The Glimmering Miles of It

I'm like those birds, keas in New Zealand, who collect the shiny objects: I go out in the world, certain things glimmer at me, they resonate with something inside me it could be the waiting room of a veterinary clinic, an overheard moment of conversation, the way the light is coming through the trees. Whatever it is, it hits that spot in me that says, "Writing-worthy."                                                            
                                                                                                                                  -Pam Houston

It seems 2014 was a year of taking things apart. It is my hope that 2015 will be a year of putting them back together, in more meaningful ways. Being here again, finally, after a long absence, as I begin teaching the nature writing class again, is a starting place. At the Summer Community of Writers this past year, we participated in a writing exercise with Pam that asked us to find and reflect on a few of those glimmers. It occurs to me that last year - one filled with too-muchness - was overfull with them, those moments of utter importance, whether positive or negative. And there's too much to say in any thoughtfully organized way.

On companion animals: Shortly after my last entry, we lost Pepper, a loss that Z. took very hard and which we all still struggle with; we lost one of the cats this past summer, too, and the last cat is ailing.

On avian animals: That rufous hummingbird continued to try to overwinter, even into early January when the temperatures fell to almost zero and I was changing out the feeder nectar every 10 minutes because it kept freezing. My last sighting of him was January 7th, 2014.We bought a house in March and I convinced a neighbor at the old house to keep a feeder out this fall, in case he returned, but she never saw him. I am still hoping against hope he made it, did not freeze to death (as is common among hummingbirds). Our new house has a very puzzling lack of bird life. Even with feeders out, we routinely have very few visitors. Only saw a couple of ruby throats all summer. At our previous house, the birds could empty the feeder within a day. Here, I've filled it once in months and it's still nearly full. I am utterly disappointed. Especially because last semester I completed the Virginia Master Naturalist program and was planning to participate in Cornell's Project Feederwatch in order to gain some of my required volunteer hours for full certification. Perhaps a change of food will help. There is a pileated woodpecker who lives nearby, which is always an exciting sighting. I could, though, do without the resident catbirds, which mewl incessantly and annoyingly, just like a certain cat used to do.

On place: Despite the lack of bird activity and that I no longer have a mountain view out my window, it has been lovely to have a place that is ours again. We are within walking or running distance to both Wildwood Park and Bisset Park, places where we find ourselves often. Here I will finally make good on my promise to the girls that we will have a garden this summer. Gardening is unfamiliar territory and is a daunting prospect, given my inability to keep green things alive. It should be an interesting adventure. The landscape of this house is desperate and needs attention, another project once winter flees.

On travel: When I was younger, I used to travel a great deal, but those days have long been eclipsed by life. I have been teaching at Chatham since 2005, and last spring, had the first chance to be an instructor for one of our field seminar abroad courses. The other instructor and I took a group of 24 students to Belize and Guatemala for two weeks. I last traveled internationally twenty years ago and to say the experience was astonishing would be an understatement. This was full immersion in the natural world, in a place teeming with life and activity. The experience was helped by having a wonderful guide (he says, "loving nature is my language"), who knew I was most interested in the wildlife. And see wildlife we did - my spotted-bird list was impressive, and we saw monkeys in the wild, among so many other things. I hope to one day return. 

On teaching and writing: It was a conflicted decision to relinquish my hard-won full-time teaching job, but that life was wholly unsustainable. I have pangs of regret every day, but know that I made the right decision. Now I must be patient as I search for a more-right path. I did find, after years of searching, the right place for one of my essays, "Giant Forest." Now the task remains to return to and complete the collection. That project has been on hold for far too long, another of the many reasons I made such difficult decisions last year. 

All the glimmers, indeed. Many more to come.  

