About three weeks ago, a friend asked me if I wanted to help him keep bees–to which, of course, I said yes. The bees live on his property, which is much more spacious and near bee amenities like woods, water, crops and flowers. And so we set up our first hive. And then (a day after I posted about wanting expand the web of relations in my life), a wild swarm showed up at my friend’s house.
I’ve emphasized below an essential line from Gordon White’s interview with Tyson Yunkaporta: Gordon White: “What are the hallmarks of indigenous thinking?” Tyson Yunkaporta: “It’s an externalized psycho-technology that exists in your unique web of relations. Your thinking and your knowledge sits in the relational space between you and others. Not just with humans but with non-humans, places, landforms, and all the people that you’re in relation to. You have this beautiful set of relations sitting there, waiting for you to engage with it.
Bee friends (sweat bees?) pollinating our strawberries.
Pleated inkcap mushroom popped up in the raised beds this morning. The raised beds sit on brick, not soil, so I take this as a good sign that the soil is complexifying, building mycelium. Bonus: cute green strawberries. Pictures taken by my daughter Darcy.
Welcome to Green Man Grotto, a newly established native plant area in our backyard. The only thing not native is the naked lady lillies, which were already established there.
Big news today: the butterfly milkweed is coming back up!
Happy Earth Day. Later today, Rachel and I plan to mulch some open areas in our backyard for more native species plantings. I’m also learning how to identify garlic mustard (one, two) so I can pull it during my hikes this year. Call it guerrilla forestry.
This is a great presentation by Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope, on the way people can begin repairing ecosystems in our own yards. I often feel my powerlessness to do anything about our rolling ecological disasters, but this offers a way to do small-scale, realistic good. I’m excited to get started on expanding the native species plantings in my yard. The presentation, by the way, was hosted by Sycamore Land Trust, an awesome local nonprofit that is protecting land from development one plot at a time.
