From Here: Observing the Natural World

 Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. For years I have told myself that I participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. I joined an organized group of classmates and picked up trash in my Massachusetts hometown. I have always been proud of my participation, but as I sat down to write about it, I wondered how valid my memory was.

First I realized that I was 13 in 1970.  A school-sponsored outing to mark Earth Day did not seem like the kind of thing that would have happened in my junior high school. It seems more likely that the outing occurred when I was a freshman in high school, in 1971.

Then there’s the problem of April vacation. In Massachusetts and Maine, spring break occurs at the time of Patriots’ Day. That occurs on April 19th, but since 1969, it has been celebrated on the closest Monday. Earth Day always falls during spring break in Massachusetts and Maine. I know this as I was a school librarian who yearned to celebrate Earth Day with my students for 32 years.

Then there’s this. I heard on the radio show “Living on Earth” that Earth Day was not envisioned as the yearly celebration it has become. This lends credibility to my notion that I participated in that first event, although it probably wasn’t on the actual day. Maybe the Saturday before?

Hmphh.

Well, that trash-collecting outing, whenever it was, has stuck with me all these years. And I know it was related to Earth Day. My group was dispatched to a bleak area underneath the Braga Bridge, a soaring span that connects the city of Fall River and the town of Somerset, where my family lived. The bridge crosses the Taunton River near where it connects with Mount Hope Bay.

I remember thinking at the time that I had no idea that Somerset bordered the bay. Of course I knew the bay—it extended along the west side of Fall River and the adjoining town of Tiverton, R.I., where my mother had grown up and some of her family still lived.

But this area was dominated by the coal-burning Brayton Point Power Plant. I had no reason to be down there in normal circumstances.

So I learned something new about my town that day. And that maybe I needed to be a bit more aware of my surroundings. I was proud, too, to be part of the effort, to be doing my part. I was appalled by the ugliness of the trash that had collected along the beautiful bay, and the specter of the power plant so close by.

The day helped me become an environmentally aware person as I grew into adulthood. There were other factors. My mother’s father had grown a big garden on an in-town lot in Tiverton, a couple of blocks from the bay. He was an inspiration to me. I have a photo of him, in his Boston cap and overalls, holding a basket of strawberries, on display. My father started growing vegetables in our backyard in the early ‘70s. and taught me what he knew. 

I’ve been a gardener ever since, and have tried to be a good steward of the earth. I am not perfect by a very long stretch. But I have done my best to provide food, water and shelter for the critters who frequent my city yard; to plant for pollinators; and to reduce, reuse and recycle. Paul and I chose to live in a community that was close to our jobs, services and amenities, which kept our need to drive to a minimum.

What a wonderful surprise it was to learn, as I did my research for this piece, that the wider area where my group worked is now the Brayton Point Wildlife Management Area. I would love to see it some day. The plant closed in 2017 and a wind power facility is being developed on the site.

Progress!

I will continue to relish that mental image I have of my teenage self, picking up trash. I may not have all the details straight, but the inspiration endures. Cherish the earth.

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 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com

Review: "The Pie & Mash Detective Agency," J.D. Brinkworth

The final project for Jane and Simon's "Private Investigation Level One" class is a daunting one. A woman called Nellie Thorne has gone missing. In 1971. In 1997. And in 2025. Oh, and a few times in between.

It can’t possibly be the same Nellie. Is it coincidence? Is Nellie a ghost? Is it part of some kind of weird game?

Jane Pine and Simon Mash must solve the mystery to pass the class and go pro. They’ve already got the name of their aspirational enterprise picked out: “The Pie and Mash Detective Agency.”

Their instructor, Gavin Smith, smiles inwardly as he gives them their assignment. While other students are dealing with fabricated cases, he investigated the actual 1997 Nellie Thorne disappearance. He was never able to solve it, and it haunts him. In more ways than one—his sleuthing got him involved with some bad guys, which resulted in lasting physical injuries.

Yet this doesn’t stop him from sending out two hapless millennials into what could be a world of danger.

They do mean well. They do try. But they really don’t know what they’re doing.

Jane is a small, unemployed programmer who is very keen to become a detective. Her tag on Simon’s phone is “Jane (Girlfriend).” 

Simon is tall, good-looking and goofy. On Jane’s phone, he appears as “World’s Sexiest Man.” He seems to organize team-building events for corporate types. He has a wealthy mother named Penny who has a busier (also crazier) social life than Jane and Simon.

Simon likes the fun bits of detecting, like buying orange tartan trench coats for the pair. He’s already come up with a catchphrase for the agency: “Smash!”

Not surprisingly, Jane is the one who gets things done. Eventually.

