Happy spooky season from me and mine to you and yours.
What I’m reading
This is my favorite season, because I love the cooler temps, scary movies, candy, pumpkin spice everything (sorry, not sorry), and fall colors. What better way to see leaves in all their glory, I thought, than riding the lift up our local ski hill? What a mistake that turned out to be. I wrote about it here for Outside:
I spent a lot of time over the last year planning my own wedding, which my husband and I hosted in early September on our farm. I’m not a professional, by any means, but—
Hold it: hell yes, I am. Our wedding was big and complicated and it took a lot of work. When people left our reception party—after the police came by around 11 P.M. and told us our neighbors were complaining, wheeee!—nobody got stuck waiting in our driveway. Given my vast experience, I have a tip of two to offer Ski Santa Fe, for the next time they host one of these.
Read “We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Lift” here.
In other backyard adventure challenges: It’s not news to anyone anymore that your lawn is probably pretty terrible for the planet. When Lauren Matison bought a new home with its own green turf, she was forced to grapple with its impact on the climate crisis and, ultimately decided to turn her lawn 100% native. For Outside, she wrote about the challenges and rewards of this mega project.
Although my yard was turning into a meadow, I confessed I was kind of winging it and still hadn’t seen any butterflies.
Hogan has planted ten pollinator gardens in a single day, including at the modern art museum The Aldrich and the 18th-century historical site Keeler Tavern, so when she told me not to sweat it, I took her word for it.
Hogan suggested buying a bunch of plugs at Earth Tones, a 68-acre native nursery in Woodbury, Connecticut, with over 400 native plant species. The thought of more plants was overwhelming, but Hogan assured me they’d be easy to maintain as native plants need less water, fertilizer, and pruning than turf or non-native plants, which haven’t originally evolved in that climate. Before we hung up, she squashed any lingering doubts about why this project matters. “Bottom line, if something isn’t eating your garden, you’re not part of the ecosystem.”
Read “Love Nature? Your Lawn Says Otherwise.” here.
And on the theme of backyards, Megan Michelson wrote about why she’s planning to reveal yours to the public: It’s her job as a travel writer. That doesn’t mean she isn’t ethical about how and what she writes about, but blowing up her inbox with notes about how she blew up your secret stash is rude and gatekeep-y. Don’t @ us.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, apparently it’s my fault that the once-quiet corner of southwest Colorado is now swarmed with people. But here’s the deal: sharing information about unique places in the outdoors is literally my job as a correspondent for Outside, and what if I have an opportunity to inspire people to visit a new place that will alter their view of themselves and the world around them? What if they fall in love with that place and then work to protect it? Wouldn’t you want to share that? Don’t you want others to know the beauty of the place you love so much? Well, sorry, but I do.
Read “I’m a Travel Writer, and Here's Why I Reveal Your Favorite Places” here.
What I’m listening to
I’m behind on this one, but last weekend I finally binged Peter Frick-Wright’s new podcast Missed Fortune about the Forrest Fenn saga, and so much more. There’s tragedy, obsession, lawsuits, and too much to summarize here in a blurb, so I’ll just leave you with an easy way to listen and urge you to download it immediately.
