“Guess what I saw on my walk today?”
I love to make my family guess. Turtle? Deer? Snake? Groundhog? Crow? Dog? Muskrat? Goose? Wood Duck? My walks in through the Killbuck swamp that we call “home” often lent a close-up view and interactions with all sorts of animals. Exhilarating and invigorating, these marches fill me with endless beauty and joy. I maybe should’ve been a naturalist, a botanist, or a nature study teacher. The other day I entertained the idea of returning to school to learn more about nature around me. Maybe I can’t be a nature teacher, but something I find enjoyable is reading mini essays on nature. I want to introduce you to three books that I read to relax. The authors range from an Amish man, a middle-class farmer’s wife, and a New York Times columnist. Mary Oliver says, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Write about it.” This is exactly what these three writers do.
The first author I want you to know is David Kline, who wrote The Round of a Country Year. David Kline has been called a twentieth-century Henry David Thoreau, which is appropriate given his quiet exuberance with which he writes about the goings-on on his organic family farm. He is an Amish genius living in Holmes Co, Ohio. I stumbled upon this treasure of a book at a thrift store. Five dollars seemed hefty when other books were being sold for fifty cents. The book was autographed by David himself. It has a preface by Wendell Berry. Think of it! Laid out as journal entries, the book started in the fall and followed a years’ worth of migrating birds, songs of toads and frogs, honeybee and monarch flights, and neighborly connections around him. It is a naturalist treat all around. Written in simple but powerful language. Of course, I also like his books because he lives not too far away from me.
“February 26-Today four crows were in a cantankerous mood and harassed a rough-legged hawk until it left for a nicer neighborhood. Then they found a red-tailed hawk to abuse. The red-tail was an adult and much more feisty. While perched on the ground, the hawk would glare at the crows and even show its talons, as if saying, “Take a look at what these could do for you, you numbskulls.”
Finally the red-tail too gave up on the annoying crows and flew to the woods.”
I found Landings-A Crooked Creek Farm Year in Landmark Booksellers when my husband and I were in Nashville, Tennessee for our tenth anniversary vacation. This book by Arwen Donahue was a journal following a year of their lives in Kentucky. Each entry was combined with ink-and-watercolor drawings. With an introduction by Barbara Kingsolver who wrote Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I knew the book was worthy of inspection. I stood amongst piles of books and devoured several pages. The book had to come home with me. Arwen’s straight forward approach to farm life-something she kind of resisted, look welcoming. The everyday wins and losses are part of life. When there is beauty surrounding us though, why do we spend so little time being amazed? Arwen asks.
“Sunday, February 3. Driving back from town earlier today, I noticed the particular snow of late winter along Crooked Creek. This snow throws the topography of the landscape into sharp tonal relief. It illuminates the corrugated paths on the hillside that malnourished horses have trod and cropped, glows in tire ruts, wreathes and crowns the hunk scattered in people’s yards. It glitters, embroiders the wreck, drapes over and spoons up against the things that usually make me sad.
Back at home, I stay in the barn, splitting wood until it is too dark to see clearly. I step outside and the snow tells a story of our recent movements—prints and paths of sleds, carts, feet, paws, car tires—a story written days ago, but only now revealed, as if it had been written with invisible ink.”
The third book is the Comfort of Crows, by Margaret Renkl, a book full of micro-essays. It’s a week-by-week journey through the year, starting in January. These fifty-two chapters follow creatures and plants in her backyard. Also, woven into the comparisons and metaphors are the ever-changing rhythms of human life. The author’s brother does exquisite artwork for every chapter. The world will always be beautiful to those who look for beauty, Margaret says. Bluebirds, foxes, stickwilly plants, toads, dogwoods, and crows, she writes like a poet about them all. These personal essays about nature and her life that simultaneously happens have surprising comparisons. Margaret is concerned about climate change and the fact that many species of wildlife are disappearing. We know God is in control, but her ways of nourishing sickly foxes and setting up habitat for tree frogs is helpful to the earth. Her book was such a pleasure to read.
“I treasure every iridescent green bee waking to feed on the first vanishing bloodroot flower, the first ephemeral spring beauty, the first woodland violet and cutleaf toothwort. Soon there will be trilliums and trout lilies too. Any day now toadshade trilliums and trout lilies!”
I just soak up the words in these books. I’m drawn to authors who write in a fresh way. I wonder if the reason I gravitate to these books is the connection I feel to these people. We want to see ourselves in others, we are an empathetic species, Margaret Renkl says. Reading these works makes my own moments of mundane and moments of thrills normal and welcomed. When we sight a bobcat on our property, watch a painted turtle lay eggs, or let the blood from a bloodroot stem ooze onto our wrist, we are engaged in the world around us. But then there’s the dead chicken that a hawk got, or the aphids that chomp down a sick tomato plant, and rats that feed on the chicken feed. Wins and losses in our everyday.
These books will definitely open your eyes to the interesting things that happen right in your backyard. Today, we met a muskrat, and Harley the dog, a white lab. It was 55* but felt like 35* with the chill wind hitting our faces. There is a a change in the air, though. Only three more weeks till the calendar says it’s spring. I can’t wait!
Jennifer Yoder
I can’t wait for spring. Your pictures capture the simple beauty of tiny, perfect nature.
I love this post. I agree with Margaret, we like to see ourselves in others. These writings make me excited about spring and inspire me to notice the wonderful things in nature.