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Gale Lawrence

I am a retired English teacher, freelance writer, and self-taught/self-teaching naturalist who lives on an old hill farm in a small Vermont town. I’m a native Vermonter, but I didn’t grow up here. I spent most of my childhood in various American suburbs outside the cities where my father worked. It took me thirty years to find my way back to Vermont, but once I got here I knew I was home.

My first year back — 1975 — I decided I needed to make up for lost time. I began exploring the natural world with all the mid-life energy and enthusiasm that had motivated my return to Vermont. Around the edges of my job at the University of Vermont, where I taught English off and on for 20 years, I began my self-education as a naturalist. I started by volunteering at a local nature center.

To enforce my learning — and to demonstrate to my University of Vermont students that writing had its uses in the real world — I started writing a weekly natural history column for several Vermont newspapers. These columns led to:
Four Books THE BEGINNING NATURALIST Shelburne, VT: New England Press, 1979
A FIELD GUIDE TO THE FAMILIAR Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998
A NATURALIST INDOORS Lincoln, NE: iUniverse.com, 2000
THE VERMONT LIFE GUIDE TO FALL FOLIAGE Montpelier, VT: Vermont Life, 2001

I DISCOVER THE WEB

I have retired from teaching English and from writing a weekly column, but I still research and write about subjects that interest me. It’s these miscellaneous subjects that led to my first Web site called a NATURALIST'S ALMANAC AND BOOK OF DAYS. As a retirement project I decided that I would like to post various of my natural history writings on a popular interest Web site where more people could read them and make use of the materials I’ve unearthed for my own edification.

My goal is ambitious: 367 units of date-based natural history information (yes, 367 with a once-every-four-years leap year day and a one-time-only February 30, which is a long story ....). I am also searching out the best natural history Web sites and am constantly looking for new and better reference books. I will be adding Web links and recommended readings as I discover them.

THE WEB GROWS ON ME

After launching my first Web site late in the year 2000 with the humble recognition that completing it as I envisioned it would most likely take me the rest of my life, I conceptualized a second Web site called the VERMONT ALMANAC. This second almanac includes information specific to Vermont for every month and every day of the year.

AND NOW I’M BLOGGING ...

As I’ve been developing my Web sites, I’ve also been taking my customary nature walks. Since 1978 I’ve been keeping dated records of what I see and hear on these walks, and it occurred to me that what I call my “Naturalist’s Journal” should be available online too. About then I discovered the world of blogs and decided a blog would would be perfect for my Naturalist’s Journal. So I explored the Blogosphere for a blogging site that would enable me to create a searchable archive of all my journal entries. It took me a while — and numerous disappointments and setbacks — but I’ve finally settled on, WordPress, which will accomodate all my journal entries. I started blogging the WordPress version of my NATURALIST’S JOURNAL the summer of 2005, and it’s growing both backward and forward as fast as I can find the time to post my journal entries.
Last Updated ( Monday, 07 December 2009 21:40 )