Over the course of a year living in this small New England town of Paxton, Massachusetts, I kept a daily journal of my observations and reflections of the natural world. We live in an age of technological wonder, where it is simply too easy to artificially experience the world around us. At the push of a button, we can listen to the sounds of crickets on a summer evening or watch a video of a field of tall fox grass moving in the wind like waves on the ocean. We can use the computer to access the night sky, rotating the heavens on our screen to suit whatever season or time we desire. Though these things are convenient and certainly incredible in their own way, they are a pale substitute for experiencing them firsthand over the course of days and months as the cycle of the seasons unfolds.
