Full of Life
Today is one of those spectacular early spring days when you can just sit outside for hours. The southern sky is a brilliant blue, clear as you’ll ever see it, and the yard is full of blooming Indian strawberry (Duchesnea indica) and wild violets (Viola nephrophylla), Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) and a host of birds searching for nest building materials and seed.
Sitting by garden, I’m lost in the simple beauty of it all as my thoughts flow backward to similar days in my youth when I would sit and watch insects, especially ants, for hours. Yep. I was the weird kid that loved and was fascinated by all life, including the bugs.
As I age (not so gracefully), days like these make me feel more alive than ever. I’m surrounded by life and feel a deep sense of connectedness to it all. But at the same time I can’t help but wonder why the majority of people in my community pay little or no attention to these things. There’s too much apathy, ignorance and disconnectedness from nature, a disorder most likely caused by poor education, tee-vee and electronic gadgetry that dulls the senses.
But it doesn’t mean people don’t care about their yards. They most certainly do. You see, Indian strawberry and wild violets are considered undesirable weeds by the suburban crowd, pests that need to be wiped out by chemical cocktails provided by criminal organizations like Trugreen. And organizations like Trugreen don’t just kill weeds. They poison ground water and are a direct contributor to the decline in urban amphibian populations.
Where does everyone think this chemical smorgasbord goes? Answer: They don’t know and don’t care. What they believe to be a healthy lawn is actually sick, dying and devoid of wildlife.
But that’s their world, not mine. My immediate world is a world of wonder, a phenomenally complex and beautiful world filled with hundreds of interacting, living species in an area only 1/4 of acre large. I’m quickly alerted by the well-known “fee-bee” call of Poecile carolinensis (Carolina chickadee), and look up to see it sweep downward over an expanse of wildflowers bathed in sunlight. Picoides pubescens (Downy woodpecker) lights upon an oak tree, and in just a few hours, Nycticeius humeralis (Evening bat) rules the dark skies illuminated by the stars and the southern moon.