2025 - My Naturalist Year

My friend Jeanne de Cervens gifted me a book titled, The Outermost House by Henry Beston about a year he spent on Cape Cod.

Inspired by the book, I kept track of flora and fauna all year in 2025 ...

Then Senator John F Kennedy, who had deep personal ties to Cape Cod, supported a plan to protect the “outer shore.” To persuade Congress, he sent copies of The Outermost House book to every senator so they could understand the beauty and value of the area and be persuaded.

After he became president, JFK signed the Cape Cod National Seashore Act in 1961. This created a permanent national preserve that protected more than forty thousand acres of beaches, dunes, ponds, and marshes that Beston had made famous.

Flora:  Through spring, summer and fall, New England including Brookline, Berkshires and Cape Cod were captured through the appearance of flora on this unfolding list of names. The peony, lilac, and hydrangea give way to the goldenrod, Joe Pye weed, and cattails.   Each plant seemed to hold its moment in a larger rhythm of both cultivated and spontaneous.

Fauna: Life stirred across landscapes in New England, Wisconsin and with a foray even into Europe. Cardinals, wrens, and finches greet dawn, while herons, cranes, and eagles mark the horizon. Hummingbirds, goldfinches shimmer in late light, and bats rise to claimed the twilight sky. The chorus of wings and voices mirrored the day and the seasons changing moods.

My book review of The Outermost House:  

https://agingonthevine.blogspot.com/2025/08/book-review-outermost-house-is.html