I’ve always loved the transitional times of the year. Spring abounds with life and fresh greenery and the nesting of myriad birds. It’s a welcome change after the chill winds of winter.

But fall, too, is a relief. You might think I could bask in the summer sun all year long, and it’s true that I love the long, lovely days. Even that wears thin after a few months, though, and by the start of September, I’m ready for a change.

At a time when global trade means grocery store shelves are full of all sorts of food reliably sourced year-round, it can be easy to forget that fall is also the time of abundance and harvest, conveniently placed just before winter calls for everyone to rest after seasons of growth and labor and fruition.

I enjoy watching our local wildlife as they go about their business — Douglas squirrels and Townsend’s chipmunks stashing food away for the future, Columbian black-tailed deer and Roosevelt elk grazing amid the rut, black bears and coyotes packing on fat for the winter.

Plants, too, prepare, with some dropping their leaves to conserve energy. Others die back, only to return in the spring. Fall fungi flourish, with mushrooms of all sorts popping out of soil, rotting logs, and even manure and compost.

I always wish for the best for them. Some won’t make it through the winter, whether because they end up as food for someone else or they simply run out of energy and warmth.

Insects, frogs, and other small animals are put at risk by taking refuge in leaf litter or venturing too close to cars. And, of course, there are the winter storms which bring down branches and entire trees.

For now, everyone is preparing as though they will survive, and that speaks to me of a sort of hope.

Granted, we are the only species we know of who hope or who even foresee their own mortality. But we are also a species immersed in meaning-making and pattern-finding, and we look to the world around us for allegories and symbols that speak to us in profound ways.

The squirrels may only be pulling together food stores because that is what their biological signals tell them to do.

To me, they are a reminder not only to be prepared but to look toward a future where that preparedness pays off. I’m not alone. Squirrels around the world are emblems of industriousness and looking to the future. Stories about them take a thread out of the complexity of nature and simplify it into a message to be passed down, teaching us an important way to be.

Amid the knowledge that not all squirrels will see next spring — and not all humans, either — the hope of survival shines brightly, a beacon to strive toward.

Not all efforts come to fruition, and many fail. But if we always thought of that reality, then none of us would take the chance that perhaps, if we try hard enough and if luck is on our side, we could succeed.

As a healthy adult human of modest means in a beautiful, safe part of the world, my chances of surviving to see another 12 months are pretty good. But I have big plans for next year.

The book I’ve written, “The Everyday Naturalist: How to Identify Animals, Plants, and Fungi Wherever You Go,” comes out in June, and I’m already plotting plenty of events in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

I’m preparing now as the days shorten and nights grow long and cold, and nothing is guaranteed. Next year, at this time, I could be looking at a string of disappointments and resigned hindsight, just as a busy little squirrel today may be nothing but a pile of bones beneath the leaves tomorrow.

And yet, fall is for dreaming and preparing. Fall is for the optimism that we will gather enough to see spring again and enjoy the bounty of years to come.

Even as we turn toward winter’s chill, fall says, “Here. Take these riches, my gifts to you, and may they see you from the ebb to the flow again.”

I can’t guarantee what the future will bring, but I look around at the wild beings that abound here — animals, plants, fungi and more — and my heart holds a light of hope for all of us.