{"id":5825,"date":"2022-10-24T17:14:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T21:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simplestead.com\/?p=5825"},"modified":"2025-12-28T09:09:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:09:41","slug":"reinvention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplestead.com\/?p=5825","title":{"rendered":"Reinvention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our landscape is littered with signs of metamorphosis. The chicken run is like a slaughter site with so many molted feathers scattered about. Half of our hens look like they were plucked alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon, though, those heritage poultry will be beautifully re-feathered in time for winter. And for a few months, our flock of majestic matrons will be indistinguishable from spring chickens (until their intermittent egg production gives them away). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The goats are also dropping their summer fuzz in favor of thick winter coats. Their flush of new fur also ushers in that seasonal desire to mate and procreate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From now until that winter coat is shed in spring (or until pregnant), my does will be vocalizing their demands for dates for a two day period, about once every 23 days. With seven does, all going in and out of heat at different times, goat hill has become a soapbox stage for shouting their woeful wants nearly every time I wander out into the landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn Reinvention<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the most obvious signs that nature is a master in the art of reinvention is the spectacle playing out in surrounding wildlands and our cultivated food forests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tree tops are painting themselves in shades of gold, peach, ruby, and rust by cutting off the vascular flow of chlorophyll to their leaves. Those resultant color variations — comprised of xanthophylls (yellows), carotenoids (oranges), anthocyanins (reds) — are effectively the death pallor after a leaf has lost its lifeforce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As chlorophyll wanes, plants can no longer absorb sunlight. Without the capacity to actively intake solar power, loss of torpor gives way to rapid decay. Weak, worn leaves release their hold on the trees that once gave them life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All those leaf carcasses then drift down and bury each other in a mass, open grave. Piled together, protecting the roots and habitat of the still living trees and soil, they nourish future life with this beneficial act of attrition. This grand, beautiful gesture plays out with dramatic arc in the canopy that encircles our rustic home and enables the survival of next year’s population of birds, pollinators, fungi, bacteria, and plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whether the leaves gracefully experience this process as a rite of passage to their next evolution or iteration, or if they fight for life until the very end as many humans do, is one of those mysteries I contemplate every year around this time. Some leaves seem reluctant to let go their lease on life while others dance to the ground at the gentlest of breezes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In truth, it’s irrelevant what the leaf thinks about fall. The inevitability of the process and the dependence of the ecosystem on it’s occurrence are irrefutable and unavoidable. The leaf has no choice but to become fodder for nature’s cycle of reinvention. Growth, entropy, and transformation are woven together in the fabric of space and time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geologic Reinvention<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Autumn leaf drop is just one example of how nature completely reinvents itself. Other cycles of reinvention are even more dramatic and take place over longer periods of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Blue Ridge Mountains, where we live, once stood as tall as the tallest peaks in the Alps. They towered so high that even well-adapted Alpine plants, able to survive the harshest mountain conditions, would have fought for breath in the thin air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, back when the Blue Ridge Mountains were that tall, there would have been no Alpine plants at all. Over 400 million years ago<\/a>, when our mountain range formed, plant with roots were only an inkling in nature’s imagination. At best, a few shallow, unrooted rhizomes may have called the lower portions of those austere peaks home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The possibility of using weathered mountains to create underground worlds was still millions of years away from coming into being. The beautiful garden and food forest areas I grow on this mountainside required over 400 million years of nature’s work, about 12,000 years of human reinvention through cultivating and selecting for useful natural adaptations, plus eight years of my contributions to make possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s humbling and inspiring to realize how completely dependent I am on nature’s capacity for reinvention, and our eclectic human capacity to manipulate nature’s innovations, for every bite of food harvested, flower enjoyed, or leaf admired for its beauty or valued for it’s life supporting capacities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home & Garden Reinvention<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nature is truly the mother of all invention and reinvention! But, here at home, we’ve also been doing a little reinventing recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
<\/figcaption><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
<\/figcaption><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
<\/figcaption><\/div><\/div><\/div>