Snowbound in January

Paula Whyman
January 26, 2025

Geek out with me about critters and plants on a mountaintop in Virginia. I’ll share what I’m learning as I try to bring native plants back on 200 acres of old farmland and tell stories from my encounters on the mountain.

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In this issue

Field notes: Winter mysteries
Signs of life: Coyote time
Reader updates
Recommended reading
Book update: Event photos!
Questions for YOU
The Official Mountain Poodle

I’ve written a book about what I’m doing and what I’m discovering here on the mountain…and boy do I have book news!

BAD NATURALIST: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop

IT’S AVAILABLE NOW!

Field notes

Snowbound

This is my first winter with an actual home on the mountain, and unlike the previous three winters I’ve spent coming here to work in the meadows, this winter there was a snowstorm. Then it snowed again. And again. And in between, it stayed too cold for most of that snow to melt. The photo at the top of this newsletter shows the road that we have to traverse to get on or off the mountain. It’s about a mile up to the house. When I need to get somewhere, I’ve been walking up and down the road on snowshoes, either carrying what I need on my back, or pulling it on a sled, or both. There was one 24-hour period when I made nine one-way trips either up or down. I’m not sure you can tell just how steep it is from the photo, but suffice to say, my excursions off the mountain will be limited until this snow melts.

A woman on snowshoes and holding poles stands in the snow with a treed slope in the background. Woman has brown hair and carries a light blue backpack.

Getting ready for a trip down the mountain on snowshoes

The extreme cold has limited my outdoor work and observation time. The other day I was trying to get photos of dormant plants on one hillside, as you’ll see below, and it was less than a minute before I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. So I bring these photos to you with frozen fingers…

Winter mysteries

Who goes there?

These tiny tracks were probably not made by a mouse, because mice tracks usually land side-by-side, often with a tail-print in between. For scale, see my big ole’ footprint in the top left corner. So what is it? My best guess is a vole, because vole tracks usually alternate, but maybe someone reading this can do better than a guess. Write to me and tell me what you think it is!

a line of tiny tracks cuts diagonally across the photo from top right to bottom left. in upper left, a large messy footprint from a person's boot. The small tracks are not close up enough to be very defined.

Mystery visitor’s tracks

Native plant or weed?

During these continued frigid temps, I’ve been enjoying the daily morning streaming series, “Birds Visiting the Plants Outside My Window”—song sparrows and slate-colored dark-eyed juncos in particular like to pick the seeds from the wild plants that are exposed, sticking up out of the snow. I thought these plants were ragweed, which is native, and some of them may well be. But when I ventured out in near-zero temps to get photos, my plant app told me a different story. It identified some of these plants as mugwort, an invasive weed common to cattle pastures (it likes nitrogen—another reason to avoid use of fertilizer). Even though this was once a cow pasture, mugwort, like so many other weeds, was not here before our house was built, so I have to think the seeds were carried in on construction equipment. (This would explain why a forester told me the best time to carry out a prescribed burn on the meadow around the house would be after we finished construction.)

Mugwort and ragweed have a similar appearance, and plant expert Charlotte Lorick, with Oak Spring Garden Foundation, tells me the two are easily confused. Here’s one of the plants in question:

a brown stem with a flower stem protruding diagonally to the left. There are many tiny buds with seeds along the flower stem and some curled brown leaves at the base. In the background, a snowy expanse and beyond that a blurred landscape of treed slope.

Friend or foe?

On the same hillside, I’m pleased to note that native yellow crownbeard also provides winter food for birds. And then there’s this plant, which was unfamiliar to me; my app says it’s cinquefoil. Most types of cinquefoil are invasive, but one is native. Which one is this? (Shot too quickly, but I was trying to avoid frostbite.)

A single stem with 5 alternating pairs of flower stems protruding. Each stem has twin dried buds on it that look like mini flower buds.

officially known as “blurry cinquefoil”

Native plants and the cold

On the plus side, this seems like the kind of winter that could lead to a spring season of prolific native plant growth, especially for some perennials whose seeds require a period of cold stratification in order to grow. These include milkweed, aster, wild bergamot, wild ginger, wild geranium, goldenrod, Joe pye weed, and Carolina rose. On the mountaintop, where native perennials drop lots of seeds on their own, my hope is that the cold will increase the number of seeds that actually become plants, and I’ll see more of many of these native wildflowers this spring and summer. If you want to try and grow some of these native plants from seed, Blandy Arboretum in Virginia has published some simple tips for how to accomplish cold stratification.

