Notes from Turtle Creek. Ted Browning.

Notes from Turtle Creek
Ted Browning
Chadds Ford, PA: Brandywine Conservancy. 1991.

Why read it? Essays. Makes a convincing argument for man's learning to live with nature, not exterminate it. A local (Chester County, PA) naturalist helps us to see the world of nature with a fresh view. You'll never look at nature again in the same way after reading these essays. Ted Browning is right there with Loren Eiseley and Joseph Wood Krutch, though not so well known. They all believe that people should be partners with nature, not dominate it.

Selected Ideas: Ted Browning died young. His editor wished that he were alive to tell us why the katydids are louder than usual, why the shad bush is blossoming so brazenly, why the fall colors are muted and the dogwoods duller.

Browning's frequent use of adjectives and adverbs was part of his zest for life.

Wanted people to assume the responsibility as a steward of the natural environment, rather than its exterminator.

He did not view nature as a scientist but as one with a spiritual connection to nature, similar to the American Indians' oneness with nature.

He described snow lovers as skiers, nostalgics, naturalists, children and adults who are still children inside. Categories of snow: flour, sugar, corn, granola, mashed potatoes, soup and rock candy.

Browning's fifteen great natural events of the year: "Skunk cabbage blooming; return of red-winged blackbird; song of spring peepers; dogwood blooming; leaf burst; arrival of spring warblers; song of the wood thrush; night sky; the rising of the summer triangle; bloom of summer meadow wild flowers; swallows gathered on telephone wires; katydid singing; beginning of hawk migrations; fall color at peak; night sky; rising of Orion the Hunter; first snowfall of winter; pond freezes over."

Quote. Chief Stealth: "Man did not weave the web of life./ He is merely one strand in it./ Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." "If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit." "Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people."