A cold wind—and lots of people—arrived for our final weekend of regular-season activity at the Notebook. New England Wild Flower Society botanist and primitive-skills expert Arthur Haines helped a shivering group transform milkweed stalks into hand-made cordage. He then had us try to kindle fires with the friction from rapidly spun sticks, more properly called hand drills and bow drills.
Arthur showed us how to strip the fiber from inside a stiff milkweed stalk and—through a series of twists and weaves—make it into a sturdy cord..
This is what the milkweed stalks looked like before we removed the inner fiber and turned it into the sort of twine you see wrapped around this bundle.
Vlad, an exchange student from Kazakhstan, was a roaring success at friction fire-making. Afterwards I had a great talk with him about his coin collection, his new love of American football, how difficult it is to take an English-language biology test while thinking in Russian, and how much he loves seeing the ocean after growing up in the world's largest landlocked country.
Arthur has just finished writing his latest book, about the plants of New England, which goes on sale in December and will help promote the important new plant organization called Anaskimin (http://www.anaskimin.org/). He is passionate about teaching the nutritional, medical and practical value of wild plants. He believes, as we do at the Notebook, that knowledge about the natural world—and its scientific underpinnings—sparks curiosity, insight, reflection, imagination, creativity and a better understanding of ourselves and the need to protect the planet's fragile life forms. I'll take that over ignorance any day.
Goodbye, Fantastic Mr. Fox: One of our favorite Notebook characters, a felted puppet with a heartfelt look, got a new adoptive family on Saturday, but said he might come back to visit.
So what happens at The Naturalist's Notebook now that our regular season is over? A few things. We prepare to re-open for a weekend or two between Thanksgiving and Christmas for all of you who said you wanted to do holiday shopping at the cozy little Notebook (we'll announce the days and hours soon). We keep shipping out books, artwork and whatever else people order via phone (207-801-2777) or e-mail (info@thenaturalistsnotebook.com). We start creating the look of the 2011 Notebook, which will have many new themes and surprises. Pamelia and I head off on a three-week, six-state adventure out west that you can follow here on the blog starting in late October; we'll be doing an article on the Pacific Flyway bird migration for a travel magazine. I'll keep blogging all fall, winter and spring, giving you a view from the Maine coast even if you don't live here, and (I hope) a bit of entertainment for the occasional dreary day.
Season two of the Notebook may be (more or less) over, but if you're interested in coming along with us, the fun is just beginning.