Signs of Life

We’ve heard coyotes howling close by many a night. This is breeding season for coyotes, which may also explain why I’ve been seeing more coyote tracks and scat around my usual walking routes throughout the meadow and even coming close to the house.

Coyotes and foxes have a much more efficient gait than domestic dogs; they walk in a fairly straight line, known as “perfect stride,” often placing their rear foot in the same place where their front foot landed. Their tracks reflect this. Unfortunately, coyotes—which are not native to the east—don’t perfectly fill the niche left by wolves, and they’re often in competition with native foxes for territory. I’d like to see more foxes on the mountain.

three well-defined coyote tracks in snow, all 5 pads visible with 4 claws.

coyote tracks (photo by Bill Whyman)

Reader Updates

I’m always eager to hear about what readers are seeing where they live, and I’m grateful to these readers who shared their observations with me this month.

From Beth in Charlottesville, VA (in response to the December newsletter):

“One of my favorite things about winter is the return of the winter birds: white throated sparrows, ruby crowned kinglets, and juncos! These little ones are one of the best things about winter. We have flickers too, but don’t see them too much anymore since the City cut down a huge dying maple tree across the way. They would hang out in that tree as a group of 5 or 6.”

From Ruth, writing from a rural area outside of Los Angeles, CA, (in response to the November newsletter where I wrote about kestrel nest boxes):

“I found a dead kestrel several years ago and preserved him in the freezer—next to the rattlesnake!”

Book news

It’s here! It’s here! Bad Naturalist the Book is here!!

Bad Naturalist is out in the world! It’s available wherever books are sold, in stores and online, in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook formats.

Book events so far have featured fun conversations and full house crowds. Here are some highlights…

In conversation with ecological restoration expert Charlotte Lorick at Oak Spring Garden Foundation:

Two white women sitting at a table with a microphone and copies of Bad Naturalist stand on the table in front of them. The woman on the right (me) has brown hair and a blue scarf. She is smiling and talking, facing the other woman, who is smiling and facing the audience. Some backs of heads are visible in the foreground.

with Charlotte Lorick

In conversation with Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank at Politics & Prose in DC. If you’d like to watch this event, it’s available to view on the bookstore’s YouTube channel.

In the background, bookshelves and a large sign for "Politics and Prose". In the foreground, the backs of many peoples heads in the audience. In the center just in front of the sign, a white man with a beard gesticulates while talking to a white woman with brown hair (me) wearing a black sweater and a blue scarf.

with Dana Milbank

In conversation with writer and homesteader Adam Nemett at New Dominion Bookshop in Charlottesville, VA:

A steep stairwell is in the background with a shelf of books on one side and French doors and a globe visible on either side of the stairwell. A center aisle divides the audience, backs of some heads are visible. At the bottom of the stairwell that goes up, in front of the audience, a white man with a beard talks with a white woman with brown hair in a dark pink sweater, black pants, and a blue scarf (me). Two stand up microphones are also visible.

with Adam Nemett

At my event at Birch Tree Bookstore and Foliage Plant Shop in Leesburg, VA, my interviewer, (good) naturalist Casey Koester, went all out and dressed to match the book cover!

A blonde white woman smiles at the camera. She is wearing a white turtleneck, yellow v-neck sweater, orange trousers, and bright blue shoes. She holds a copy of the book, which is the same colors as her outfit, and it has blue post-its sticking out. On a table on the left, there are more copies of the book. In the background there are bookshelves and plants. On the right and audience member is opening her copy of the book.

Casey Koester at Birch Tree Bookstore

Plus, I went on TV to talk about the book! You can watch the interview on WJLA/ABC-TV’s Good Morning Washington.

A TV studio set. on the left, two women, me, and the host sit on yellow chairs on a raised base with a low round table in front of us. Behind us, photos are projected onto a large bright backdrop: a purple wild bergamot and a view of the Blue Ridge with crownbeard dense and green in the foreground. These are photos I took. Many lights are seen on the ceiling. There is another part of the set that will be used for a food demonstration--a high countertop with a food-oriented photo backdrop behind it. On the right there is a TV that shows me talking, presumably what was on camera at that moment. The floor is dark gray and reflects everything sitting on it.

