For about three years I’ve been publishing a short, free publication that is like a letter. At least that’s my intention – an informal, even personal style like a letter. My original idea was to write to older kids who like nature and like to read. I started out on a December day at Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge, seeing wasps, turtles, egrets, and talking about leaves. I wrote:

Do you know what a hundred tons of leaves smells like, laying on the ground? (I’m not really sure if it was a hundred tons, or even a ton, but they covered the ground everywhere I looked.) In my walk, the smell was really strong in a spot between two little hills where the air stays still. Now sometimes when people say that a smell is “really strong,” it’s a polite way of saying it stinks. That’s not what I mean. I loved that smell, but I don’t have good words to describe it. The leaves fall and they break down and return to the soil. That smell is leaves turning into soil.

That was the first issue of Letters to Nature Kids, and I kept writing, at least several times a year. I tried to bring the reader along on my walks, or talk about nature journaling or coming to terms with things like fears of spiders. Another goal was to not talk down to kids, and while I don’t get technical or in-depth in the letter, I do think there’s an appeal for adults as well.

I’ve experimented with something called Letters From the Woods, something taken essentially from my nature journal so that it is a letter written “from” the woods or prairies. I hope to come back to that.

But the latest I’ve written is a letter not just to nature kids but to nature folks. I hope you will download this March, 2025 issue and give it a try. Pass it around if you know someone who might like it. And if you have any thoughts about it that you would like to share, please do send me an email. Writers often get little feedback; we send something out there, and hopefully some folks read it, and hopefully it lands in a good place for them. But how wonderful it would be to have a bit of dialogue about it! If you are inclined to reply, please do (use the email address at the end of the letter or the contact form from the Lives in Nature website). Thanks!