Ticking Time

You don’t need a time keeper in Nature. The sky, the trees, the bugs, the animals, they keep the time. All you need to do is look to them.

Have the bucks dropped down below 10,000 feet? Must be nearly October.

Have the grasses and plants gone brittle? It’s September.

Does the moose have a calf with her? If temperatures have been warming, it’s spring.

Are the deer out feeding right now? It’s within an hour of sunrise or sunset.

If you tune into the clock of Nature, you’ll invariably see how it far outweighs any time keeping you do in your day-to-day life.

If you want to see the autumn colors, hunt the animal, gather the nettle, you have to do it on Nature’s clock. Should you not, you will have missed your opportunity and it will be a year – a whole year – before you get another crack at it.

Time is ticking on the autumnal adventures in Nature. Mornings already come complete with frost on the ground. Very soon, the snow will arrive. That means it’s nearly the end of my season with the deer and elk.

I’ve enjoyed a settling in with Nature this year. Being present to watch young deer play with each other. Squatting down beside an aspen and smelling the unmistakable musk of elk. Crawling through tall grass to close in on a deer…sadly that one was thwarted by a surprise guest to the party – a hiker passing through who was completely unaware of both the deer and myself. He nonetheless spoiled our rendezvous.