On the WJLA Good Morning Washington set with host Eileen Whelan

In case you’re interested in some in-depth listening about the book, the mountain, and my project here, these podcasts are now online:

The 500th episode (!) of Mitch Ratcliffe’s Earth911 podcast. Ratcliffe called the book "Captivating....[Whyman explores] the complex interplay of identity, vulnerability, and the natural world with wit, depth, and an eye for natural detail."

The GardenDC podcast with Kathy Jentz, editor of Washington Gardener Magazine, Episode 224: “The Reformation of a Bad Naturalist”

“What’s in a Landscape,” season 2, episode 1 of The Oak Spring podcast with host Chris Stafford.

Episode 143 of the Let’s Talk Memoir podcast with host Ronit Plank. Our convo included becoming obsessed with subjects and deep diving, writing about science and nature, controlling and selecting details for impact, being attentive to what readers need, writing tangentially, the need for deadlines, and more.

The Writer’s Voice podcast with host Francesca Rheannon. We discussed, among other things, the challenges of managing invasive species, restoring native habitats, and the unexpected joys of observing interconnected ecosystems.

Andrew Keen of Keen On America came out to the mountain to talk with me in person. Our conversation is available on video and audio-only. In the video, what you can’t see is that Cleo the Poodle is urging me to pet her for most of our conversation!

Here’s a fun thing I wrote—a music playlist I came up with for a blog called Large-Hearted Bo y to go with Bad Naturalist and my work on the mountain. (Read it if you want to know who I think has the perfect voice for singing about mountains…)

I’ve also been featured on Sirius XM’s Dave Nemo Weekend show; in Washingtonian Magazine; C-ville Weekly; Washington Independent Review of Books;d and TBR (To Be Read), a column by author Leslie Pietrzyk. You can find links to these and more on my website event page.

February/March Events!

I may be coming soon to a place near you to talk about BAD NATURALIST. If you’re nearby, I hope you’ll come out and say hello! There’s more to come that I can’t reveal yet, so please check my website for the latest details. If you don’t see your city or town on this list yet, please reach out, and I’ll see what I can do to get there!

Rappahannock County Library, in conversation with former Washington Post ombudsman and Foothills Forum Board Chair Andy Alexander. Sponsored by Rapp-at-Home and RAAC, and The Open Book of Warrenton. 4 Library Rd., Washington, VA. Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 7pm. Free—RSVP required.

Porter Square Books in conversation with author Laura Zigman. 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA. Tuesday, March 11 at 7pm.

The Nature of Reading Bookshop with the Madison Environmental Commission. Museum of Early Trades and Crafts Education Annex, 23 Main St., Madison, NJ. Thursday, March 13. [more details TK]

Meanwhile…

Watch my website event page, or my Instagram or Bluesky feeds for details about these events, and for more interviews, podcasts, and features.

I love talking with readers! Feel free to contact me through my website contact page with questions or if you’d like me to visit your book club.

A special request

If you read the book in any format (and if you enjoyed it!), please post a review on the Amazon book page! It helps!

What’s happening in your neck of the woods?

Tell me where you are and what you see this month, in a park near where you live, or in your own yard or window box. Send me a photo, if you like.

And don’t forget to tell me about your favorite nature-related book or podcast.

The Official Mountain Poodle

I don’t usually get in the picture with Cleo, but our neighbor, Monica, happened to capture this one with a backdrop of a mountain sunset. A spontaneous celebration.

White dense cloud cover hangs heavy over the mountains slowly transitioning to yellow/gold as it gets closer to the silhouette of the blue ridge, where it turns bright and golden. Leafless trees are visible, looking black in front of the mountains. In the foreground on a bluestone patio, a woman (me) in a black hooded coat spreads her arms wide as a dog (the poodle) leaps in the air on two legs, very close to her face, as if it might boop her on the nose.

Airborne mountain poodle! (photo by Monica King)

Now’s a good time to subscribe for more mountain discoveries, book news, and the requisite poodle photos.

Thanks for joining me on the mountain!

Until next month—

Paula W.

Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop

Now available in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book everywhere books are sold!

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