Rachel Carson in chautauqua

"Would you like to come to a chautauqua at the Nature Center?" The question came from a good neighbor. My answer: "Of course. Uh, just what is a chautuaqua?" In this case, it was a presentation not about Rachel Carson but rather a presentation by a woman who became Rachel Carson for the evening.

Said the Nature Center website, "a few thousand words from Rachel Carson and the world took a new direction." Carson challenged the experts, questioned government, technology and progress itself. "Silent Spring has been recognized throughout the world as one of those rare books that change the course of history . . . by altering the direction of man's thinking." The impetus for the book, however, was Carson's love of life itself, and it is this love that Fiona Reid interpret[s] as the image of Rachel Carson.

Nearly 10 years ago, Reid, education director of the Center, had made a study of Carson as her college senior project and, over the years, had become ever more intimate with her subject, as a person and as a scientist.

The performer passed around a container of sea sand with shells to help move the audience into her world on the coast of Maine and of The Sea Around Us. As part of the program, the audience asked questions of Reid in her role as Carson, followed by questions about her subject.

Always curious, I found myself consulting with The Google about chautauquas, which were a rather remarkable adult education movement in rural America in the late 19th and early 20th century, before movies, radio, and television brought the same glitz and entertainment to the boonies that the cities enjoyed. Orators, performers, and educators traveled a national Chautauqua circuit of more than 12,000 sites bringing lectures, performances, concerts, classes, and exhibitions to thousands of people in small towns and cities. Theodore Roosevelt called Chautauquas, "the most American thing in America." So notes the website for the Colorado Chautauqua, one of the three remaining permanent chautauqua sites. The most famous is The Chautauqua Institution, on Lake Chautauqua in New York, which remains a fascinating blend of summer camp for grown-ups with all manner of cultural/educational programs. And, of course, the source of this strange name.

A close-up on autumn

Color me lazy or slow on the uptake. However, after more than a year, I think I finally have the macro setting on my little Canon figured out and under control. If you had seen the pocket-sized "manual" that came with the camera, dense with pithy explanations of all manner of bells and whistles, you might have floundered as I did over recent months. More likely not. Anyhow, I tested the new insight on a short neighborhood walk on Tuesday and am reasonably pleased with the results. Especially the blurred out backgrounds, which certainly set off the in-focus subject.

This is my annual picture of a squaw bush leaf, taken to prove that yes, Virginia, we do have fall colors in Arizona. What's neat about this particular plant is that the leaves appear to have been hand-painted individually. And, of course, it's one of our few autumn sources of flaming red.

Little round seed heads are a good challenge for the camera; I think that it passed this test, thank you. Seed pods are among my favorite photographic subjects; it's easy to see the reason. My only problem: the archives are so full of pod pix that it's hard to pare down the likelies for a blog post.

Other round forms: an oak gall (above) and developing datura seedpod (below). Just today I became aware that rosy oak apples are suddenly "ablossom" in local scrub oaks; they are another type of insect gall. For some reason, gall-forming wasps are particularly fond of oak; of course, it might well be that the oak galls are simply more visible.

I don't know quite what's up with the mistletoe above; are those tiny yellow thingies a different form of flower for a late season bloom?

These flowers are all business, foregoing pretty petals. Even so, the clusters of tassels are quite pretty in themselves.

OK, not a macro shot, but I was mesmerized by the pattern of the overlapping pine needles and decided to share the vision. A developing cone is nestled in the center of the cluster of needles below. The cone looks as if it had been painted green.

Grasses are as inviting as those round white seed pods at the top of the page. A big frustration is that as one finds a likely sprig and begins to focus in, the gods immediately whip up a breeze or even a wind. Thank goodness for the digital camera which makes it possible to keep shooting until one sneaks an exposure in between the little bursts of moving air.

Linkage: Check out Mindbird for a fine collection of books, maps and field manuals; for Arizona, the Grand Canyon and the Mojave Desert; you'll also find an excellent photo collection of Mojave (and Arizona) wildflowers by Mindbird here. And I thank Avus for turning me on to the imaginative corpus clock with its grasshopper claw; at Utube. BTW, if you like, Avus will take you on a 50-mile bicycle trip through beautiful English countryside.