Mute Dancer

I am sure that my friends have long tired of my obsession with this one very small creature, but I can't get over the rarity: As of today, our rufous visitor remains with us. I hadn't seen him in more than a week, and assumed, as I have erroneously assumed a number of times over these last few months, that he had migrated. So certain I was that I didn't bother to refill the feeder or ask the neighbors to bring it in at night while we were away for Thanksgiving. And yet there he was on the feeder this morning. So he arrived about 3 weeks earlier than last year, and he's already stayed 2 weeks past his departure time of last year - surprising to us all. I wonder what exactly is going on in his mind - or body - that keeps him here, whether there's a chance he may decide to overwinter. I know they are intelligent and able to survive almost unthinkable conditions; their symbolism in native cultures as "resurrection birds" is well earned. But it just seems that he must, must move on soon. How can he not?

In the meantime, I share a lovely article on watching hummingbirds by Diane Ackerman and another of Stan's wonderful photos. And wait.

A Space Filled with Moving

Just five days earlier, I had written here:

I am not-so-secretly hoping they will make another stop here, if they found their way south after leaving (though based on the indignity of the banding, I suspect the female may do anything possible to forget this place exists). It's tempting to think that our home may have imprinted on their flyway path, that we have developed something like a relationship.

And last Tuesday, 9/17, I glanced out the window to discover that my hopes were rewarded: A rufous hummingbird at the feeder! This one was an adult male, even more obviously a rufous than the two juveniles from last year, which were difficult to distinguish from the ruby throats. I immediately contacted Bruce from USGS, who helped trap and band last year's rufous migrants and notified all the local community birders. We theorized that it must be last year's male, now grown, because given their rarity in this area, it seemed too coincidental that we could have an entirely new migrant visitor. This is several weeks earlier than last year, and that adult males migrate earlier than juveniles also added to our theory this was the same bird. Bruce asked me to see if I could get a close-enough look to determine whether the bird was banded. Hmm. This species is much more skittish - hard to blame him, since he's been captured here! - than the ruby-throats, rarely perches, and I have poor eyesight. How on earth was I going to be able to see if his teeny tiny ankle has a teeny tiny bracelet?

In the week since, Stan was able to come out with his Very Fancy Camera and get a few photographs, to get some answers. Some cropping and enlarging and some keen eyes (not mine) were able to make out enough numbers to verify that yes, this is the male who visited us last October. Interestingly, after he left here, he was apparently captured and banded again, as he is sporting bands on both ankles. It's interesting to compare these to the similar images from a year ago; he is so much more vivid and colorful as an adult.

Bands visible - Photo credit: Stan Bentley

Rare moment of rest - Photo credit: Stan Bentley

We're all very curious to learn where he has been in the last year, where else he was trapped. Bruce plans to make the drive down from Maryland soon to see if we can trap him again and solve that mystery.

Noiseless & Patient

I'm not sure who noticed them first, but they are hard to miss. My first sighting was while walking out the door a few mornings ago. A thread had been attached to the door frame in the middle of the night and I tore it free with my exit. This particular Neoscona crucifera, a Hentz orb weaver, was nearly as startled as I was, as she - because we learned that it's only the females who spin webs - skittered up the side of the house. Their webs are impressive and stunning.

We've been in this house for three years but have never seen this particular species, but right now, we've got about half a dozen in various crevices outside. Z. has named the one outside her bedroom window "Orba," while the two other most visible ones are "Peg" and "Meg." She told me that some spiders spin different types of silk, some sticky and some not, so they can move freely across their webs. I guess I had never really considered why it is that spiders don't get stuck in their own webs. The orb weaver typically doesn't spend much time in one place, though, and several days later, most have moved on to new locations. Such excitement this morning when I woke Z. up  with the news that Orba had returned to her location sometime in the night. We're all hoping that there will be eggs and wee spiders (perhaps a thousand or more), before the frosts come.

 When I was in Pittsburgh last summer, one had spun an intricate, massive web along the entire length of my hosts' front porch. It was impossible not to stop and examine it, and I came and went every day, impossible not to admire how much effort and detail go into such a complicated - at least, complicated in my mind - endeavor.

Retroactive Remembering

I'm tempted to cheat on this blog a bit here, because I really ought to date my entry for May - when, according to the scribbled words in my notebook, this actually occurred - but really, it's September and I'm only now getting to this. It was a summer of too-muchness, and things that mattered fell too far to the sides of that unusually busy season, too busy to be fully present and to enjoy my most favorite of seasons. Leaves are changing and soon it will be a very distant thought. Next summer, though, next summer.

