In which I am an amateur bird detective and nudger of bugs
Head in the Clouds, Hands in the Dirt
Learning About Our World While Building My Own
Bloodroot, Donald County Park, April 2024
I looked out the window this morning to find Lucas sitting on the step as he listened to a few more lines of his audiobook post-run. Past him, on the bench in the backyard, stood a big, light brown bird with a red head. It was too large to be a finch, taller than a robin, but not squat. Too pale to be a woodpecker, and its entire head was red. It flew off before I could take a picture, but I swear it was real—Lucas saw it too!
Seeing the creatures we share this space with—whether we know their names or not—is one of the biggest privileges of having a backyard. Two days ago I moved leftover bricks and the log pile from a corner of the backyard to the driveway (raised beds will go there instead). I found a tiny juvenile rabbit with a white patch on its forehead, a wooly caterpillar, a spider’s egg sack on a brick (that I was careful not to crunch), and countless bugs that I nudged into the dirt and leaves so they wouldn’t be stuck navigating the inhospitable pavement. I felt like a terrible neighbor, but ultimately I was making a better space for them (or maybe their grandkids) to thrive.
Waiting for a Prairie Nursery plant delivery — I wish I had realized that I could seed the flowers I wanted in the fall!
Alongside The Humane Gardener, I’ve been reading Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation by Paul Hawken and Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal. Yesterday, the messages of these books converged for me like this:
We are all part of the same world. There is no us and them when it comes to the creatures outside our doors. We are part of an intricate, incredible system crafted by these fungi, bugs, plants, birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals—and we benefit greatly from that system. We need that system. But humanity has broken it. And now we have to fix it.
Fixing something is often so much harder than breaking it. And if we don’t know what to do or how to do it, it can prevent us from trying to do anything at all.
However, as Paul Hawken writes about loss of habitat, “This is not a problem looking for solutions; they already exist. It is a problem looking for awareness.” In The Humane Gardener, Nancy Lawson has brought our awareness to the small patches of world for which we are the direct caretakers.
I appreciate that Lawson acknowledges she’s made mistakes, and continues to make mistakes (making it easier for us to admit that as well), and that we’re working within a pretty flawed system (or as she calls it, the Landscaping Industrial Complex). The options we’ve been readily handed in the past haven’t been great for us, but we didn’t know that. Now we do, so it’s time to move forward.
While reading The Humane Gardener:
Have you decided to put into practice anything from the book? Were you already?
Do you disagree with or have any reservations regarding her “tenets of nurturing a humane backyard?”
Do you feel like you know what to do and how to do it? It’s okay if you don’t! Let’s chat about it and brainstorm.
LOVE FIREFLIES?
Did you know you help fireflies by leaving the leaves?
Learn more by reading “How to Build a Firefly Habitat” at firefly.org.
A little reading and planning
Happening Soon
May’s book is A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved Its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement by Philip Ackerman-Leist, available as ebook, paperback, or audiobook.
Continuing the food theme as we head into farmer’s market season, June’s book is Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot (ebook, paperback, or audiobook).
Next Time
We’ll wrap up The Humane Gardener and see if I made enough progress on the raised beds before our started vegetable plants arrive.
Plus, between my limited bird identification skills and an internet search short on answers, The Case of the Runaway Redhead remains open. Stay tuned.
