Week of March 2, 2025 – March 8, 2025
by Katie McLaughlin, Environmental Educator
Have you had the chance to read The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl yet? With 52 chapters- one for each week of the year you can spend time savoring the read, or you can read it in one sitting like I did. (Or perhaps you read it with our monthly book club this past month! They are currently reading Daniel Mason’s North Woods if you would like to join the group for a discussion on Saturday April 5.)
Margaret spent her time observing nature and how it changes through the seasons, and not from a fancy exotic place but from her own backyard. Have you spent the time to simply observe your own space? As one of the environmental educators here at Baltimore Woods I frequent the trails with homeschool families, campers, and other members of the community and staff. Each group with their own vision, memories, and loves for this preserve. Since I joined the team in 2022 I have been observing what happens seasonally here and in the process I have been able to form a deeper connection with nature.
For example, this past week it has almost felt like spring at Baltimore Woods! We have been in the 40s, the snow is melting away, and animals have been moving around like crazy. As we enter into March we are actively witnessing a turn of the season. I find myself looking along the edge of the Griffith’s Trail looking for the signs of skunk cabbage found at some point during March or visiting Phillip’s Pond to see how much of the ice and snow has melted yet or looking to the sky as I hear bird calls that are distinctly different from the past few months. I am aware of some of the signs to look for the change of the season, but I am always looking for what else might have changed between each walk into the woods. Sometimes those changes are unexpected, but we learn to accept them as the forest continues to grow.
Whether or not you are ready for spring and all that comes with it, nature continues forward to the next stage in its cycle. With that I will leave you with a quote from Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows… “For us, too, change is almost always a source of dislocation, but if nature teaches us anything, it’s that nothing prevents the passage of time, the turning of the seasons.”