Birdsong

For very practical reasons that I won't get into here, we rent our house. The rental comes with lawn care included. Part of this lawn care is spraying for weeds (or something? Alarmingly, I really don't know what they're spraying).

It's been a few weeks since the company sprayed or cut the grass in our expansive backyard, and I've noticed something startling. I've noticed a distinct increase in bird activity. Swooping down from the trees beyond our fence to snatch up insects, hopping along the ground doing funny dances, chasing each other around the backyard, the birds are everywhere.

As it's our first summer here, maybe the increase is just due to summer. But part of me, the part of me that skimmed Silent Spring in high school when a very liberal, very nerdy friend gave it to me for my birthday, is wondering if the weed spray kept them away. By trying to control the ecosystem in the backyard, were the lawn guys killing it? Give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees sort of thing. I'm probably also being influenced by my last read Mission in a Bottle and my current read We Bought a Zoo.

I miss nature. There are trees here, but it's an ugly subdivision. It's not the wilds that I'm used to. My daughter said the other day (but really didn't mean it), "I hate nature." She's afraid to walk past dead insects on the patio to get to the living ones in the grass. She's afraid to get stung or bitten.

I, on the other hand, would give anything to go back to those afternoons where we would get more and more lost in the woods, finding the hideouts of the homeless and their trinkets, ankle-deep in the creek looking for crawdads, until mom's voice shouted for dinner time through the screen door a quarter mile away, "Ya welaaaaad" (Hey, kiiiiiids!)

BONUS! One of my absolute favorites... Songbird - Ryan Montbleau Band