THE ENCHANTED NATURE NEWSLETTER
Issue 36
January/February 2024
Greetings Enchanted Nature Community
Please enjoy our latest issue of The Enchanted Nature Newsletter.
We hope that you are enjoying your holiday season filled with excellent health, joy, and time spent with those you love.
The Fruits of Labor
"Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of
what is desired, but by controlling the desire.
~Epictetus
Greetings Enchanted Nature Community,
We hope that your new year has begun with pleasant days, joy, excellent health, and time spent with those you love. Having spoken with some of you, we know that there have been challenges and we wish every one of you improvements, healing, and happiness.
We spend so much time laying down roots, feeding ourselves, growing, and then eventually for a brief moment, there is a flower that emerges. Blooms don't last long though and are actually quite ephemeral. It can be hard to enjoy the effort and labors of building, growing, and repairing. How often do we spend more time preparing a meal than eating it? Why does it seem that the enjoyment requires so much effort? We all need to exercise our "enjoyment" muscles and find more joy in our daily lives. It's there, hiding in a patch of moss, raindrops dripping from a tree branch, and in the people that we meet each day.
If you're craving some nature or know somebody that is, come and be enchanted by nature with us:
From Our Readers
We truly appreciate your contributions!
You make The Enchanted Nature Newsletter more interesting for the community.
If any of you see anything enchanting in nature, take a picture and please send it along.
Eileen Feim, one of our regular photographic contributors, submitted some very enchanting photos this month. Rainbows are always magical. A double rainbow is...well...doubly magical!
What a stunningly beautiful landscape! This rotting log is the substrate for a lovely growth of moss and a wood rotting fungus know as Radulodon copelandi. The fungus is native to Asia and is new to the east coast, mid Atlantic region. It is too new (discovered here in 2009) to know if it is invasive yet, but it is worthy of watching. It is spreading quite quickly throughout the Appalachians.
Wow! What a nice find. Seeing the mycelium working its way through this stump is fascinating.
Looking at the mushrooms on the perimeter of the stump, it's difficult to make a positive identification
without closer photos of the top and the reproductive side (underneath).
Remember, if you can't get enough fungal fun,
Check out the weekly articles at the
Fabulous pics this month Eilleen! Thank you again for sharing.
Please send us your pics and queries:
adventures@enchantednaturetours.com
You can also text your pics & questions to (540) 324-8778.
From The Writers
Aimé and Peggy Vacher made a trip to Virginia and took advantage of our photo opportunity
Enchanted Nature and Mr. Mushroom made an appearance at the Winter Market in Staunton, VA
While out picking up roadside litter on a damp and cool day, this handsome little Red Backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus), posed for the paparazzi.
Introducing...(drum roll)
The Amazing Salamander
By: Christopher Vacher
Belonging to the taxonomic order Caudata, salamanders have slender bodies, short noses, and long tails, which they retain throughout their lives. They resemble lizards but are amphibians. Unlike most amphibians, salamanders have the miraculous ability to regenerate lost limbs, as well as other body parts, a feature that has intrigued scientists for centuries.
They come in a wide variety of sizes, from the tiny 2.7 cm long Thorius arboreus, one of the world's smallest salamanders, to the giant Chinese salamander (Andrias davidianus), which can grow up to 1.8 meters in length. Their skin is moist and usually lacks scales, with many species possessing vibrant and striking color patterns that serve as camouflage or warnings to predators.
Salamanders have a wide range of habitats. They can thrive in ranges from dense forests to arid deserts. They are most commonly found in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in North America, Europe, and Asia. Most species are nocturnal and prefer to stay hidden under rocks, leaves, or in burrows to maintain their moist skin and avoid predators. Salamanders play a critical role in the ecosystems that they inhabit, acting as both predators and prey. They eat a variety of small invertebrates, including insects, worms, and spiders, which helps to control populations,
while also serving as food for larger animals.
Reproduction in salamanders varies significantly among species, with some exhibiting complex mating rituals. Many salamanders lay eggs, which they guard diligently until the eggs hatch. Some give birth to live young. There are ALWAYS excpetions to rules in nature! Some species exhibit remarkable parental care, which is relatively rare among amphibians. Additionally, certain salamander species are known for their ability to produce toxins as a defense mechanism against predators. These toxins can be found in their skin and are potent enough to deter most potential threats. There is no doubt that salamanders with their varied appearances and behaviors significantly contibrute to the biodiversity of our planet and need to celebrated and protected.
Enchanted Nature News
If you haven't seen our home page design lately, we have changed it
to reflect all of our services and products.
We also have another URL that will lead visitors to our site.
You can reach us at www.EnchantedNature.org
Enchanted Nature has completed the final regulatory steps and inspection to sell our mushroom extracts. We will be updating our store over the next week or two.
Please take a look at The Trading Post
Enchanted Nature Tours is being seen around the world. Virginia Tourism worked with an international marketing firm to create a series of videos that will be shown in airports. The company reached out to us for an interview. Keep in mind that were no scripts, no rehearsals and we had no editorial input on the piece. We met in the forest, answered a few questions and they cobbled together the video.
If you have any nature, gardening, or horticultural questions or comments, feel free to send them to adventures@enchantednaturetours.com
You can also find Enchanted Nature and much more at
3816 Churchville Avenue
Churchville, VA 24421
At The Necessary Mercantile, you'll find Friends of Fungus.
Be sure to check out the website's Fungus Among Us page.
It's loaded with mushroom information.
The Life of a Salamander
An amazing National Geographic video in time lapse
Relax and Enjoy...
Findings reported in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, suggest that keeping a few snapshots of greenery around yourself might be beneficial. When participants viewed the natural images in the experiment, their stress levels lowered, thanks to the activation of their parasympathetic nervous system – which controls certain rest functions. "Viewing green scenes may thus be particularly effective in supporting relaxation and recovery after experiencing a stressful period and thereby could serve as an opportunity for micro-restorative experiences and a promising tool in preventing chronic stress and stress-related diseases." Take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly as you relax.
If you're ready to explore the forest,
come out for an adventure with us
NATURE IS CALLING, WILL YOU ANSWER
There are many proven health benefits to spending time in nature. It has also been proven that just looking at images of nature can provide multiple health benefits including: reducing depression, speeding healing, improving your immune system, preventing dementia, improving your mood, and increasing happiness. We plan on ending each newsletter with a short video of a natural scene. Hopefully the videos will provide you with some of the benefits listed above.
Stay safe and enjoy nature
If you haven't taken the time to explore our website, please do.
There are a lot of free educational resources to enjoy
If you wish to unsubscribe, simply drop us an email at Adventures@EnchantedNatureTours.com
with the word, "unsubscribe"