Hopes and Happenings, Thrills and Threats

Spring is in full gallop, and one day soon will mesh seamlessly with summer.   We hunted mushrooms yesterday, crawling through the woods as we must, the cussed honeysuckle being as they are.  But we found a handful of morels and declared the fungi season underway.

The onions are excited, growing with great zeal, their pointed foliage rising from the earth like an army marching into battle with swords skyward.  The spinach, radishes, peas, are also progressing nicely.  There is a long and arduous list of things needing done, and it leaves us with a choice to become either motivated or overwhelmed.  NPR recently interviewed a man released from prison who spoke of the thrill in traveling from one destination to another without being handcuffed, of the joy in waiting in line for a couple hours at the DMV, at seeing a child at play, and having the freedom to choose an onion to add to an evening meal.  Attitude is everything.

The beavers have developed a routine of coming at dusk onto a strip of land separating our two ponds.  They’re looking for corn remaining from the ration my wife, Lee, puts out for the wood ducks and geese.  (If, upon dying, you find reincarnation an option, choose to be a bird and fly to Lee’s house.  Better yet, come back as her dog.  You will want for nothing.)  This year, a goose is brooding on the same strip of land and her mate does not take to uninvited guests.  He is effective in driving one beaver away, while another is not easily intimidated and feeds contentedly even while being jabbed in the rump by the gander.

In late afternoon I was on the dock and looked up to see a hen wood duck disappear into a nest box after approaching with amazing speed and rifling through the entrance hole in an instant.  This is the same box we checked a couple weeks ago and found several eggs laid by a hooded merganser.  It’s not an uncommon thing to have the two species using the same box, with one or the other ultimately taking on incubation duties.  But what is a diving duckling to make of being shown the ways of survival by a dabbling mother?   Or, imagine a duckling inclined to teeter forward with its butt in the air to pick a snail from vegetation while its apparent siblings dive for minnows and aquatic insects.  What if we were raised by orangutans and encouraged to forage and sleep in trees?  Apparently, the ducks sort it out.

There is frost in the forecast so the flowers on the Carlesii Viburnum outside our office door could be threatened.  The Carlesii, with a fragrance so powerful it can make me feel I’ve eaten too many donuts when I’ve had none, shows no apprehension towards frost, nor do the peach or strawberry blossoms, the trillium or toothworts.  They’ve experienced this routine countless times and despair not.  Consternation is reserved for people who, graced with logic and reason, recognize threats and react accordingly.  

And here is the perfect segway to mention our dismally slow response to catastrophic environmental threats.  A recent article by a team of ecologists and published under the title “Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future” sums it up. (You can read it here: www.frontiersin.org, or an opinion here:  https://www.facebook.com/680888411/posts/10158218969178412/).  

I have a tendency to steer the conversation towards environmental doom, and why is that?  I recently asked my friend, Jim, to respond to an essay I’d written which laid out our environmental future in black and white, and his response was, “What’s your point?”  He avoids the news regarding climate change though he is finely tuned to the threat.  He does what he reasonably can to reduce his carbon footprint, but is more focused on staying active and happy in life.  Further into the conversation he mentions the solace he finds in the belief that humans will one day soon be gone, and the earth, with the luxury of time, will begin the long process of rebuilding to her former glory.  

My point, Jim, is that it’s all so unnecessary.  Solutions to this environmental crisis are truly within our grasp and a worldwide implementation of remedies would not only assure continuation of the human race but would, in the process, address a host of societal woes and injustices.  Our occupation of the planet doesn’t have to end.

True to forecast there was a heavy frost last night.  It’s good we didn’t plant the impatience we bought, bad that we left the flat sitting out.  The morning is bright and sunny.  A squirrel is at the feeder, her teats clearly defined.  The onions, unscathed by the cold, are marching on. Dozens of birds are claiming territories, advertising for mates.  A planet is poised to heal.