A Naturalist’s Journal

I live on a lovely old dirt road and often walk up and down it to check out the birds, wildflowers, etc. in my neighborhood. In my older entries I referred to my neighbors by name because the names reminded me of where I was when I heard or saw something. But my neighbors’ names have changed as old ones have moved out and new ones have moved in, so when the Emergency 911 system assigned all the houses numbers that would tell rescue vehicles how many miles or fractions of miles a caller’s house was up the road, I began using the new numbers, which would be permanent and also indicate where exactly I was on the road.

Here’s how the system works: my own house is #884, which means I’m .884 miles up my road. Down the road from me a little over .6 miles is the Audubon Nature Center at #255. Across the road and only slightly down the road from me is #815. Less that a tenth of a mile up the road from me is The Birds of Vermont Museum at #900. The house that’s farthest from me is #1984 — 1.984 miles from the beginning of the road and 1.1 miles from me. My entire neighborhood includes about two and a half miles of road, a brook, a chain of beaver ponds, marshy edges, mowed meadows, weedy fields, woods, pastures, yards, and gardens. I’ve seen moose, black bears, a bobcat, beavers, muskrats, minks, and otters in addition to all the birds and wildflowers I keep track of. It’s a lovely place to live….