My purpose is that I wanted to record this year's arrivals for the archive:

Male ruby-throat first sightings: 4/18/13
Female ruby-throat first sightings: 5/15/13 (much delayed from last year)

My daughter's second-grade teacher-substitute for the next few weeks is a woman who was present for our rufous-hummingbird adventure, and with Z's homework, she attached a sticky-note asking if we'd seen them this year. We're still several weeks from the departure of the ruby-throats and the time when I first noticed the migrants last year. I am not-so-secretly hoping they will make another stop here, if they found their way south after leaving (though based on the indignity of the banding, I suspect the female may do anything possible to forget this place exists). It's tempting to think that our home may have imprinted on their flyway path, that we have developed something like a relationship.

Presently the Floods Break Way

The New River can be seen in the background

Bisset Park is reopened (though many of us had been using it anyway) after the epic January flooding, and on Sunday we took Petie & Pepper to the dog park there for the first time since. While the city has cleared away all the debris, it's stunning to see how much the landscape has been altered; the paved and grass-covered riverway park resembles a sandy coastal beach. It's still unclear how much blame exists beyond that of the weather, but one thing is clear: it could be a very long time before the landscape will be the same, if ever.

For now, though, The Girls are enjoying playing in the sand.




Too-Muchness

What happens when you give two children cameras on a mid-winter afternoon hike through Wildwood Park? This happens: 268 new photos (a great many of which are of the ground and/or a certain child's sparkly light-up sneakers) and two dead camera batteries. It's amazing to me that, in a seemingly empty, dormant landscape, children are able to find amazement and images worth preserving. When I asked V. why she was taking so many photos, she said, "I just can't stop Mom! Nature is too beautiful!"

 

A Return, Very Grudgingly

I've been missing for a long while, but not entirely of my own too-busy doing. Sometime between my last post here in July and this past December when I logged in again to post in preparation for the new semester's nature writing grad students, the Blogger automated software mistakenly detected this innocuous nature blog as *spam.* And, with no notification to me, via email or otherwise, that program went ahead and deleted the whole thing (I'm still wracking my mind to try to figure out what content in here would have suggested something nefarious or inappropriate). Apparently Blogger is so big now that it is impossible to speak to an actual human and the only way of dealing with issues is to post to their help forums and hope that someone who replies is actually someone in authority who can fix the situation. It took me over a month, during which I admittedly had to get pushy and cranky on their "help" forums, but that persistence paid off and the blog was finally restored.

I am now, though, very conflicted about its continuance, and about posting new content. I also have used this platform with the nature writing students, required dozens of them to have used it over the last several years. This was an awful experience, and I also am admittedly still irate (downgraded from enraged) about it. And I hate the idea of continuing with this platform after such an experience, either for myself or with my students. I decided that I wanted it restored for the sole intention of backing up all the content and exporting it all straight over to Wordpress, and then I would delete this one myself for good. I realize now that it will be many months before I have the time to do that, create an entirely new blog and essentially start over. I can't imagine that I won't want to post during that interim period, so I have now decided that I will just try to set aside my annoyance, post until then, and proceed with the I'm So Over Blogger Plan. 

So, know that this home here is simply for now. Because I have perfected the art of holding grudges. 

In the meantime, in local news, am very excited that the annual Radford Roosting Festival (the renamed  Vulture Festival) is upcoming and takes place during the Kindergartener's (the renamed Preschooler) birthday weekend festivities!

A Battle Over Wild Things

A few weeks ago, after our conversation, Next Door Neighbor B. took it upon herself to ask the landscapers to remove - physically and with the help of what I assume are noxious chemicals - the chocolate vine that climbed our trellis and balcony out back. I guess she got it into her head that all the snakes in the New River Valley were climbing it and using our porches as a vacation spot. Or something. I'll admit that it was a wee bit out of control, but it also produces the most delicious-smelling spring blooms I've ever known. And the fact that she did this without asking, informing, or notifying anyone, irks me. Greatly.

