Morning Frost

PICT4332
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

It sure enough did in the potted geraniums on the porch! I started another book by Bernd Heinrich today. Of course, every writer is my favorite when I am in the thick of a book, but his books are ALL my favorites. The Mind of the Raven just about knocked me out! This book is called Winter World; the ingenuity of animal survival. The golden-crowned kinglet weighs about five grams but winters in the frosty north. I am about to find out how, and many other secrets, some of which I hope to share with you, without freezing my physical self. I could never do the things he does; I like the indoors too much. After all, that's where the keyboard is. I find that outdoor light, even when I sit in shadow, makes the laptop screen difficult to use.
To begin with, he thanks the people who have studied the way nature works; the information they have gained enables all of us to think about these interesting mysteries. Here is what he says in the acknowledgements, "I also read somewhere that Thoreau "stopped being a thinker" when he became a naturalist. I think that is getting it the wrong way round. You need facts to think with, and thinking about nature without facts is, really, feeling. Fiction is fiction, no matter how real one tries to make it seem." p. vi
Let's read that again: YOU NEED FACTS TO THINK WITH! I would like to see that engraved over the entrance to all school buildings. And then on the door sill, deeply engraved, so you would have to [step over it every day you went to school: THINKING [about anything] WITHOUT FACTS iS, REALLY, FEELING.
Take that! And that! Like they used to say in the comics: Biff! Pow! Thwap! Such a clear, and to me incontrovertible, statement.