There are many lessons learned when the days are spent with plant and animal folk—a literacy of some ancient hum that this unseasoned human must learn. On the fall day before rain this early October—unbeknownst to me—the acorns were ready. Yet, the emissaries of summer hunger showed this humble seed collector the true rhyme and reason of the land. Scrub jays darted between branches. Their beaks filled with green oak offspring, ready to plant thousands of acorns this season. The crew and I watched them plant in our restoration fields. Later that day, deer were feasting on the gleanings of scrub jay frenzy, then us, participating in the fall harvest of ancient rings. 

In her outstanding 2015 best seller The Invention of Nature, Andrea Wulf notes how in the late 1700’s Alexander von Humboldt identified the idea of human induced climate change and some of the first notions of what we now refer to as “natural capital” or “ecosystem services.” Of course, in those days, his observations were largely forgotten in the flurry of the amazing discoveries of the natural world.