Hmm, guess which house is ours?

It turns out that snakes are not the only sign of nature that B. has issues with. She came over to speak with J. earlier, about "doing something" about our front yard, which, in her estimation, is far too wild. She kept repeating how it really has to be to be "cleaned up" right away, so that it looks "neat and tidy," and went so far as to claim that its current state violates the HOA rules. Landlord P. clearly disliked the orderly, condo-cookie-cutter lawn of this complex, clearly has a love of a diversity of plants and trees. And while I'll also admit that some of the trees, in particular, could use some trimming back, I find B's complaints equally irksome and quite puzzling. If not for this yard, we would not have the hummingbirds and house finches and cardinals, the squirrels and the new-resident chipmunk, the caterpillars and praying mantises, would not be able to eagerly await the blooming of another, mystery flower. Is there something inherent dangerous here, in this version of nature - besides the bees and wasps and annoying June bugs - that I'm missing? I'm having trouble understanding why instead we must accept one that is tamed and controlled and trimmed and sprayed, sometimes to death.

Our offensive yard, up close

While we are merely renters, this is one battle I will gladly fight.

Gratefully, Is What Is Best

We arrived home last night, just at dusk, tired, emotional, anxious after a journey that took hours longer than it should have - the usual snaking snarl of D.C. Beltway traffic - stopped at a light along Tyler Avenue, when J. noticed a firefly land on the windshield. We've been eagerly anticipating their seasonal arrival, impatiently, The Girls peering into each evening, hoping and waiting. And so far, we have been left still waiting. Like the hummingbirds, they have been much, much later than in previous years, so much so that I've gotten worried. Last night it was too late for Z & V, so I promised them we'd sit outside tonight. What I didn't tell them was that I looked, while bringing in carloads of stuff, stood outside the house peering into the evening. And I saw a single blink. I did some research today, which revealed that all 2000 species worldwide are declining; some biologists have even whispered the word: endangered.

For good measure, and because I know a kindergartener who will love it, I have signed us up to monitor fireflies in our neighborhood, with the Boston Museum of Science's annual Firefly Watch. Maybe the winter was not quite right and they really are just delayed this year. At least, I hope so. I cannot imagine a world, a childhood, without the magic of fireflies.

Deep, Strange-Scented Shade of the Great Dark

I was outside just now, giving the last of the breadloaf to the birds (oh, who do I kid? to the squirrels, really), when my next-door neighbor B. approached me to give me a most-serious warning: she'd seen "several" snakes in her yard and she wanted us to know to look out for them. Upon inquiry, I learned that they were native black rat snakes. The largest in Virginia, a bit imposing certainly, but still harmless. B. proceeded to tell me of how she kills them when she finds them.

I was reminded of a passage from Lisa Courturier's essay, "The Hopes of Snakes":

That the unease over the snake was disproportionate to the actual danger of the creature was not relevant. The concern seemed to be: Who does this snake think it is, venturing out of the trees to travel in the open grasses where stood people just now realizing the snake by their feet was not a child’s toy but an actual live serpent?...our awareness and direct experience of serpents is so limited that what we believe about them functions as a sort of anti-knowledge. In the absence of contact, the snake’s life forms in the human mind as a nightmare of slithering, of fangs, of constriction, of venom, of being swallowed slowly, and in full.

For B., for many people, clearly the very idea of a snake has become much more frightening than the snake itself. So much so that it becomes impossible to consider anything other than that idea, anything that might be closer to truth. Last fall, I opened the attached shed out back to discover a fairly large black rat snake coiled up inside. I guessed that it was seeking shelter from the torrential rains we'd had. I was startled to see it, surprised - especially considering the shed is off the second-floor balcony - but not scared really. And the next day when the rains had cleared, when I took Z. out to see it, it was gone. Last week, we found a tiny dead snake in the road and we all looked at it for a long time.