The two start by meeting Dev Hooper, boyfriend of the latest missing Nellie. The three of them decide that maybe some paranormal activity might be involved, so they call in a ghost hunter for a nighttime rendezvous in some nearby woods. When Simon discovers a pregnancy test wand jammed in Dev’s toilet, they’re able to put that theory to rest. Clearly, Nellie is still very much alive.

Jane does research in the local library, with the help (of a sort) from the world’s worst librarian, Linda. Really, she makes the tots in story time cry. Jane also connects with Bernard Parker, a policeman who worked on the case.

At the same time, Gavin feels compelled to get involved (without Jane and Simon knowing) and he gets back in touch with Parker, whom he knew back in the day.

Although the case seemed confounding at first, I suddenly had an insight into the truth about the case. Which was a good thing, because I was afraid the story might veer off into the woo-hoo, and I wouldn’t have liked that. No worries. It turns out that I was headed in the right direction, but the real story of Nellie Thorne was more surprising—and satisfying—than I was imagining.

Jane, Simon and Gavin crack the case in a wild and crazy denouement. Despite themselves. A sequel to this fun and funny cozy mystery seems to be promised in an intriguing letter that appears on the last page of the book.

Smash!

From Here: Observing the Natural World

 Back to the Bin

Something happens when Paul announces, "We're ready to start composting again."

The world shifts. Soon I will be gardening and shopping at farmers’ markets and farm stands. I’ll be cooking with local and seasonal foods. I’ll be picking flowers from my beds.  

And when I find a moment, I’ll be sitting on the porch, reading.

I will be in my happy season.

We take our fruit and vegetable scraps and store them in a metal bucket designed for that purpose. When it’s full, we bring it out to the wooden bins Paul built years ago. They don’t get full sun, so they don’t make for an optimal compost-producing operation, but they do provide enough product to keep most of our beds nourished.

Composting isn’t just about the end result, though that is important. If you want to grow organically, which we have always done, there’s nothing better to enrich your soil than your own rotted lemon peels and potato parings.

Meanwhile, food waste is a real problem. It’s the single largest type of material in U.S. landfills. When it rots there, it produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas.

When I compost, I do feel I’m doing the right thing, environmentally speaking. But I also enjoy the process. Turning food waste into fertilizer makes me feel a bit like a magician. And I prefer, for hygienic reasons, to bring food scraps outside rather than throwing them in the kitchen trash container.

When I was growing up, my parents had a metal container with a lid buried in the yard. My mother would put the “swill,” as she called it, into it. Somebody—I’m not sure I ever saw him—would come by and take it away, to feed it to pigs.

It pleases me to think that my parents, in this way, were more ecologically correct than me.

Composting is easy. Save your scraps. Add garden debris and fallen leaves to your bins. Mix it up and let it sit. Soon you will have a rich, crumbly mixture that will make your plants grow tall and strong without chemical additives.

In fact, the scraps already start percolating while they’re still in the house. When I pick up the container to add more swill, I can feel the heat.

It’s exciting, but I don’t take a deep breath, for obvious reasons. I do smile. I know that from a brown banana peel, a scooped-out grapefruit, a few moldy peas, my happiness will grow.

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 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com

From Here: Observing the Natural World

Splish-Splash—It’s Spring! 

A robin flapped its wings in the birdbath. She stuck her head into the water, splashed some more. Flapped those wings around. Splish-splash!

It was March 30th, and I had seen a few robins around town. But this was the first one to appear in our yard. The robin, of course, is a harbinger of spring. But a robin taking a bath—well, that is reason to rejoice.

We provide water for our backyard critters all year round. In the winter, Paul is in charge of setting up “The Bluebird Cafe,” a heated birdbath. Sparrows and chickadees enjoy drinking from it regularly, along with the squirrels. Sometimes our resident cardinals and blue jays also pop in.

They drink, sometimes heartily. But they never, ever bathe.

It’s a different story in the warm weather. We have three warm-weather baths in the backyard: a standard pedestal model, a shallow leaf-shaped receptacle that lies on the ground, and the Zen birdbath.

The latter is a squat square block of concrete and the birds love it. It only stands about a foot off the ground, but sometimes in midsummer there’s a line waiting to get in. The birds splash around, then hop on the rim and preen. They can be quite vigorous. If no one swoops in to take their spot, they may head back in for a second round.

The robin had the place to herself. She took her time, and made sure she was squeaky clean.

It was a pleasant day for March. The sun was out. But it was still March, gray and brown with a bite to the breeze. The calendar said spring had arrived, but it didn’t feel like it.

Until I saw that robin. That robin, taking a bath.

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 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com