When I started this more-or-less daily blogging endeavor more than five years ago, my self-imposed mandate was to chronicle the natural history I observed and photographed on what were then daily walks, typically first thing in the morning. Alas, with an eight-year-old in residence, the daily walking in the woods and fields is becoming less and less likely. Still, there's almost always something to record from our outdoor forays, even if these only involve the trek to the mailbox and school bus—the natural equivalent of fast food. So today, there might have been no birding nor botanizing nor lichenology nor, well, much of anything. But we, Stasia and I, were nevertheless enmeshed in the natural world. In fact, my apprentice leaf raker was neck-deep in nature, after, of course, taking a giant leap into the leaf pile we'd made.