A Little Bit of Us All

Hello dear friends! The longest daylight of the year is here and the sun is out. Whoop! We are grateful for the heat that arrived with the Summer Solstice. This spring was too cold, too insectless, too quiet. A catbird celebrates in his own way, singing. Beautiful, beautiful singing. The sun and warmth always bring song. Bird, insect, tree. Have you noticed how the cottonwood sings too? How they dance? How they sing the music of water and wind?

What beauty there is in this world!

When insects couldn't move because of the chill, we helped. I imagined this moth's "thoughts" - I opened my wings in May. I lived in the forest. I felt the rain. I felt the cold. I wondered. We wondered: did they accomplish their mission? 

Polyphemus moth

When the flowers bloomed and the insects weren't present. We mourned. We despaired. And yet, we also still loved. It's easy to look away from the pain, the wrongness, but if we do that, how do we change? Move forward?

Willow

Eastern Redbud

American Plum

Little precious lives live everywhere, even in nonabundant times and those lives we sought ardently. 

Harvestman sp. (spectacular!!!)

American Mink near the compost pile

Beaver tail

We hiked along floating bridges made by incredible humans so we could witness the lives of beaver up close and personal.

Cliff Run Nature Preserve

We quieted our minds and exercised our bodies healing land, adding diversity back. 

Winterberry Holly and Bladdernut

We pilgrimaged to witness the early wildflower blooms in Eastern Deciduous Forest. A not to be missed event. 

Shooting Star

Wild Leek, Spring Beauty, Cutleaf Toothwort, Trout Lily, White Oak

We marveled at the return of woodland wildflowers to these 3.5 acres in Morrow County, OH all because of our commitment to share space and plant it back.

Twinleaf, Trillium, Stonecrop, Mayapple, Wild Leek

The rain created the perfect conditions for beautiful fungus.

Dead Man's Fingers

Dyer's Polyphore

We excitedly awaited the emergence of periodical cicadas in parts of Ohio in May and we traveled to live amongst them and their song for a bit at Persimmon South, in Highland County, OH. We rejoiced in their resiliency in the coolness and wetness. 

We insect watch. We bird watch. We plant watch. We continue to work to learn the language of others - to understand, to learn, to appreciate and to marvel.

17 Year Periodical Cicadas Brood XIV

We imagined their "thoughts" - I lived underground for 17 years feeding on tree roots. In sync with my relatives and friends, I crawled out of the Earth and sang. My babies are now burrowed in the soil to start the cycle anew.

We observed their favorite singing and sleeping spots at Persimmon South close to the sun in the tops of a lingering white ash and a tall tulip tree - where they felt the first heat of the day and the last heat of the day.

Recently we learned Persimmon South is loaded with native sedges and grasses and were reminded that so many diverse plants are already there. We need to observe and learn and listen before we use a heavy hand on this land that is already handling the return of the biological community.

Twisted Sedge (maybe)

Fowl Manna Grass

Less than a month ago, as we sat in long sleeve shirts and pants day after day we sought any and all signs that the 20 degree below average temperatures would go away. This feather, right by my chair told me life was still happening. Keep going. Other feathers told me life was around. Keep going.

Red-shouldered Hawk 

Barred Owl 

Eastern Bluebird

On warm and warming days, the insects started to show up in small numbers.

White-striped Black

Swift Feather-legged Fly

Lettered Sphinx caterpillar

Isabella Tiger Moth Eggs

Speckled Sharpshooter

Amidst the challenge of spring weather, a mama stray cat had her kittens in our south facing window well under a slanted board. She did alright until the south rains came and the board fell on two of her kittens. We got the board off much to her displeasure. Were we there to help or hurt? She moved the kittens that night and we didn't know to where. We put food out for her and she relied on us immediately. 

It took us awhile to find where Bibs, the mama cat, moved her kittens to and we finally found them in a south facing spot under a large clump of grass. A tree was to the northeast of this spot. Very good...close to us for protection and food and very hard to find.

We knew they needed help so we helped and eventually got the family moved into the chicken coop minus one kitten that must have died.

We imagine mama's "thoughts" - I am Bibs the cat and I have three kittens. I am only 1 year old and I am thin as a rail. I had a hard start to life, living outside in polar vortexes, eating potatoes and anything else in the compost pile I could find. I sheltered under the chicken coop when opossums and raccoons and mink weren't under there. I trust humans now. I am so grateful for shelter, food, water, play and this amazing thing called love from my human allies. I am a good mom and I need a home. My babies need a home. I need you. Jennifer and Steve need you.

Amidst the cat chaos, more plants began to bloom and we showed up to revere them and thank them and tell them to not give up on the insects. Three bad springs in a row is hard to recover from.

Four-leaved Milkweed

Common Milkweed

Wild Yam

During all the coolness of spring, native fruits grew. Some way less than normal due to lack of cross pollination or pollination at all, but others grew abundantly.

American Plum

Lack of a late freeze let a persimmon at our place put fruits on for the very first time. You read that right, an American Persimmon at Persimmon North is FRUITING. 

