Shared Homes
'Interesting things are going on wherever there is shelter.'
Dear readers,
Happy Wednesday, and for those of you who are new to Granola, welcome! This is a space for good conversation, reflection, and reading. We mostly focus on place, books, and community. But I’ve also realized that we spend a lot of time thinking about the virtues of stewardship, attention, and care.
We’re currently reading through Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek together. I hope you’ll join us, if you haven’t already. Thank you for all your insightful and fascinating comments on the readings thus far. I learn so much from your insights.
I hope you enjoyed the last half of Chapter Two. It has some lovely stories and reflections, and I found myself returning to it in unexpected moments. Yesterday, looking out the kitchen window, I caught sight of a hummingbird — such a swift, tiny creature, you blink and it’s gone — and was able to track it across our back garden. Not long after, a house sparrow lit suddenly on the kitchen screen. It was a mere instant. But it was a such a treasure to see its tiny, bearded face and sweet feathers so close.
This week, we will read the entirety of Chapter 3: Winter. It’s an eclectic and interesting chapter, but if I may venture a speculative guess, I feel that Dillard’s tracing rhythms of hospitality and hostility here. Do we share our homes and communities with other species? When and where do we see an openness and welcome to other creatures? When and where do other creatures show openness and welcome to us? This is perhaps most pointed in her reflections on starlings and spiders. But it also shows up in her anecdotal experiences with a duck on Tinker Creek (amongst other places).
Dillard’s reflections on starlings immediately made me think of Brood X, or the Great Eastern brood of cicadas. Billions of them emerged from hibernation in Northern Virginia back in 2021, adding up to an estimated 1.4 million cicadas per acre. Responses to their interminable presence are diverse: my daughters waffled between horror and delight. I happened upon the two of them in the garden one day, playing with an exoskeleton (I hope it was an exoskeleton), and heard the oldest say, “Let’s give the baby cicada a bath… Oh no! The baby cicada’s head fell off! … That’s okay, he’ll still be alright.” (Reader, the cicada baby was not alright.)
Many adults display annoyance with the cicadas’ endless chatter and with the aforementioned exoskeletons, which litter front porches, backyards, the sides of trees, and sidewalks. The world turns crunchy overnight.
Apparently, Benjamin Franklin would have observed the emergence of Brood X’s great-great-great-great-great-great (and so on) grandparents in the 1730s. Benjamin Banneker chronicled a “great locust year” in 1749. Listening to their incessant chorus, Banneker wrote,
I like to forgot to inform, that if their lives are Short they are merry, they begin to Sing or make a noise from the first they come out of Earth till they die, the hindermost part rots off, and it does not appear to be any pain to them for they still continue on Singing till they die.
They are, indeed, loud. But Banneker greets that loudness, that incessancy which annoys so many, with words of welcome and generosity. The cicadas are only with us a short while, after all. And what a wondrous thing: “they sing until they die.”
Dillard’s bath towel offering to hairy spiders is more welcoming than I often feel comfortable with. But I appreciate—and need—the challenge that offering represents. When and where are we holding our homes too closely, expecting a sterility, a quiet, or an orderliness that is not good? Not natural? Not healthy?
Here’s my outdoor challenge for you all this week: spend some time learning about one creature (insect, arachnid, bird, or what-have-you) that you share your home/garden/community with. Maybe learn about a creature that particularly annoys you. What don’t you know about the earwigs, starlings, magpies, or spiders that live alongside you? What should you reconsider or appreciate about them? Perhaps they have no redeemable qualities. But maybe they’re worth appreciating (even if it’s only a little bit).
I’ll post questions in a separate discussion thread!
I also have an exciting announcement!
Next Tuesday, June 27 at 11:30 a.m. (Mountain Time), I have the great honor of interviewing Mary Berry, daughter of Wendell and Tanya Berry and founder of the Berry Center in Kentucky. Mrs. Berry and I will talk about conservation, sustainable agriculture, environmental stewardship, and localism.
This interview is part of a series I am doing with the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, and I’m really excited about the guests you’ll get to hear from in the coming months. Hopefully you can join us for this opening conversation. And please do share the event with friends!
Reviewing Book Club + Outdoor Challenge Goals for this week:
First: read the entirety of Chapter 3: Winter.
Second: spend some time learning about one creature with whom you share your home, garden, or community.
Here in the UK we are in a period of drought and unseasonable weather and this has has an effect it seems on our insect numbers - which have plummeted. I say this because I grow tomatoes, beans and Kohl Rabi in our tiny garden and fight a never-ending battle with cabbage white butterflies and black bean aphids. Last year my strategy was the elimination of the pests, and accept no loss.
However, this year I have taken a different (and much more ecological) stance. I realise that my plants not only provide me with food but also the creatures I share my garden with. God has given me these crops to steward for the whole of creation and in a time of particular need for the little creatures (not pests - for God does not call them pests) around me that means leaving some plants to become more infested than I would otherwise have liked. In turn, this provides food for the blue tits, wrens and blackbirds that I enjoy seeing, who prey upon the insects that feed upon my tomatoes.
I am still thinking about the conflict over the starlings, feeling so badly for those poor birds but empathizing with the people struggling to coexist with them. Though I am afraid of anything with a stinger, I do so love bees. Maybe I will dive deeper into learning about them to complete my exercise for this week. And, I do look forward to the webinar :)