Dormon family, and Caroline was born here in July 1888.  She returned to Brairwood as an adult to live here full time.  As I've been reading about Caroline Dormon, I found glimpses of her life story depicted in some snippets from national and regional magazines (as quoted in Briarwood brochures). 

“During her lifetime at Briarwood, Caroline built a log house, carved trails through the woods, scooped out a ‘reflection’ pond and planted hundreds of wildflowers, trees and shrubs collected during her travels throughout the South."
Southern Living Magazine, July 1992

 Caroline was a scholar all her life and taught school briefly in her early years after attending college in Alabama.  The following family photo shows a sign near one rural school where Miss Carrie taught.



 “The unpretentious unconventional woman lived most of her 83 years in a log house set amongst secluded woodlands in a remote area of northeasternmost Natchitoches Parish.  Often beset by financial stress, she resorted to such humble and mostly unsuccessful ventures as offering summer camps for girls or selling home-canned products.  Yet she gained world renown as a conservationist, naturalist, botanist, artist, historian, author, student of Indian lore and collector of native plants.  Louisiana State University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science Degree.”    
Forest and People Magazine, 3rd Quarter, 1990

Caroline Dormon devoted her life to preserving the flora and fauna found at Briarwood and planted many more species on the land.  Today over 7,000 species of plants have been recorded at Briarwood, and it's not surprising that one goal of the non-profit group that oversees this nature preserve is to teach the value of native plants in the landscape and their potential for medical use.

 

 As Ricky and I wandered the trails around Briarwood, we took photos to help remember this day.

 

path through the wildflower meadow

 

 

 

lily (still trying to remember which one)

 

Native Azalea

The aroma of the white native azalea filled the path

Illicium floridanum (also known as purple anise, Florida anise, stink-bush, or star-anise)
an evergreen shrub native to the south-eastern United States
especially Florida and Louisiana. Smells like a wet dog!




Sign at the pond




Old sign identifying tree

Love the texture of this bark



There's a writer's cabin on the premises for people doing research related to Briarwood.

 

A friend David Snell vividly described Caroline Dormon in Smithsonian Magazine, February 1972:  “I can see her now, calling to [her sister]Virginia, the indoor Dormon, whooping and prancing about like some bamboo-stemmed marsh bird, and swinging her arms high over her head, with palms aloft and fingertips pointing backwards, in delight and disbelief that Heaven should have chosen to so bless this day.”

I felt the same way--experiencing delight and disbelief-- at the natural wonders that Briarwood provides to visitors.

Briarwood is managed by a non-profit organization, The Foundation for the Preservation of the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve, Inc. whose goals include protecting Briarwood’s old growth forest, as well as the protection of Dormon’s botanical collection of native plants and rare and endangered plants at Briarwood.  Briarwood also seeks to provide a safe habitat for wildlife and strives to educate adults and children in the importance of biodiversity and the preservation of the ecosystem.

For more information, please refer to these books related to Caroline Dormon, as well as the Facebook page, Briarwood Nature Preserve.

• Flowers Native to the Deep South, Dormon’s book of wildflowers  (Baton Rouge: Claitor's Publishing Division, 1958; 2^nd printing, 1999)
• The Gift of the Wild Things: The Life of Caroline Dormon, by Fran Holman. (Lafayette, La: The Center for Louisiana Studies, 1990)
• Adventures in Wild Flowers: The Timeless Writings of Caroline Dormon, editor Fran Holman (Catawba Publishing, 2010)

You may also want to read my earlier blog post about a previous Briarwood visit.

 

 

 

 

Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve

Sometimes I think it is easier to write every day rather than skip a week and try to pick up where I left off.  Last week was busy, but I've had weeks that were just as busy and  I continued to write.  I think the difference is I've been feeling overwhelmed, and instead of tackling the tasks one at a time, the dreaded inertia struck.  And I did nothing but fret.  No more, this blog is the first step out of my rut.

One thing that helped is Ricky and I took a "head-clearing" day trip this past Saturday to Saline, Louisiana, location of Briarwood, the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve.  Caroline Dormon, 1888-1971, was a botanist, horticulturist, ornithologist, historian, archeologist, preservationist, naturalist, conservationist, author and a distant cousin of my husband, Ricky.   Briarwood was the country home of Dormon's family, and Caroline grew up loving nature and the out-of-doors.  As an adult, she re-established her home at Briarwood in 1918 and began to preserve the native plants growing there and to introduce more examples of native plants on her property.

She initially taught school after graduation from college, but in 1921 she went to work for the Louisiana Forestry Division, the first woman in Louisiana to be hired in forestry and also believed to be the first woman in the United States to be employed in the field of forestry.  Dormon was instrumental in getting the U.S. Forest Service to establish the Kisatchie National Forest, the only national forest in Louisiana.  She later worked as a beautification consultant for the Louisiana Highway Department.

However, her real love was Briarwood and working with flora and fauna there.  When she died, she willed Briarwood to the public.  There is now a Foundation for the Preservation of the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve. The nature preserve has two full-time curators, Richard and Jessie Johnson, and additional buildings have been added over the years that allow the public to experience the beauty of Briarwood, including a writer's cabin that I intend to utilize some day! 

The preserve is open during certain months for tours and has an annual picnic for supporters and other interested persons.  There are always members of Ricky's family at the picnic so we try to attend each year.  Last year's drought necessitated the Johnson's cutting back all the native azaleas that usually put on a showy display during the annual picnic.  This year the woods weren't filled with color, rather a palette of peaceful green was the theme of the day.

Walking through the woods

Caroline Dormon's Cabin

Longleaf pine called Grandpappy: oldest tree at Briarwood

Lichen on tree stump

Toadstool

At the pond

Oakleaf hydrangea blossom

Writer's Cabin

The photographer of most of the day's pictures!



I'm thankful that Caroline Dormon decided to share her home with others after her death.  A biography of Dormon's life is available--The Gift of the Wild Things, by Fran Holman, who also has collected Dorman's essays in a volume, Adventures in Wild Flowers.  In addition, Dormon herself  wrote Flowers Native to the Deep South.

Caroline Dormon noted in 1942: "I was born with something--I call it 'the gift of the wild things'--and because I am simple myself, and have a sympathetic heart, I can understand animals and simple people to an unusual degree. I see, too, so much that others miss. When I know so many lovely things, I feel greedy in keeping them all to myself." 

Open to Wonder

Elizabeth Peters, describes a character in her 1980 suspense novel, The Love Talker:
"Lizzie had a restless, imaginative mind; it was childish in the same sense that children's minds are unconfined by convention, open to wonder." (p. 15)

To live like a child, amazed by the world, living in the moment, exploring and seeking without preconceived expectations--these are worthy aspirations.

Above photos taken at Briarwood, Saline, LA

Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve