Reflections - Caring for the Earth

Green Trillium

I blamed COVID-19.

For forty-nine years, I participated in Earth Day by

Gardening

Recycling

Collecting litter

Writing elected representatives

Reading books about earth care with elementary students

and

Planting trees.

This year, for the fiftieth Earth Day, I wanted a special celebration—marching with a billion other people around the world. And a Meadville Diamond Park march, which attracted from fifty to a hundred people, fit my idea of a comfortable crowd. I could drag Spence with me.

We would drive fifteen miles north, wave placards, and hold onto hot air balloon strings. With youngsters, old people, and tail-wagging dogs, we could send pleas for government officials to take care of our precious earth.

But COVID-19 arrived.

It canceled the marches, dashed my plans, and made April 22 a stay-at-home day.

Late morning, Spence in a thermal shirt and I, in two sweatshirts, set out for our exercise walk. I carried my camera and two plastic grocery bags for collecting debris deposited by winter weather. First stop—the front yard to photograph a green trillium. While I pulled weeds blocking the view of the plant, our neighbor Sandy loped down West Creek Road.

Spence yelled, “Hey! We haven’t seen you in awhile.”

She stopped, more than six feet from Spence, and pointed behind her. “I’ve been stopping before your garage. My knees were hurting, and the medicine didn’t work.”

Stooping, I focused the camera. Sunshine had evaporated the morning dew. Leaving the neighborly chat, I fetched a spritzer to spray water on the leaves for effect. The spritzer fired fat splotches. No mist. I could get the photo another day.

Though Spence often commented I would do anything for a photo, neither he nor Sandy commented on my wacky plant-watering behavior.

While Spence pulled up a dead girasole stalk, broke it into thirds, and tossed them to the ground, they discussed the foibles of our township secretary. He spread his feet, folded his arms, and injected a comment every five minutes or so. “Did you hear the story behind Flickenger’s drainage ditch?”

I mimicked Spence’s behavior. After setting the camera and spritzer on the deck ramp, I held the top of a four foot dried stem and kicked its bottom. Crack. Breaking the stem over my knee, I tossed the pieces atop the ones on the ground. I even tossed a question to Sandy every so often, but she didn’t need any stimulus to extend the conversation.

After an hour, the pile of stems reached Spence’s knee, the front garden looked ready for new plants, and Sandy decided she’d better go home. She giggled. “Bruce will be wondering what happened to me.”

I doubted her husband would worry. He would probably assume she’d met a neighbor along the way and stopped to talk, or rant as Spence characterized the conversation.

Spence scooped up the broken stems and headed toward the north garden.

Picking up pieces that dropped, I followed.

He dumped his load around the aerating stack in the middle of the compost pile. “I’ll turn the pile with the tractor bucket later.”

While zigzagging across the field, we collected dislodged garden, ground-cover plastic. One bag filled, I hustled under towering trees with swollen buds at the crown. My feet sank into the soft leaf cover on our descent to the floodplain. With the mixed fragrances of bark, wet soil, and greening plants, the woods smelled like spring.

Spence eyed fallen trees and pointed to a new one. “I could harvest that one for next year.”

Oohing and aahing, I paused to admire spring beauties, purple violets, and the first trout lilies.

Trout Lilies

Deer Creek burbled. A blue jay called jeer-jeer-jeer.

Forcing myself to search for trash, I bent over countless times to grab white splotches—sun bleached leaves. I bent for black splotches—water leached leaves. Actual debris came in larger sizes like a headlight, a law chair cushion, and the detached string of a deflated, helium balloon which rested four feet away.

With arms and bags loaded, we squelched through the swamp, trudged up the hill, and crossed to the south garden.

Clusters of black splotches caught my eye. Figuring I’d found more leached leaves, I stooped to inspect—plastic ground covering that Spence’s tiller had shredded earlier in the spring. I pulled a few pieces loose from the soil.

“You’ll never finish.” Spence grabbed my trash and kept walking. “There’s too much.” 

I didn’t listen to him. With each step I made toward a chatty-Sandy-delayed lunch, I picked up paperback book-sized pieces. When I couldn’t squeeze any more shreds in my hand, I turned to survey the path I’d walked—no black clusters, only a smattering of black dots on the brown earth. Better.

Tummy rumbling, I settled in my log chair, gobbled lunch, and gazed through the sliding glass door. Sunshine sparkled off the hoop house. I could sew masks for my brother and daughter, or I could indulge myself and enjoy the sunshine. 

Spence took the last sip of his carbonated water, set the can on the coffee table, and picked up his laptop.

“Do you want a garden date?”

He flinched as if I’d announced a groundhog had gotten into his cabbage patch. “What? Now? Do you need my help?”

“No. I need to weed the raised bed we planted for Sister Loretta.” I nodded toward the window. “The sunshine is enticing me.”

“I can’t go now. I have a conference call in five minutes.” He picked up his computer and clicked keys. “If you’re still out later, I’ll join you.”

I strapped on knee pads, slipped into mud boots, then gathered my gear—a trowel, a bucket of dishwater, and an old toothbrush. Those aren’t my usual weeding tools, but this job had a unique issue.

Birds flying to nests in the maple and spruce by the memorial garden, let loose many a chalky, white load which streaked the angel statue’s face. Kneeling, I dipped the toothbrush into the soapy water.

Bristles scritch-scratched against the angel’s eye. Poop stuck to her like dry paint.

Loretta's Angel

Feeling like a heretic, I scrubbed harder and harder until only faint specks of poop were left. They blended with the concrete, sort of, so I traded the toothbrush for the trowel.

Dig, grab, yank. Dandelions, white root, thistles, and bittercress hogged garden space.

Dig, grab, yank. Solomon’s Seal, forget-me-nots, and English daisies spread their leaves.

Dig, grab, yank. Soil caked under my fingernails and smeared my hands.

I no longer regretted the missed march. Tactile connection to the earth is the way to weed, especially on Earth Day.

Wind whipped tree branches.

My fingers numbed.

Earthworms came out with the roots. I shook each weed close to the ground to dislodge the worm and extra soil before tossing the weed into a five gallon bucket for its journey to the compost. When I yanked yet another dandelion, an earthworm escaped the roots by wriggling across my hand.

My mouth opened.

No yelp escaped.

I didn’t shake my hand either.

Because my soil-stained hands had chilled, I couldn’t feel the moist worm’s undulating segments.

Later, while I washed dishes that evening, I watched a robin through the kitchen window. The bird flew over the angel statue without dropping a chalky white load.

Spence walked up behind me, slid a dirty coffee mug onto the counter, and put his hands on my shoulders. “You had a good Earth Day.” He kissed the top of my head. “You were active while I sat on the couch.”

I appreciated the kiss and the compliment, but I hadn’t . . .

DUH!

COVID-19 is a villian in name only here.

With my special celebration canceled, I hadn’t mistreated the earth by burning fossil fuel for a thirty mile round trip or by adding a placard, string, and deflated helium balloon to an overcrowded landfill. I’d spent the day like I always do—caring for the earth.

Every day is Earth Day at Wells Wood.

English Daisy Up Close