American Persimmon 'Yates'

After the cool, and before the hot, hot heat, the rain turned off, the smoke haze arrived and the soil dried. Leaves turned red, leaves dropped and we began watering. It's a disrupted, unsettled climate. One we've played with far too much and one we can still play with again (in a very different way!) and restore to a good friendly system for all. Don't look away. Engage with us, with your human and nonhuman community. You matter.

And please never forget, because it's the one thing that will keep us all going...we are united! 

Amidst everything, we explore, we love, we heal land.

Recommended Reading:

Medicine Wheel for the Planet by Dr. Jennifer Grenz

Inspiration:

Young Protestor

Sound Tracks:

Wolf Like Me - Lera Lynn

Say Goodbye, Tell No One by Kathleen Edwards

In Sleep by Lissie

Record Collector - Lissie

Jade Bird @XPoNential Music Festival 2024

Already Free Ruth Moody

The Miles We Walk

We are well within reach of our 75 mile hiking goal for the month of March and it's our tether....to our physical bodies, to our spiritual bodies, to the much larger than us natural, whole world. We are grateful for the opportunity to be in this world and so we walk and we observe. Sometimes we try to capture our joy in selfies and usually it goes awry. For one...

and then the other...

So, we forget about looking at us and walk anyways. We admire the beauty in the world outside of us, tempering overthinking inside of us. 

Because of our nonconventional schedule, folks sometimes think we don't work, but we do. Steve is the primary money maker as a soil scientist doing soil investigations for septic systems. This boy knows soil and his ability to read the land is beautiful. If you think you know something about soil because you've read a lot or worked a garden, you probably don't. Take it from me, someone learning from someone in tune with his environment and observing soil for many decades, it's a wild ride of learning and unlearning. To make the best use of fossil fuels on far flung jobs and to take advantage of different hiking opportunities, I sometimes go along and watch birds or write while Steve operates his one man gig.

He walks far, he bores holes deep, shallow and often in slop, in all sorts of weather, with all sorts of landowners and is more often challenged than not. Here we visited the Darby Plains not intact at this private residence, but at Battelle Darby where we walked after, large acreages of land are protected and feeling the love and goodness of restoration. 

The farming practices that make homogenous landscapes like the one above also fuel us. We make homemade granola aware of our oats and pepitas and what pecan orchards look like. We buy the best we can with what's available to us, ever aware that our food purchases directly impact the biodiversity of the land surrounding us all. Will our food growing practices continue to improve? We believe so, if enough of us say yes.

On our many miles walked, funded by Steve, fueled by Mother Earth, we observe the simplicity and the resourcefulness of the lives around us. I wonder what the ridges and valleys of tree bark might feel like to Winter Fireflies seeking warmth and protection from cold wind? 

Spring Treetop Flasher Fireflies join the Winter Fireflies in this ridge and valley landscape we have become so enamored with. 

In an almost unbelievable moment of bark exploration, Steve found a Harvester butterfly chrysalis. We find these fascinating butterflies (who live in relationship with aphids and ants in this forest), but this is our first find of their pupation chamber, where enzymes turn the insides to goo and a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. There is magic in miles walked and observations made when the self-mind turns quiet and the awe-mind turns on.

These tree bark landscapes are so like the landscapes we walk.

Rattlesnake Plantain...

and Wild Sedum and moss also find shelter amongst these trees...in the leaves, on the roots, on the bark.

Shelter is critical for survival for all of us. I wonder about human shelter, in my critical thinking, sometimes overthinking mind. Why is it so extravagant? Why is it so big? Why is it not appropriate for weather without complex systems of heating and cooling? I am keenly aware of the multiplicity of over-the-top shelters Steve and I have. I marvel at the shelters created in our waste. 

We reconnect with our Earth ancestry in our walking. We mull over important and hard decisions and sometimes they spill out with clarity:

These four walls cannot contain me and yet they do. They warm me, they dry me, they offer me refuge. We've painted the walls joyful colors and filled the rooms with inspired, treasured handcraft. What we didn't prepare for in our nesting is the care that is necessary for all these things and the cost to our spirits in the care. You see, our spirits run with the coyotes. They soar with the turkey vultures. They stand sturdy as the oak. Our spirits crave sun, rain, wind, barefootedness, contact with soil. Our spirits ask at what cost are we accepting comfort? Our spirits tell us, it is too high. Change. Move your legs. Touch the tree bark and smell the scented gray-headed coneflower seeds. Drink in the richness of the sky and the marvel of a functioning ecosystem. Remember. Rejoin. These four walls cannot contain you, but they will if you let them. Get less comfortable. Be more free. Rediscover where you came from. Nourish your spirits. Nourish the fireflies. Nourish the opossums. Nourish the forests. Nourish the wetlands, the rivers, the deserts, the mountains. Nourish the Earth. Find you again. Howl at the moon. Never forget. 

And so we walk and we restore land. We are cognizant that this planet is not ours for the taking, that our spirits require nourishment. The future is bright. Tough choices will be made. The spicy sweetness of the spring blooming Witchhazel envelops us, bringing us home once more.

 

Soundtrack: Jackie Venson, I will Find a Way

Recommended Podcast (and Book): Dacher Keltner, The Thrilling New Science of Awe

Forest Advocacy NEEDED for this beautiful place: