Blog Post #4: Hello, My Name Is...

21 degrees Fahrenheit

Feels like 6 degrees Fahrenheit

When you’re pregnant, your time is measured in weeks. This method of time tracking creates the illusion that time is moving slowly and in an orderly fashion. Rather than only a short-sounding nine months, you have the luxury of approximately 40 weeks to prepare as best you can for something that will change your life forever. Change is happening, my ballooning belly is evidence, but it seems to be happening in slow motion. The same can be said about the four seasons. When the part of the earth I live in is in the peak of a season, it is hard to imagine how my environment could be any different. When it feels like 6 degrees Fahrenheit, as it does today, I cannot seem to recall what last summer’s weeks of over 90 degree Fahrenheit heat felt like. As I explore my backyard today, I try to recall the oppressive heat, but the dry, cold air is too real. It’s hard to believe that in 14 weeks my first baby is due and my backyard will be vibrant with all the colors of the rainbow.  Still, a lot of unseen magic or miracles (depending on your stance, I’m open to both) must happen before these things become tangible.

One of my goals for my backyard is to actually know what is growing back here. The continuous dusting of snow that we’ve been receiving, in addition to the fascinating but no-so-helpful field guides I checked out from the public library (Pennsylvania Trees & Wildflowers: an Introduction to Familiar Species by James Kavanaugh, Bicentennial Trees of Allegheny County, and Western Pennsylvania All-Outdoors Atlas & Field Guide) have left me struggling to identify what I suspect to be the most common trees and shrubs in my backyard. I feel like a failure. I feel like the student Terry Tempest Williams gently mocks in her book, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, who excitedly describes a seemingly exotic bird only to find out it is a starling, a common bird that is part of the everyday landscape. My husband is out here with me and offers to tell me what many of the trees and plants are but I feel like I need to do this myself. I want to learn to use the field guide; I want the pleasure of learning something for myself. Maybe because as my daughter grows inside me and I’m becoming more reliant on his help around the house (I can’t lift heavy things, I’m not as quick to my feet or up the stairs as I used to be, I take a lot of naps) that I want to do this myself even more than I normally would. Or maybe it is that I realize how ignorant I am about the natural world. It is this apathy towards learning about nature and how we impact our natural world that has lead to so much destruction. I don’t want to perpetuate that apathy in myself or even worse, in my daughter.

I have requested A Field Guide to Eastern Trees: Eastern United States and Canada, Including the Midwest by George A. Petrides and The Sibley Guide to Trees, which I understand to be much better suited to amateurs like me, at least according to a review of tree guides written by Steve Nix, a professional forester. I’m picking them up this week. I'm looking forward to putting some names to faces in my own backyard.

Blog Post #3: Baby, It's Cold Outside

5:15 p.m.

21 ℉ (feels like 12 ℉)   

It’s dusk and my backyard has an ethereal glow. It’s been snowing off and on since yesterday and the all of the color seems to have been wrung out of the landscape. My eyes register the snow as lavender and everything else, the bare trees, the concrete and wood steps, even the evergreens, seem brown and black. The only bright colors are the artificial ones that we painted, the yellow and red posts we re-purposed for hanging baskets and a bird feeder in the warmer months. It’s stark but yet this space feels powerful in its dormancy. It is really cold out here. The cold is mighty. Not to be trifled with. I’m bundled up but I don’t want to stop moving. I want to say, “OK! I get it! It’s February in Pittsburgh and I should be inside.” But I’m going to stay out here a little while longer. 

Attempt to capture lavender snow 

I’m probably scaring any wildlife that may have wandered into my yard had I been sitting still, but I haven’t seen any of the usual suspects recently anyway. The gray squirrels and mourning doves are elsewhere. We do have a groundhog that pops up in our yard in the spring and summer to cause a little mischief. One particularly annoying habit she (I’m guessing at the gender here) has is to take one bite of a tomato and then throw it away as if to say, “Nananana!” We looked into having her transplanted to a more rural environment, but apparently groundhogs are very territorial and she would probably not survive long. And, anyway, we don’t really mind sharing the yard and veggies with her. After all, she was here before we moved into the house.  But, right now she shouldn’t be stirring. 

It's now dark and I'm heading back inside. I feel better for visiting my backyard, even if it's bitter cold. Maybe some of the other-worldliness will stay with me indoors. 

A Bit about Groundhogs:

Groundhogs begin their hibernation in late September or early October and don’t emerge again until March or April, depending on how cold the region is. Which makes me wonder why Groundhog’s Day is February 2^nd?  Poor Punxsutawney Phil always looks like he would be terrified and would put up a good fight if he weren’t drugged, but maybe he’s just really, really sleepy. I doubt it, though. According to www.groundhog.org,  the official site of the Pennsylvania Groundhog Club, "The groundhog tradition stems from similar beliefs associated with Candlemas Day and the days of early Christians in Europe, and for centuries the custom was to have the clergy bless candles and distribute them to the people. Even then, it marked a milestone in the winter and the weather that day was important.”