We had our first real cold front of the fall a couple weeks ago. Temperature wise it went from feeling like summer to feeling like fall over night. If you had been in the forest, you would have been noticing the change for a while. Mid-August is when I started to notice the changes the changes starting to take place. The green briar that the kids loved snacking on all summer stopped putting out new growth. The black gum trees and tulip poplar had started to shed some of their leaves. Many of the flowering plants are now done for the year, I’ve mostly just been seeing the goldenrod and asters. At the start of September, I saw a buck with his first set of antlers as his velvet began cracking. By now, unless something is very wrong, all the bucks have shed their velvet and are getting ready for the rut. The blue jays are louder and squawking. We’ve seen songbirds pass through our region on their way to warmer climes. Yet despite all these signs of Fall the DC mosquitos have still been going strong.
Here at Ancestral Knowledge we are like those mosquitoes, still going. We are still working to connect people to their environment but the shift in seasons has shifted our programing. Summer camps are over; we are working with our homeschool groups and custom programing for local private schools as well as weekend workshops. We are still outside almost every day. Unlike the mosquitos we will stay busy all winter. I am busy right now building out and putting some of our upcoming courses up on the website. We have a hunting apprenticeship coming up. I just wrapped up a planning meeting for our annual Wild Foods Weekend just after Thanksgiving. We will start hosting bi-weekly teen campfire nights and biweekly primitive skills nights for adults. We hope to see you come out and work on skills, catch up with old friends and maybe make some new ones.
I hope to see you soon,
Kyle