Funny the images that stay with you from childhood. Any time someone mentions the Civil War, there’s this snapshot that flits across my brain of being in my parents’ TV room watching the Ken Burns documentary on the subject. It’s nothing more specific than that, but I remember my whole family being glued to the TV for days. I was 12 when “The Civil War” came out. Four years later, Burns had us fixated again with his nine-part series on the history of baseball. He’s done much since then, including an acclaimed history of jazz, but nothing that really pushed the Thompson family buttons. That is, until this past week when “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” came to PBS.

In the room where I sit to write, a second-story makeshift office at home, there are two windows. One looks out over a road and the neighbor’s house, bracketed by two large silver maples. As long as I’ve lived in this house, these two trees have offered the first intimations of autumn. They always turn before any others in the neighborhood. It’s no different this year. In just a handful of places—the tips of a few branches—the one on the corner is turning bright red. Behind the house, the other maple has just started transitioning to brilliant yellows and oranges.

When I asked Matt Balazik about the gill nets he uses to catch prehistoric fish in the James River, he explained in his typically enthusiastic way about water temperatures and dissolved oxygen and how the ancient beasts he’s spent years trying to net and study can’t stay entangled too long—two hours at most. Balazik, a fish biologist working on his Ph.D. at VCU, has the kind of passion for his subject that is infectious. But his voice trailed off contemplating the idea that one of his nets could be responsible for the death of even one example of this giant and rare species.

I’ll talk until I’m hoarse about Richmond’s trails. For years, I’ve extolled their virtues to anyone who’d listen. The variety, the amount, the way they bring so many different kinds of users downtown while still maintaining a sense of wilderness. I’ve always argued that this re source is truly special. But then I’m a Richmonder. I’m biased. Now, however, you don’t just have to take my word for it.

CYPRESS BRIDGE In a slough off the Nottoway River south of Courtland lies an orgy of the gothic and grotesque. Few find it by accident, and those who do rarely know what they’ve stumbled upon. Until 2005, the Lost For est wasn’t on any map. They say true places never are. Only briefly every year can anyone explore Virginia’s most bizarre and wonderful 37 acres on foot. Today, though, is one of those times, and I’m lucky enough to have a guide, Emporia resident Kevin Kessler. He, in turn, is lucky enough to have as his guide Byron Carmean, the man who first “discovered” and named the Lost Forest. That is to say Carmean was the first person to recognize the matchless value of this grove of ancient cypress and water tupelo and call attention to it.

I’ve never understood how they compute the odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery game. On every billboard announcing the jackpot in small print it says, “Odds of winning 1 in 172 million.“ Yet there’s no guarantee someone will have the winning numbers each time. Whatever. Math has never been my strong suit. It makes my brain ache a little every time I think about problems like that.

Under gray and threatening skies, Ed Clark jumps up on the tailgate of his pickup truck and launches into a speech. Behind him in the covered flatbed is a small cage, a travel kennel for a medium-sized dog. But the 60 people listening in rapt attention didn’t go out of their way on this Labor Day to hear Clark introduce a dog.

There are very few outdoors-related activities prohibited on Virginia’s Wildlife Management Areas. In 38 places across the state, on a total of 200,000 acres, anyone can hunt, fish, birdwatch, hike, jog, ride mountain bikes or horses, and more. And they can do it all for free. There are, however, limits to the game department’s generosity, even on these most open of public lands. Let’s say you wanted to get married on a four-wheeler with a fireworks display in the background and race dirt bikes at the reception. That would not work out.

Preparations for the upcoming hunting seasons can be broken down into two loose categories: the physical and the psychological. The first is necessary conditions to hunt. We must put our weapons in working order, buy ammunition and licenses, etc. These acts are perfunctory. The second is not, and they often are overlooked. But the psychological preparations every hunter makes as he readies himself to go afield are no less important, no less an obligation, than the physical. Ignoring them won’t stop a hunter from hunting, as a defective rifle will, but it will rob the experience of its fullest meaning. It will demean quarry and hunter alike.

The signs are unmistakable: a rustling in basements, attics and garages as gear is brought out and dusted off; targets with hay bales behind them set up in backyards; shot guns and rifles retrieved from their summer-long hibernation and oiled to a high shine. If you see any of these signs associated with your husband or neighbor, that can only mean one thing: He’s getting ready for hunting season. With that time of the year almost upon us, here is a preview of the early seasons - dove, deer (for bow hunters), and turkey - in central Virginia and throughout the state.

This column was originally going to be about noodling, the mostly insane practice of angling for catfish with one’s hand popular in parts of the country where people often have more all-terrain vehi cles than teeth. I was all set to go noodling (what does that say about my sanity - or total teeth?). I’d even lined up someone, local catfishing guide Mike Ostrander, who could show me where a few cats might hide. We would dive, find the beasts and hope to wrestle them to the surface. Then we’d snap a few pictures before letting them swim away.

Ihave the bad habit of forgetting the pain of physical endeavors shortly after they’re over. How bad is my memory for painful experiences? Every now and again, I get nostalgic about the marathon I ran, even though it was a big, fat disaster in which every muscle in my legs cramped up, and I got passed at the end by a hulk of a man draped in a car-dealership-size American flag.

SANTA CATALINA ISLAND, Calif. For most of his adult life, Eddie Harrison operated a glass bottom boat, giving tours to visitors of this mountainous island 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. In his spare time, he was a poet. My fellow hikers and I dis cover this in the middle of a grueling almost-three-hour hike. We’ve reached the unnamed summit, having done nothing but go up for two hours - from sea level to more than 1,500 feet. Two turned back, the pregnant lady and the guy in flip flops. Four remain.

For 26 years now, Hugh Crittenden has been putting on the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show. It’s the longest running and best-attended show of its kind in the state, despite focusing exclusively on hunting. Crittenden, a full-time taxidermist, could put forward the same show every year with the same exhibits, same guest speakers, same everything. He could rest on his laurels, but that’s just not his style.

Ever wanted to learn a new language? Gain some culture? Impress your friends? Let me suggest one. All it will cost is $2 for a slender paperback book. It’ll take lots of work, but if you stick with it, you’ll soon be fluent. The best part is you barely have to leave your back yard. The language? Trees. Identi fying them, that is. Don’t speak tree? Don’t know a pawpaw from a poplar? Don’t feel bad. I’m not fluent, not yet, but I’m getting there thanks to my rediscovery of that slim, information-packed volume—“Common Native Trees of Virginia.“ It’s a tree identification guide put out by the Department of Forestry since the 1920s. I received my copy as part of the Virginia Master Naturalist classes I took two winters ago, but it languished on my bookshelf ever since.