on the environment and gardening….
I think of myself as a very observant watcher of nature and all of its happenings. I know the names of all the birds at my bird feeder (and if I don’t, I look them up in my books) and I can name most of the plants I see daily (and thanks to my mom, the latin names of them). Last year was kind of a wash for me. I hardly went outside, didn’t even do upkeep on the tons of plants I’ve planted. But, the news that there was some mysterious fungus or disease or whatever killing off the honey bees really got my attention this year. I keep thinking of that book “Silent Spring” that Rachel Carson wrote a long time ago. How some day pesticides and man in general would affect nature in such a way that there wouldn’t be birdsong and the noise of nature in the world. Here are my observations this year in my part of the world.
I have a healthy fear of bees. And of course, being the good parent, passed on that fear to my son. Well, I’ve kind of made my peace with bees and say to myself that if I don’t bother them, they won’t bother me. My son is long over his fear of bees. So this year, I’ve decided to plant flowers around the entrances to my house. Because I wanted to see if any bees would show up. I’ve seen a couple. But I have other places in my yard that aren’t as well trafficked that have bee loving plants and it is rare that I’ve even heard a bee when walking through those areas. I’ve seen carpenter bees, they are always sentinel guarding their stash of wood. But I have seen one bumblebee (in January no less) and a few honeybees. We went on a walk today at the new public park in our neck of the woods. There was HUGE expanses of clover and I did not see ONE bee. There should have been so many bees that I would have been in the past scared to take a walk through the clover. Not one bee. That is very scary.
And it is not just the bees. We have a pool and two small ponds in our back yard. Beyond our yard, there is a stream and two medium sized ponds used for water retention in our neighborhood. So we always have tons of frogs in our ponds and in our pool. After an evening or after a rain, it wasn’t unusual to find up to 5 or 6 frogs swimming in our pool. Sometimes, a hell of a lot more. I’ve even had bullfrogs jump in the pool while I’ve been swimming in the evening. And our little fish ponds always have resident frogs who take a dip in the pool at night and return to their ponds during the day. This year, I have seen two frogs in the pool. Our pool has been “open” since the end of April. We have one frog in one of our ponds. This is not normal.
I am very worried about nature in general. I know that animal and insect populations have an ebb and flow…. sometimes they are plentiful, sometimes not so much. But this year it seems very extreme. I hope it is just a glitch in the system and normal will return. Maybe 43 years on this earth isn’t enough time to see all the variations nature has to offer. But I am worried.
This year, I planted a raised garden. In past years, I’ve planted a few tomato plants and occasionally a pepper plant or one year corn. But this year, I have a 4′ by 8′ raised garden in my yard which I actually purchased compost soil to fill (it is raised 12 inches off of the hard rocky clay which I have in my yard). I’m alway afraid of committing to something. As if acting like I care will kill plants before they start. I bought 10 packs of various vegetable seeds for a total of $1.00 from the dollar store. I planted them in peat pots and watered them. And the seeds actually grew! 8 out of 10 of them, for some reason the spinach and head lettuce didn’t take. So it was at that point I put together the raised garden and planted the seedlings. It is very exciting to be growing that many plants. I even divided the space into squares with twine to create different square feet for different plants so I wouldn’t screw up and accidentally weed a vegetable. I hope the plants continue to grow and I can actually get food from the dollar worth of seeds.
I was surfing ebay a couple of weeks ago and through store listings noticed that someone was selling paw paw trees. I have never seen paw paw trees, but I do have fond memories of a story called “Beyond the Paw Paw Trees” that I read when I was little. (couldn’t find any mention of it on the internet….). So after doing some research…. the flowers smell like dead things, they are pollinated by cadaver beetles, and the fruit tastes like a cross between bananas and mangoes….. I was hooked. I bought a lot of 4 bare root paw paws off of ebay and I have been babying them the last few days. One of the plants looks like it might be putting out some leaves. I can only hope that they make it.
Maybe I’ve rambled…. does anyone else have missing bee experiences they could add?
