Welcome!

thenaturalist — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:46:30 +0000

I am a retired English teacher, freelance writer, and self-taught/self-teaching naturalist who lives on an old hill farm in a small Vermont town called Huntington. I’m a native Vermonter, but I didn’t grow up here. I spent most of my childhood in various American suburbs outside the cities where my father worked. It took me thirty years to find my way back to Vermont, but once I got here I knew I was home.

My first year back — 1975 — I decided I needed to make up for lost time. I began exploring the natural world with all the mid-life energy and enthusiasm that had motivated my return to Vermont. Around the edges of my job at the University of Vermont, where I taught English off and on for 20 years, I began my self-education as a naturalist. I started by volunteering at a local nature center.

To enforce my learning — and to demonstrate to my University of Vermont students that writing had its uses in the real world — I started writing a weekly natural history column for several Vermont newspapers. These columns led to four books:

THE BEGINNING NATURALIST Shelburne, VT: New England Press, 1979

A FIELD GUIDE TO THE FAMILIAR Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998

A NATURALIST INDOORS Lincoln, NE: iUniverse.com, 2000

THE VERMONT LIFE GUIDE TO FALL FOLIAGE Montpelier, VT: Vermont Life, 2001

I DISCOVER THE WEB

I have retired from teaching English and from writing a weekly column, but I still research and write about subjects that interest me. It’s these miscellaneous subjects that led to my first Web site called a NATURALIST’S ALMANAC AND BOOK OF DAYS. As a retirement project I decided that I would like to post various of my natural history writings on a popular interest Web site where more people could read them and make use of the materials I’ve unearthed for my own edification. My goal is ambitious: 367 units of date-based natural history information — yes, 367 with leap day and a one-time-only February 30, which is a long story…. I am also searching out the best natural history Web sites and am constantly looking for new and better reference books. I will be adding Web links and recommended readings as I discover them.

THE WEB GROWS ON ME

After launching my first Web site late in the year 2000 with the humble recognition that completing it as I envisioned it would most likely take me the rest of my life, I conceptualized a second Web site called the VERMONT ALMANAC. This second almanac includes information specific to Vermont for every month and every day of the year.

AND NOW I’M BLOGGING …

As I’ve been developing my Web sites, I’ve also been taking my customary nature walks. Since 1978 I’ve been keeping dated records of what I see and hear on these walks, and it occurred to me that what I call my “Naturalist’s Journal” should be available online too. About then I discovered the world of blogs and decided a blog would would be perfect for my Naturalist’s Journal. So I explored the Blogosphere for a blogging site that would enable me to create a searchable archive of all my journal entries. It took me a while — and numerous disappointments and setbacks — but I’ve finally settled on Word Press, which will accomodate all my journal entries. To visit my journal, click here: NATURALIST’S JOURNAL. I started blogging my NATURALIST’S JOURNAL the summer of 2005, and it’s growing both backward and forward as fast as I can find the time to post journal entries. And wouldn’t you know, once I discovered blogs, I had to have more than one. See My Other Blogs for an annotated list….

Gale Lawrence

Welcome!