Talking Leaves

Observer Staff

10/13/2005 12:00:00 AM

By Simon Otto

This time of the year is special to me because it's not too hot and not too cold.

It's time for the animal brothers to get reading for what's coming. The insects are looking for a place to spend the winter months, while others take it as it comes.

The geese are flocking up and one can see them sitting on the lakes. Some wait for a big flock to come along because their leader might just be a young one and doesn't quite know the way to the warmer grounds yet. He will leave it to the older ones who have made the journey before.

The deer are taking on their coat of fur, this fur is longer and is hollow, making a good insulation for the cold and snow.

While some animals just snuggle up in a warm hole in a tree or a hollow log, some just dig deeper in the ground.

The Mother Earth is getting ready to go to sleep while peeboon, winter, is here.

She waits until the trees, who are also getting ready for winter, drop their leaves forming a blanket to cover the earth as protection for all the plants that have readied themselves for the sleep.

Insects are looking for a place to sleep the winter away as well. They burrow deeply below the frost line, which is sometimes a foot deep. The Great Spirit gave them the ability to know all these things, unlike humans. We have to pay to keep ourselves warm with heat and heavier clothes.

Scientist say the leaves turn colors because they lose their pigmentation and then the colors come out.

I like what Grandfather told me.

He said Nana-boo-shoo and his faithful dog Nimoosh were out painting when a strong gust of wind caught the paint and took it to the leaves of the trees.

In the spring they come out with the many colors of greens and some with flowers and seeds. They start a new process of living all over again.

We humans are not as lucky as the animal and insects of the world.

We have to stand up to the elements and do what we can; sometimes that isn't enough.

While those little bugs, worms, and the animals that are smart enough to sleep the winter away for the time being, we bundle up looking like a big fat bear trying to keep warm.

Our friends the raccoons are still coming. We have been feeding them all summer and soon they will be getting ready for winter.

I say it's officially winter when the raccoons stop coming.

The birds are feeding unusually a lot lately. I wonder if that means we are going to have an early winter or if they are just hungrier than usual.

I hope the later, but Mother Nature tells them what to do and how to prepare for an kind of weather that may come.

If you are like me, I just take it as it comes.

We can't change the weather as much as we'd like it, so I just settle in and turn up the thermostat.

For those of you that burn wood, throw another log on the fire. That's all we can do.

With that I say... "Walk in peace."