Another trip around the sun

From my keyboard I watch outside my window, as though viewing a performance mounted on stage or screen, a pair of House Sparrows building a nest for a crop of chicks the seeds of which I saw a black-bibbed male plant yesterday.

I saw my first bumblebee the other afternoon. Not a honeybee; honeybees will appear later in the month, if experience holds. Carpenter bees, on the other hand, already are scouting for drill sites.

A short distance into the wood, a pair of Red-bellied Woodpeckers have taken over a broken-topped oak, preparing, I surmise, a kids’ room for offspring about to arrive. The past several morns I have stood beneath the work site as a steady shower of tiny chips of decaying fiber coat my arms and shoulders and the carpet of Spring Beauty blossoms.

The latter which blanket the ground like a spring storm of over-large spring snowflakes. The tiny white five-petaled posies are among a few early bloomers to bring celebratory color to the forest floor — including blue Periwinkle and  a scattering of yellow forsythia and orangey-red quince — the latter which I am told puckers the mouth when eaten raw but can be turned to some fine jelly.

Other spring ephemerals — short-lived ground hugging flowers taking advantage of the sunshine that will be blocked when the tall trees open their leaves to form a light blocking canopy — decorate the forest beneath my feet and around my legs. Accompanying the white and purple Spring Beauty blossoms are the slightly less plentiful four-petal bluets, named for the tint of their blossoms.

The pup who accompanies me on my ground-bound strolls, takes time to tear into the olfactory puzzles contained within the carpet of rotting trees and recent years’ composting leaves.

On one such trip, he paused to tear apart a log, clawing and gnawing his way after whatever living plaything he thought he detected. I stood patiently while on the opposite side of the log a tiny field mouse poked its nose out from the bark that had been its shield and dashed beneath the leaves. I laughed at the dog who continued to dig for the mouse, completely oblivious to its already successful escape.

We have not yet mowed our lawn, leaving some areas to naturally grow carpets of tiny spring flowers as bee bait. A few patches of bare dirt, where we will seed native wildflowers later this spring and summer, have been temporarily taken over by beds of Dead Nettle — low, dense formations of furry triangular leaves from which grow short stalks topped by the characteristic club-shaped bundles of pinkish-purple flowers.

Dead nettle is a member of the mint family, and is similarly in no need of growing help once it has taken root. It also does not last long, and will develop its seeds in late spring and then die off as temperatures rise toward summer.

Fat Carpenter bees are out looking for places, preferably in the wood of our pergola, in which to drill egg-repositories. Our already blooming cherry and dogwood trees are decorating our suburban plot, putting out the clarion call to honeybees that will arrive within the next week or two.

The cherry, especially, will be crowded with honeybees partaking of the nectar as they, not coincidentally, coat their legs and bodies with pollen, which they will rub off at their next landing, thus ensuring a future generation of fruit.

Soon will come butterflies — already we have seen occasional “cabbage” moths. Trees now sporting reddish aura in their crowns will turn green as chlorophyll overpowers their natural colors.

Elsewhere, we occasionally are treated to a passing group of up to a dozen Whitetail deer and an occasional fox or wild turkey. It’s not a destination but a marvelous journey our planet takes around its heat-making star.

And the nicest part is not having to take time to don heavy coats and boots before going out to enjoy it (though in some places, one must hurry before the flowers and critters are outnumbered by human abodes. But that, it is said, is a bone for another dog.

Text and images ©2024 by John Messeder. John is an award-winning environmental storyteller, nemophilist and social anthropologist living in Gettysburg, PA. He may be contacted at john@johnmesseder.com