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| On a Pennsylvania Farm, ‘Nature Is Not Just Carrying On’ | On a Pennsylvania Farm, ‘Nature Is Not Just Carrying On’ |
| (5 days later) | |
| Farm animals know no quarantine. Horses must be fed, brought in from pasture, stalls mucked out, winter coats clipped. The farrier arrives. | Farm animals know no quarantine. Horses must be fed, brought in from pasture, stalls mucked out, winter coats clipped. The farrier arrives. |
| I pluck chicken eggs warm from nesting boxes. I try to order female peeps from my usual supplier, but they are sold out, so I put a Buff Cochin rooster with four hens to hatch my own. | I pluck chicken eggs warm from nesting boxes. I try to order female peeps from my usual supplier, but they are sold out, so I put a Buff Cochin rooster with four hens to hatch my own. |
| Our fields need to be mowed, trails cleared, firewood cut. My husband manages this, wanders deep into the forest, lugging the chain saw and pole pruner, his meditation on the world. He loves trees — plants them, prunes them, stakes them, pulls wild grape off branches to prevent suffocation. | Our fields need to be mowed, trails cleared, firewood cut. My husband manages this, wanders deep into the forest, lugging the chain saw and pole pruner, his meditation on the world. He loves trees — plants them, prunes them, stakes them, pulls wild grape off branches to prevent suffocation. |
| We begin sheltering at home in winter: cold, and gray. Snow falls. Wind howls off the mountain. A tornado touches down near our farm. | We begin sheltering at home in winter: cold, and gray. Snow falls. Wind howls off the mountain. A tornado touches down near our farm. |
| I wait for the children to come home, my wings outstretched, ready to shield them from an invisible pathogen. But they do not come. Our son works in Argentina, our daughter in Boston. On 9/11, I felt similarly — get home, fast, huddle together, stay there — even though Flight 93 went over this farm, over the children’s school. It takes a global pandemic for me to admit they won’t be home long-term again, and I’m sad, until a friend reminds me: We raised our children to have strong wings. And so they do. | I wait for the children to come home, my wings outstretched, ready to shield them from an invisible pathogen. But they do not come. Our son works in Argentina, our daughter in Boston. On 9/11, I felt similarly — get home, fast, huddle together, stay there — even though Flight 93 went over this farm, over the children’s school. It takes a global pandemic for me to admit they won’t be home long-term again, and I’m sad, until a friend reminds me: We raised our children to have strong wings. And so they do. |
| Quarantine allows me to slow down and, leaving the farm now as little as possible, to look even more closely at the natural world. As I do, I think of what the poet Mary Oliver calls her “instructions for living a life.” | Quarantine allows me to slow down and, leaving the farm now as little as possible, to look even more closely at the natural world. As I do, I think of what the poet Mary Oliver calls her “instructions for living a life.” |
| “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” | “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” |
| At first, nature appears to carry on. Ice covers the pond’s perimeter, and then globules of gelatinous eggs appear at the water’s edge. Wood frogs and spotted salamanders will be born. Canada geese land, and a breeding pair of mallards. The gray heron and kingfisher will circle back, and soon tiny heads of snapping turtles will rise from the muddy depths and break the water’s surface. I count the days until I can swim again. I have dunked every month except February, but I miss the long stretch and pull of a good lap. | At first, nature appears to carry on. Ice covers the pond’s perimeter, and then globules of gelatinous eggs appear at the water’s edge. Wood frogs and spotted salamanders will be born. Canada geese land, and a breeding pair of mallards. The gray heron and kingfisher will circle back, and soon tiny heads of snapping turtles will rise from the muddy depths and break the water’s surface. I count the days until I can swim again. I have dunked every month except February, but I miss the long stretch and pull of a good lap. |
| Updated Aug. 4, 2020 | |
| Here’s what you need to know about the latest climate change news this week: | Here’s what you need to know about the latest climate change news this week: |
| Spring comes anyway, virus or no. Yellow is the earliest color: forsythia, dandelions, daffodils. On Easter morning, I listen to hymns by the fire, then witness rebirth in the vegetable garden: sorrel, lemon balm, lovage. Chickweed, slowed by no plague, covers the asparagus and strawberry beds. That will take some strong weeding, I think, until I consider: If food gets rationed, I can make chickweed pesto. | Spring comes anyway, virus or no. Yellow is the earliest color: forsythia, dandelions, daffodils. On Easter morning, I listen to hymns by the fire, then witness rebirth in the vegetable garden: sorrel, lemon balm, lovage. Chickweed, slowed by no plague, covers the asparagus and strawberry beds. That will take some strong weeding, I think, until I consider: If food gets rationed, I can make chickweed pesto. |
