One night around the fire, Dave told the kids that he was going to tell them about nature hikes. The kids rolled their eyes and groaned! Nature hikes sounded boring to them. Dave told them that they were wrong, nature hikes can be very interesting. When a person takes a walk through the woods, they never know what they will see and learn. Nature hikes are different in every season of the year. Dave asked the kids which season they would like to talk about first. They kids thought for a moment, and they decided that they wanted to hear about fall first.
When a person is walking in the woods in the fall, they must be very careful. The trail can be covered by acorns, hickory nuts, and walnuts. When you step on them, they roll, and it is easy to fall and twist an ankle. If you are quiet and look around, you will see that there are many squirrels running around in the woods. They are very busy collecting food for the winter, they will pick up all the nuts that are laying on the ground and hide them in their home in a tree so that they will have enough to eat during the winter.
Sometimes in the fall you will see a group of robins gathered before they leave for the winter. Robins do not stay in cold places during the winter, they migrate to a warmer place to spend the winter. The robins will return at the beginning of springtime. Geese and ducks and many other birds also fly to a warmer place to spend the winter.
In the distance a mother deer and her grown up fawn hear you walking, and they run away through the woods. They are eating as much as they can so that they are fat at the beginning of the winter. During the winter they might not be able to find as much food, so they will need the extra fat to survive. The fat also helps them to stay warm in the winter. During the fall the fur on the deer gets thicker and warmer because winter is coming!
The colder weather makes the trees quit producing chlorophyll, which makes the leaves green in the spring and summer. Without chlorophyll, the leaves turn many beautiful shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown. The woods become spectacular just before the leaves fall off the trees.
Raccoons get very fat in the fall and very sleepy, they will sleep most of the winter. Mosquitoes and other bugs die when the cold weather comes, but they have laid eggs that will hatch when the warm weather comes again.
The creatures that live in the woods are busy all summer getting ready for winter. They do not wait until the last minute to get busy, if they waited to get ready until the cold weather started, they would not survive the winter. Even ants prepare for winter! During the summer they dig deep homes under the ground and spend all summer filling those homes with food so that they can survive the cold winter. The ants are even mentioned in the Bible!
In the Bible in Proverbs 6:6-11 it says:
Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer gathering food for the winter. But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up? A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.
People tend to be lazy about many things, it is much easier to relax and have fun than it is to do the important things. One of the things that many people put off is to get serious about God. Many people go through this life and say, “I will take time to get serious about God when I am older, I want to do other things and have fun now.” None of us know how long we will live on this earth. Once you die, it is too late to accept Jesus into your heart. Now is the time to prepare for spending forever with God. Just live all creatures in the woods prepare for winter, you each need to prepare for what comes after this life on earth! Do not put it off! The time for action is now!