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These past many weeks - I've lost count - during our COVID-19 shut-down, I've had the time to really observe the changes in my garden, yard, and woods as spring comes on. This remarkable (and sometimes difficult and scary) stay-at-home experience has given me the opportunity to do what I have longed to do each spring, to simply be with the season and watch and listen and be part of the process of its blossoming.

Looking out back, April 20.

My "normal" work life involves commuting, sometimes driving hours a day to offices and campuses and field sites. The drive time is now home time and I am in a constant state of amazement at the numbers of animals and plants here, the birds and reptiles, and even the sheer mass of earthworms and soil life as I turn garden beds. Some creatures are just passing through on spring migration. Others are full time residents. But the members of my hime community that I have most loved watching have been the native plants relocated or nurtured here over the past 20 years. This property was at first a sparse, neglected, and grass-filled space that had been timbered out. Save for a few Red Maples and a grand old Red Oak out back, the place was pretty barren. Now my garden yard has become a haven for native plants and a home for the birds and animals that depend on this habitat. It is shady and complex and full of life.

Hickory planted by a squirrel.

The flames of Beltane

burst green and red

in the woods

where hermit thrush

and catbird

sew together dawn to dusk.

Born again,

in fires of bud burst and becoming,

wildlings hatch,

the door basket

overflows with gifts

of blossoms.

As so noted in the tattered old spiral notebook.

Being home for work has had its own set of challenges. Disrupted sleep patterns. A coonhound that doesn't understand what work time is - if I'm home it must be Amos' time. Being distracted by constantly looking out the window at everything happening out there while I'm locked to my computer screen in here.  It was because of this distracted gazing, however, that I noticed my first-of-year (FOY) Rudy-Throated Hummingbird (May 1), Catbirds (April 19), and Orchard Oriole (April 29). These are birds that nest in my little woods so I have always wanted to catch their arrival date. All three are currently nesting now as are House Wrens, Robins, Carolina Chicakdees, Yellow-Shafted Flickers, and Cardinals. Having noticed the Catbird and giving a WHOOP! during a Zoom meeting was distracting for meeting attenders as well.

Redbud blooming tight to the stem.

Noticing the progression of bud burst and blossoming has made me aware of the changes in my own cycles of concentration, sleep, and creative time. At first, work was still work but it seemed to bleed over into my home life. I may have lost the time driving but I gained extra hours to work on projects and to get things done!  Be productive! Between a torrent of online meetings, however, I suddenly stood up and walked out the door to stretch and noticed a young Pignut Hickory I have loved since it first sprang up - no doubt a squirrel planting. It was unfurling its leaves almost before my eyes. I stood in rapt attention for the entire 30 minute break between meetings. It was that day that I had to put my foot down. Works starts at 9 and ends at 5, I said to Amos (looking unfazed), but it will be interspersed with gazing breaks, bird feeder watching, and tending the veg garden. It seemed I had finally worked out a routine after many weeks of frustration and immediately I saw spring.

Wild Ginger and ground blossoms. 

Turning compost during a break, I noticed just how many insects and worms occupy that space. Amos was "helping" and dug up a startled little Garter Snake. Then another. (I quickly put them back!) I watched Crows raid a Robin's nest and listened as the distraught parents cried and screamed in chase. Bumble Bees weighed the blueberry patch down with their tending to the hundreds of bell-shaped blossoms that promise a heavy crop this year.  A brave little House Wren landed right at my feet to snag a worm from the compost and ducked into the nesting box over the blackberry canes. This was all during a single hour-long lunch break.

Dogwood blooming out front 

These breaks have become creative time for me. I take my sketchbook (when it's not raining) or the old tattered spiral notebook where I jot my thoughts out the porch or deck.  The time after I get up in the morning is now devoted entirely to creative work in the garden and an hour or two writing before I log into my work account. Two mornings ago I walked outside at dawn, put Amos in the fenced yard, and grabbed a shovel to start a new wildflower patch when mommy Opossum carrying two babies on her back wandered over to the freshly turned compost pile and began to forage. I was four feet away and all happily going about digging breakfast. Thankfully Amos was at the far side of the yard engaged in cross-fence discussion with a neighbor's dog, but it seemed that my morning routine is now accepted by all the occupants of this wild little acre.

Robin' Egg

With all this noticing you would think I would know more about the little patch of land I call my own, but that hasn't been the case. The more I notice, the more questions I have and the more I realize I don't know.  When asked about a Robin's egg I found on the ground after a particularly big wind storm a few week ago I realized I couldn't answer anyone's questions. "Where did it come from?" (I assume it blew out of a nest in the wind storm? I don't know.) "Is there a nest nearby you can put it back into?" (I don't know.) It's too big for Hummingbird's nest but will Chickadee raise it? ( I'm not sure.) Is it still viable after a cold night? (I don't know.) "Why is Nature so cruel at times?" (I don't know.)

Sassafras blossoms.

Fighting back the urge to be ever more productive while working from home, I realize I hardly know this place. I wander around and try to remember if I planted this or that or if a Grey Squirrel or Blue Jay planted it for me? Where my dear coonhound Bug was buried last summer between two Redbuds, a little Red Oak is now pushing up. It is a wonderment and I visit it every day.  Maria Popova writes "The cult of productivity has its place, but worshiping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living." This sums up how I feel about where my attention as gone these past twenty years, often working two jobs - at one point three - and hardly having time or energy left to notice the rewilding of my home ground.  

Virginia Bluebells

Maria continues her life-learnings and adds "The flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny." As I am writing this a cold rain is coming down and the woods around my cabin are practically neon with green. I noticed that when the world is wet and the sky is dull, colors seem to pop and saturate the eye with a riot of tones and intensities. In view of this shut-down and stay-at-home time, my attention to place and home ground has intensified along with the ongoing exuberance of spring and that is more productive for my heart and soul than any project or online meeting.

Stay safe, be well, and take this time to notice.  


Notes:

Maria Popova's Life Learnings essay appears here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/10/23/13-learnings-13-years/