| My vegetable garden, which I’ve planted every year for 30 years, is a victory garden now. I aim to be even more self-sufficient, and there is work to do: soil turned over, raised beds repaired, compost added, paths mulched. I tiptoe through mud, plant chervil, turnips, and snap peas. I cut spent raspberry canes. The garlic I planted last fall, before I had an inkling of how the world was about to turn, shows life. And the parrot tulips emerge, frilled and gaudy, my own quarantine tulip mania. | My vegetable garden, which I’ve planted every year for 30 years, is a victory garden now. I aim to be even more self-sufficient, and there is work to do: soil turned over, raised beds repaired, compost added, paths mulched. I tiptoe through mud, plant chervil, turnips, and snap peas. I cut spent raspberry canes. The garlic I planted last fall, before I had an inkling of how the world was about to turn, shows life. And the parrot tulips emerge, frilled and gaudy, my own quarantine tulip mania. |
| While gardening I think of my older brother. He has Covid-19. His family shelters together; all five may have the disease. His daughter’s case is mild, but my brother needs to catch his breath at the top of the stairs, can barely walk from shower to bed, says he feels as he did when going through chemotherapy. He feels better, then much worse. He is so tired he asks his wife to handle communication. | While gardening I think of my older brother. He has Covid-19. His family shelters together; all five may have the disease. His daughter’s case is mild, but my brother needs to catch his breath at the top of the stairs, can barely walk from shower to bed, says he feels as he did when going through chemotherapy. He feels better, then much worse. He is so tired he asks his wife to handle communication. |
| No pandemic stops the feral honeybees. A hive has wintered in a hole in a walnut tree, just below the hole where a rat snake lives. Hundreds of bees sip wildly from the orange-red blossoms of the quince. I stand underneath the branches, just to listen. | No pandemic stops the feral honeybees. A hive has wintered in a hole in a walnut tree, just below the hole where a rat snake lives. Hundreds of bees sip wildly from the orange-red blossoms of the quince. I stand underneath the branches, just to listen. |
| My younger brother calls. He is out of work. | My younger brother calls. He is out of work. |
| A woodchuck (perhaps) living under an outbuilding still makes its way to the bird feeder every night. I can see its path. The black bear will probably rip out the wooden rungs on that feeder, as it did last year. White-tailed deer sneak in close to the house, nibbling on euonymus. Chipmunks scamper about, eating my crocus bulbs. Wild turkeys cross the grass, and a fox, probably with kits to feed, watches me one evening as I shut the chicken coop. Coyotes will howl and the fisher will scream — creatures circling us, the wolves at the door of our human health. | A woodchuck (perhaps) living under an outbuilding still makes its way to the bird feeder every night. I can see its path. The black bear will probably rip out the wooden rungs on that feeder, as it did last year. White-tailed deer sneak in close to the house, nibbling on euonymus. Chipmunks scamper about, eating my crocus bulbs. Wild turkeys cross the grass, and a fox, probably with kits to feed, watches me one evening as I shut the chicken coop. Coyotes will howl and the fisher will scream — creatures circling us, the wolves at the door of our human health. |
| A high school friend goes to the hospital with Covid-19, but is sent home. She worsens. Her oxygen levels are low, so her husband takes her back. When she’s admitted, there are six Covid-19 patients. When she leaves two weeks later, 90. The fourth drug administered, an H.I.V. drug, pulls her through. | A high school friend goes to the hospital with Covid-19, but is sent home. She worsens. Her oxygen levels are low, so her husband takes her back. When she’s admitted, there are six Covid-19 patients. When she leaves two weeks later, 90. The fourth drug administered, an H.I.V. drug, pulls her through. |
| The birds return, singing: red-winged blackbirds, rose-breasted grosbeak, the eastern towhee. At dawn from our sleeping porch, their chorus lifts my spirit. I follow a scarlet tanager that hops on rocks in the stream. That behavior isn’t normal, but the color astonishes me, as does the blue of an indigo bunting, the orange of an oriole, the yellow of a goldfinch. Barn swallows nest again in the garage, a soft rain of nest-making materials falling on my car. | The birds return, singing: red-winged blackbirds, rose-breasted grosbeak, the eastern towhee. At dawn from our sleeping porch, their chorus lifts my spirit. I follow a scarlet tanager that hops on rocks in the stream. That behavior isn’t normal, but the color astonishes me, as does the blue of an indigo bunting, the orange of an oriole, the yellow of a goldfinch. Barn swallows nest again in the garage, a soft rain of nest-making materials falling on my car. |
| My brother improves, but then gets pleurisy. | My brother improves, but then gets pleurisy. |