The snake in the road

The snake in the road, close-up

I explained to B. this morning that as long as I see them in places they're meant to be - our yards, for example, or even in the shed - I generally just leave them. She gave me a very puzzled look. I realize now on reflection that implicit in her warning was reproach: our yard is the only one in the complex without a small lawn, without grass, the only one that the weekly landscapers know to just leave alone. It is, to her and probably to all the other neighbors, disorderly, unkempt, untamed, with various tall plants and groundcovers and trees. B. claims that she has seen snakes climbing the unruly chocolate vine crawling up the trellis out back too (which would explain the snake in the shed).

Yes, ours is a too-wild place that invites wild snakes.

In Which Patience is Rewarded

Perhaps it is our higher elevation. Perhaps it is just that they were languidly enjoying the warmer climates and didn't want to leave. Perhaps the journey just took longer than usual. But although they were a full month behind others in the area, this afternoon I looked out at the feeder I've been diligently refilling in vain for weeks, and there they were: no fewer than three male ruby-throated hummingbirds. In Pittsburgh, when I would stand at the bus stop at the end of my block each April and see the giant magnolia tree finally in full-pink bloom, or finally see the mated pair of red-tails rebuilding the nest in the ancient oak along the parkway, I'd trust that winter was truly over.

Here my faith is placed in, to borrow a lovely phrase from a current student (thanks BG!), the "smallest of the tiny."

A Return, Long Anticipated

Earlier, standing in the kitchen looking at the birds outside on the feeders, I got to wondering where our ruby-throated hummingbirds might be, right now. Tomorrow is the equinox, after all. Then I remembered that there are much-more-obsessive-than-I people out there who are tracking their migration. And I checked the map and discovered that some were sighted, right in our area, this very day! I am boiling sugar water and have pulled the feeders out of storage. They will go up first thing tomorrow. J says that he *thought* he saw one earlier this morning. But they truly herald the real return of spring!

Unwelcome Guests

I was sitting at the kitchen table early yesterday morning working on a frustrating essay revision for an upcoming publication (though, perhaps not - if these revisions are not *accepted,* I'm pulling the piece) when I heard The Sound. Unmistakable. Too familiar. The clicking, whirring sound of a recently awakened, stupidly flying, crashing-into-everything stinkbug. It's a sound that drove me from my last house and is one I decidedly do NOT welcome in this one. And sure enough, I looked up and there it was, clumsily circling the ceiling fan. But it landed on the wall, and I unabashedly scooped it into a tissue and flushed it. The Preschooler has been lately trying to figure out the subtle nuances of the concept of *hate* and I told her the other day, "Mummy doesn't hate anyone." Then I paused and thought, and added, "No, that's not true. Mummy hates stink bugs." The Toddler found one on the couch this morning. It became something of a joke among my students this semester, my utter loathing for these horrible, awful creatures. We kept finding them in our classrooms even into December and I am sure I came across as irrational in my reaction and finding them.

Someone really, really, really needs to find a solution to the Stinkbug Problem. Really. But, it doesn't sound like we're making much progress.

Local Culture

Preschooler: Mommy, why do we all have to turn to bones someday?
Me: Well, because nothing on the planet lives forever and ever.
Preschooler: Except plastic.

I've been too busy this semester to post about the recent controversy over what to do about Radford's vulture populations, but it's clear that the mitigation plan imposed a few months ago was effective. And I'm still conflicted about it. The childcare center mentioned in the article is attended by both of The Girls. And really, their huge presence on the playground there had made a huge mess, probably a health hazard. But, despite its apparent success, I'm not sure this was the most humane approach. I miss seeing hundreds of them roosting in the trees in Wildwood Park. They are still here, though. It just takes more mindful attention to see them. I wonder, too, if Buttercup the Vulture is among them; one day a few months back, after years of being in rehabilitation, she saw a flock (is that the right term?) flying overhead and just took off. I like to think so. 

