The One Notebook Principle

Once upon a time, in the older days of the internet, we used to offer digital cookies (the chocolate chip kind) to people who understood references the poster/author thought were clever and somewhat out there. Do people still do that? Anyway, this title is a song reference and once it came into my head I had to use it, even though it’s only partially accurate to this post.

This morning I let my dog out in my fenced-in backyard and, instead of walking away to continue making my breakfast as usual, I decided to watch instead. I kind of love where we live for its closeness to amenities but also for the ecosystem we have. Our next door neighbors own two acres behind our house and, thankfully, are adamant that it remain woods.

I’ve never actually lived anywhere that wasn’t within walking distance to woods. I grew up with woods in our backyard (quite literally, we had about one hundred feet of grass and then the woods started) and was lucky enough to go to college in a fairly rural area. Woods weren’t on my doorstep, or in my backyard, but I could see them from my dorm room and knew that I could walk to them if I chose to. I studied abroad for one year and woods were on the opposite side of the street from my dorm building. I visited a friend of mine when she lived in Germany and woods were visible from her house and only took a fifteen minute walk across a field to get to.

My husband, who has lived in cities for the last couple of decades or so and grew up with a highway on the other side of his backyard fence, thinks it’s “kind of cool” that we live in a house that feels surrounded by trees. When we were looking for a house I was fairly flexible but woods “in the backyard” was one of the items on my “ideal house” list. As I was looking out my back door this morning, to bring it back to the title, I was reminded of why I find woods to be so important.

We have chickens, so of course those were milling about in the yard. Alongside them, though, were two chipmunks and a collection of small songbirds. Slightly off to the side were a pair of mourning doves. While I was watching, a bird flew overhead. It looked a bit on the large side, so I’m guessing either a blue jay or a crow. We do have a pair of hawks but the chickens have apparently gotten big enough that they don’t try for them anymore. A few months back, our motion sensor deck light would turn on because a fox would be wondering through. I’m not sure how the fox got over a 6-foot fence, and there are no holes that suggest he went under, but he only comes after the chickens are safely roosting in their locked up hen house. One morning, a couple years ago, I came face-to-face with a coyote that was hanging around in our driveway. I had my dog (who is slightly smaller than the coyote) with me and we all just looked at each other for a bit before the coyote turned and headed back along the garage towards the woods.

I could keep going. I could tell you about the occasional deer, the groundhog my husband took a picture of because he didn’t know what it was, or the turkeys that you have to brake for sometimes when your driving down our street. I could mention the squirrels who also frequent our yard. I could tell you about the bees that have taken up residence in the old chicken coop out front, and the rabbits my dog is utterly uninterested in (thankfully) who seem to live under our overgrown raspberry brambles in the front yard.

We have lots of bugs, in addition to the bees, and not all of them are ones I’m fond of. With the mosquitos, however, come dragonflies. We have a few butterflies and, as my nephew pointed out yesterday, a couple of praying mantises. I see ladybugs every so often, and I know we have a large amount of spiders and little flies and all the other smaller insects I never really see.

We are a very busy property, not in terms of work (see the “overgrown” description above), but in terms of what and who lives here. Whenever I hear people talk about the dying bee population, I think about the huge colony we have in the old coop, and I feel better about not having torn it down yet. The raspberry vines are overgrown in part due to laziness but also because I know they’re providing a safe haven for the bunnies. I like visiting the city, but this morning, looking out my back door, I was reminded of why I would never actually want to live in one.