| Then nature takes a strange turn. The bees swarm three times, and I must get closer than six feet to coax them into an old bee box. I see a migrating coot, the first in 31 years. A rabid raccoon greets me midmorning in the vegetable garden, digs in the dirt, then tumbles off a raised bed and drags its hind-end back through the pickets. Two hawks attack a flicker near an apple tree. I get gloves and pick it up, never having seen a flicker so close and marveling at its red neck ring and bright yellow wing stripes. I try to save it, but it dies. | Then nature takes a strange turn. The bees swarm three times, and I must get closer than six feet to coax them into an old bee box. I see a migrating coot, the first in 31 years. A rabid raccoon greets me midmorning in the vegetable garden, digs in the dirt, then tumbles off a raised bed and drags its hind-end back through the pickets. Two hawks attack a flicker near an apple tree. I get gloves and pick it up, never having seen a flicker so close and marveling at its red neck ring and bright yellow wing stripes. I try to save it, but it dies. |
| Mother’s Day weekend brings snow and record low temperatures. The freeze takes the glory out of the magnolia and wisteria, even the hostas — a plant I thought could survive nuclear winter. I notice strange behavior in another scarlet tanager, and after two dead birds are taken to the local nature reserve, the director blames hypothermia. | Mother’s Day weekend brings snow and record low temperatures. The freeze takes the glory out of the magnolia and wisteria, even the hostas — a plant I thought could survive nuclear winter. I notice strange behavior in another scarlet tanager, and after two dead birds are taken to the local nature reserve, the director blames hypothermia. |
| I know I am fortunate to be on this farm, to be healthy and have room to move around, but the dying flora and fauna, and the horrible human toll of Covid-19, rattles me, and I worry for my children, our country, the world. Usually I find solace in the woods, so I take long walks, forage for morels and ramps, pick watercress by the stream. But this time I hear our planet pleading, far away at first — bird populations plummeting, insects dying, arctic ice melting, the Amazon burning — and then closer to home. | I know I am fortunate to be on this farm, to be healthy and have room to move around, but the dying flora and fauna, and the horrible human toll of Covid-19, rattles me, and I worry for my children, our country, the world. Usually I find solace in the woods, so I take long walks, forage for morels and ramps, pick watercress by the stream. But this time I hear our planet pleading, far away at first — bird populations plummeting, insects dying, arctic ice melting, the Amazon burning — and then closer to home. |
| Nature is not just carrying on. Chimney swifts, which roost every summer in our 19th-century chimney, have declined by 72 percent. The emerald ash borer kills hundreds of our ash trees. Our summers are hotter and wetter. The “100-year flood” has come about five times in the last 12 years. Nearby, water is contaminated by fracking. Nary a bat can be seen in the night sky, lost to white-nose syndrome. My maple sugaring friends can’t decide when to tap trees because of climate change. | Nature is not just carrying on. Chimney swifts, which roost every summer in our 19th-century chimney, have declined by 72 percent. The emerald ash borer kills hundreds of our ash trees. Our summers are hotter and wetter. The “100-year flood” has come about five times in the last 12 years. Nearby, water is contaminated by fracking. Nary a bat can be seen in the night sky, lost to white-nose syndrome. My maple sugaring friends can’t decide when to tap trees because of climate change. |
| In my small slice of the world, I see a neon sign, flashing red, and I wonder how long can we go on without seeing, and without listening — to the bats, the bugs, the bees, the birds, the trees, the land? | In my small slice of the world, I see a neon sign, flashing red, and I wonder how long can we go on without seeing, and without listening — to the bats, the bugs, the bees, the birds, the trees, the land? |
| My hope is that when the pandemic releases its grip, when the world speeds up again and we return to work and school, when there’s less time to watch birds and weed a victory garden, that we remember what Covid-19 has taught us: that our health and our planet’s health have never been more intertwined — and to take care of the planet is to take care of ourselves. | My hope is that when the pandemic releases its grip, when the world speeds up again and we return to work and school, when there’s less time to watch birds and weed a victory garden, that we remember what Covid-19 has taught us: that our health and our planet’s health have never been more intertwined — and to take care of the planet is to take care of ourselves. |
| As quarantine lifts and spring turns toward summer, one of our hens finally broods. Fourteen eggs beneath her, she stays on the nest hour after hour, eating and drinking only occasionally, a long 21 days. Each time I visit, she looks more bedraggled, as if she is wasting away. She used to get up when I brought kitchen scraps, but now she won’t leave her clutch even for lettuce. Every day she sits, warming the life beneath her, full of hope. | As quarantine lifts and spring turns toward summer, one of our hens finally broods. Fourteen eggs beneath her, she stays on the nest hour after hour, eating and drinking only occasionally, a long 21 days. Each time I visit, she looks more bedraggled, as if she is wasting away. She used to get up when I brought kitchen scraps, but now she won’t leave her clutch even for lettuce. Every day she sits, warming the life beneath her, full of hope. |