A New View

The dust, so much dust, of the last six weeks begins to settle and so do I. A new, smaller space, which is challenging. But apart from a Very Little Ant Problem (both in scale and in ant-size), all I can feel is relief at no longer having to share my living space with the mice, stinkbugs, black flies, box elder bugs, and mini-flock of European starlings. Hard to believe that life had become *normal* to us, having all those outside creatures inside, right alongside us. And I am trying to return to a normal Me, the one that conjures up sympathy and empathy for those other creatures, rather than resentment or contempt.

A few days ago, The Girls and I spent a long time observing together a lone carpenter ant which had found a dead-moth "treasure" (as they call everything that is found outdoors, leaves, sticks, acorns, berries). The backdrop of this shared moment was the lovely view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from our patio (seen in the photo). So nice to be able to enjoy the outside space without thinking about all the pests trying to get inside.

The one thing I do miss so far from the other house are the birds. Watching them. Looking them up in the field guide. Writing down all the species that frequented our yard. Particularly our (because after 2 years, we felt that they belonged to us somehow) pair of red-bellied woodpeckers. From the songs, there seems to be a great many more birds here (a great many more trees & fewer houses), yet none of them - beyond the mundane Little Brown Jobs - show any interest in the feeder we've put up. There is one in particular that has intrigued me. I'm terrible with identifying birdsongs - they all sound so much the same to me - but this one was unusual, a bird I'd never seen and one with a constant and distinctive song. We finally got a good look at it yesterday, saw a fledging baby and mother in the foliage outside the kitchen window: a mockingbird. We've noted it on our list and listen each evening for its calls. And to ameliorate my sadness at what we've lost, the Preschooler has drawn me a picture of the woodpeckers, which she says is for "whenever you are missing them."

Unquiet Spirit of a Flower

With our big across-town move less than a week away now, I'm thinking of things that I will not miss about this house: the stinkbugs, the box elder bugs, the colonies of wasps, the ants, the mice, the family of starlings living in the chimney - those are all within the house or just outside it. But one thing I will also not miss is the yard, also known not-so-affectionately as The Invasive Species Jungle. To use the term yard for this place is a misnomer, as it's more like a few rebel blades of grass battling it out with all manner of weeds and saplings and other scaries. Apart from its sheer size and the subsequent mowing challenges, I just don't really understand the American fascination with The Lawn.  The compulsion to have a pristine, manicured, tidy carpet of green. One that requires constant attention to keep it pristine. One that can't fully be enjoyed because of all the chemicals required to maintain that pristine-ness. I'm sure the neighbors see the 'for rent' sign out front and hope that some new tenants will remove the blight on the neighborhood landscape that is this yard. This has to be the Year of the Dandelion too, some strange convergence of the absolute right conditions for it to proliferate more than I ever thought possible.

Here I feel much kinship with Robert Wright in his recent blog post from the New York Times. And I am remembering back to one particular composition course at Iowa State, when we read Michael Pollan's wonderful essay, "Why Mow?" (also from the NYT). For some reason, this one piece engaged students more than any other that I have ever taught. For their assignment that week, they were asked to write an argument against Pollan, one in favor of the lawn. The responses were creative and generally pretty amazing. One student wrote his entire piece from the perspective of the lawn itself. Another employed Jonathan Swift-like satire successfully. After all these years, I still have copies of some of their pieces. But I still wonder what exactly it is about the idea of a lawn that inspired them so, what touched such a nerve by Pollan's suggestion that maybe we don't need lawns.

Me, I'm looking forward to having the tiniest slip of grass, one that will take minutes instead of hours to take care of. And I won't miss you one bit, you jungle masquerading as a yard. Though The Girls will miss it, at least all the dandelions. Because to them, this jungle is a sea of beautiful *flowers* just waiting to be picked.

