This was my first book, and I remain quite fond of it. I wrote it in the late 1970's while I was working as a volunteer trail guide at a local nature center. I was an absolute beginner and felt overwhelmed by how much there was for me to learn. I decided that the best way for an adult beginner to proceed without becoming totally discouraged was to focus on one subject at a time. So I committed to learning about one new subject a week — and to writing a newspaper column about it to be sure I really learned something. The 52 columns I chose for this book begin in the dead of winter because that's when I got serious about my self-designed learning program. It's also when the natural world is slowed down enough to feel almost manageable. The chapters were all written during my first two years of learning, so they are beginner-friendly — guaranteed. BUY THIS BOOK.

This is my second book. It was published by Prentice Hall in 1984 and reprinted by the University Press of New England in 1998. The 80 short chapters are organized by seasons I call FIRST FROST AND INDIAN SUMMER; LATE FALL TO CHRISTMAS; WINTER, MORE WINTER, AND WAITING; BEGINNING TO BE SPRING; SPRING; SUDDENLY SUMMER; HIGH SUMMER AND FALL AGAIN. By juxtaposing different life forms—as well as a few nonliving things—and moving through the year, I invite readers to be alert to everything in all seasons. It may be romantic, but in my own learning I have pretended that I’m living in earlier, prescientific times, when people who noticed anything noticed everything—with the difference, of course, that I can draw on the wealth of information made available by generations of scientists who have dedicated their lives to specialized research. This book is based on my own discoveries of the natural world and my readings of the scientific literature. I offer it to fellow naturalists—beginners and otherwise—as a service, an encouragement, and a sharing of what I have learned.

A NATURALIST INDOORS: Observing the Natural World Inside Your Home

My third book brought me indoors to see what I could learn about the ecology of my most immediate environment. I looked at pets, houseplants, and the strange things I periodically find growing in my kitchen. I also examined the insects, spiders, other invertebrates, mammals, and even birds that inhabit human houses. And finally, I considered the natural products that many of us still use. I learned that I am for the most part a live-and-let-live participant in my somewhat eccentric household ecology, but when my health (physical, mental, or financial) is threatened, I’m a situational survivalist. I tolerate scavengers, predators, and occasional irritants, but I do battle with germ-carriers and destroyers of food, fabric, and fiber. Ironically, I think I learned more about my relationship to the natural world from writing this indoor book than I did from my three outdoor books. I learned that houses, once they evolve beyond simple shelters, do human beings a disservice. Anything that separates us unnecessarily from the outdoors both traps us among our own constructs—intellectual, physical, and ecological—and also deprives us of the contact we need with the integrating power of the natural world.

The Vermont Life Guide to Fall Foliage by Charles W. Johnson and Gale Lawrence

My fourth book has had two lives. I wrote the original version at the invitation of VERMONT LIFE. They wanted to offer the tourists who come to Vermont to see our fall foliage an attractive little introduction to fall color, and I wanted to offer teachers, students, and other beginning naturalists a useful introduction to Vermont’s most colorful trees. My dual-purpose booklet was popular enough that VERMONT LIFE decided to expand it into a more substantial book about fall as a season. The new edition, written largely by Vermont’s recently retired State Naturalist, Charles Johnson, who is a good friend of mine, includes most of my original text plus quite a bit of additional information. It also offers color photographs in addition to the original line drawings.