More Feathers, Hope

We spent today worrying about a female house sparrow in our  yard. She clearly has an injured wing and spent most of the day splayed on one of our feeders. Every time we tried to have a closer look, she would attempt, and fail, to fly away, usually just landing in a heap on the ground. By nightfall (when birds should be in their nests), there  were eight inches of snow on the ground - with just as much more forecast by morning - and she was still there, limply resting on the feeder. Knowing that she would freeze to death by morning, we placed a call to the wildlife rehabilitators up in Roanoke who helped  us with our baby squirrel situation earlier this summer, who gave us some suggestions about how to capture her and bring her inside. The suggestions were irrelevant;  in her exhausted state, she didn't even put up a fight. For tonight, at least, she is warm and safe with food and water in a cardboard box in our downstairs bathroom. We shall see how she is in the morning. The injury doesn't look life-threatening, and she doesn't appear to have any eye problems like the wildlife rehab person says they've seen with sparrows around here. The Preschooler was enthralled with this whole situation, watching her father capture her outside through the living room windows, and then insisting on having a look at her once she was moved inside. She's been asking a lot of existential questions lately about life and death, which are hard for anyone, harder for those of us with out-of-the-mainstream ideas and beliefs. We're hoping the sparrow makes it, so that we can avoid some of those Hard Questions for a while longer.

During all this bird-rescuing chaos, my father-in-law called and thought we were crazy for going to all this trouble to help a common bird. Certainly house sparrows don't get much love from me, as far as local birds go. They are ruthless in their role at displacing the disappearing Eastern bluebirds, and while they're not as horrible as say, cowbirds, they definitely aren't the kindest, gentlest species. Still, there was just nothing else we could have or would have done but this. Nothing at all.

Happy Ending Postscript:
House Sparrow seemed to be rejuvenated this morning, with no sign of any serious wing injury. So we all just released her into the yard, where she promptly flew away quickly and eagerly. Good thing, since it doesn't look like there's any bird rehabilitators within a two-hour drive of here!

The Return of Terrible Things

So I guess last year's truly epic battle with brown marmorated stink bugs was not an isolated incident. In the last few days, a literal brown blanket has appeared, covering the entire outside of our house, as these critters all try to find a way inside, a place to over-winter (turns out it is primarily the females who do so). And thus far, many of them have found a way in. This year, we've gotten a bit smarter after last year's experience and much research - air conditioning units are fully sealed and are running 24-hours-a-day (at least the fans, since we suspect that's one entry point). But this house is a crack-and-crevice nightmare; there are still so many other ways in. And in they will come. And since we were still seeing them in the house all the way till spring last  year, I can only imagine that it will be the same this season.

I have never, ever in my life been able to say that I *hate* another creature before. Until these bugs. And my hatred runs to a truly unfathomable depth. We have come to the unfortunate realization that there is just no other alternative - well, relocation, which given our lease, is not an option - except insecticides. J. has spent the entire day spraying every window, every crack and place outside where he sees them. That would be upsetting on its own, but coming on the heels of my having just finished Silent Spring (in entirety for the first time, shameful for a nature writer I know), I am conflicted to the point of going straight out of my head. I honestly don't think I would be quite so upset if I didn't have children to consider.

Illuminations

Fireflies in the Garden
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

—Robert Frost

This morning Z sat eating a bowl of cereal and I attempted to sweep the dining room around her - V The Toddler has discovered how fun it is to throw food, made worse by the fact that we have spent this summer waging The Battle of the Ants - and in my sweeping, came upon a dead firefly. I said to Z, "How sad," and she insisted on getting out of her chair to look at it, as she likes to do with most creatures, alive or not. I finished my job and grabbed the dustpan to sweep up all the little piles, when she told me, "It's not dead. It's alive." I knelt down to have a closer look and sure enough, she was right. Alive, but barely. Probably too far gone by this point. Z has truly discovered the wonder that is a yard full of flickering fireflies this summer, has in fact gone to bed far to late most nights because she stands in bed watching them out the window, and she was visibly distressed at the plight of this lone firefly. "We HAVE to take it outside," she said, "it needs to go out there." Carefully I collected it in a tissue and placed it into the Invasive Species Jungle that is the backyard. "There," she said. "Now it will be okay because it will find all its firefly friends. Now it won't be lonely anymore because it can fly away and be with them."

I of course didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't think so, that it was dying (not that she really *gets* death at 3 1/2 anyway). Better to let her believe. Better for me to learn how to believe from her. Better for us all.