It is strange. I happen to live in an area that often seems devoid of small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. I am not saying there are not any specimens, but I have this idea that the trees should be full of squirrels, the ground should be rife with chipmunks, and frogs should be attempting to out jump snakes in the garden.
When I was a youth, not 10 miles from where I am writing, we would gather toads from the window wells of neighbor's houses. Eventually putting them into an old terrarium my mother had once used to create a small scenic ecosystem that included Asian bridges and a stone fisherman complete with line and a stone fish. After a day or so we let them out because the poor things would become listless and not fun to watch. Then we would recapture them all over again a few days later, sometimes in our childhood fantasies we gave them names. There was Big Al who we caught multiple times, Elizabeth the lady toad and so on. They would go about their days croaking to one another about the weather and where to avoid the grasp of children.
Seeing a snake was rare in those days, and you were always envious of the friend who could regale you with a story of a beautiful Garter Snake found under an old terracotta pot or near a down spout. They would talk excitedly about how it was smooth to the touch and even bit them, but somehow it didn't hurt. Of course we called them Gardner Snakes because the word Garter was archaic and we had no clue what that was anyway.
As Summer became Autumn and the leaves turned and the air started to bite our fingertips, the Red Squirrels would scurry about in a frenzy, readying themselves for the Winter. The cruel mouse traps in the sump pump closet would halt all conversation with a resounding click that would echo through our suburban home, and my father would quickly dispose of the evidence. Rodents of such a size were not to be tolerated.
Today, in a very similar Suburban setting, the children run around outside in the Fall air. As the leaves turn colors my household is on the lookout for a local Red Fox. He comes out at twilight to forage. We are told this is a sure sign he is hungry as foxes are nocturnal. I guess I might be too if my carnivorous diet consisted mainly of rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, and field mice. These creatures are nowhere to be seen in neighborhood. Yes their is the occasional Possum and even a Racoon, and a proliferation of Skunks, but the smaller mammals are just gone from the outdoors. Undeniably, we still catch the occasional indoor mouse but the unfortunate soul is just moving inside for the Winter and he has few friends and relations.
When I was younger in the middle Seasons we would go the the Field Museum of Natural History. After we excitedly looked at all the dead and stuffed things, vacantly staring at us, as my siblings and I imagined they still lived behind the glassed in scene, we would inevitably make our way to an exhibit that discussed pollution and sickening of the planet.
I could be mixing exhibits now, but the images I conjure are of bulldozers pushing metric tons of garbage into a heap, black smoke streaming from factory stacks, and dead birds in inky pools of water. In these same halls I saw shorts films on pesticides that were killing pelicans and eagles by altering the shell composition of their eggs, and oil spill containment that somehow did not look very effective. Words like Carbon, DDT, and Herbicide were bandied about like biblical terms such as Devil and Apocalypse. At one point someone called a government agency to ask if they could have a child. After a friendly and comforting voice did a statistical analysis of the number of people on Earth and considered the natural resources available the blinking result was the amber digitized word DENIED.
The exhibit did mention hope. Scientists with bubbly beakers fired under Bunsen burners in a Rube Goldberg inspired kinetic contraption biologically broke down grass and other plant stuff into basic components that eventually were extruded through a clunky scientific version of a tree syrup tap into a glass jar... and as if by magic: thick black oil!
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring spoke about the relational value of our chemical addictions. Logically if you spray away the harmful bugs and weeds that eat away and crowd your crops, plants will grow healthy and strong and the harvest will be bountiful. Of course the side effects are negligible, and if the bugs and dandelions return, spray more. On your farm, in your forest, in your river, on your lawn where your children look for snakes and seek toads in the window wells.
We tell our children to rinse apples to remove the chemical residue, as if it has not penetrated to the pulp, as if we are all born experts in chemical sequestration.
Silent Spring, written in plaintive prose, puts perspective into the whys that lend credence to the missing backyard creatures and the ritual of the fruit rinse. The book is not really a warning, it is more of a reporting of what we have done and how we came to this point. It is a sort of condemnation, but apart from a few instances of pointing out uneven regulatory decisions...mainly to spray more, it is a story that has no real finger pointing or even a conclusion. This book is almost 60 years old. While DDT and other chemicals have been banned, and concepts like Carbon Footprint, Emission Reduction, and Leave No Trace have transcended good practice to become Ethics, the next store neighbors still have Orkin wet their lawn, I put Turf Builder down each Spring to promote greener lusher grass, and my other neighbor like an old West cowboy uses the trigger pump to spray stink bugs away from the windowsill while his dog watches on the other side of the pane.
It was a slow process to read this book. Not because it was a difficult and jargon filled slog, but because that same dread I felt at the Field Museum exhibit began to creep like a specter into the corners of my mind. Somehow we are all culpable for the state of Eden. And even if Greta Thunberg calls on the UN to act, and Global Warming deniers seem to be wanton capitalists who care not for their own children's welfare, somehow it is not enough. The battle for a cleaner world is not lost in the efforts of the few, but in the inaction of the many. Rachel Carson was instrumental in awakening the citizenry to the dangers and casual effects of the Silent Spring. I left this old book feeling that the process has evolved but the results have remained the same.
As I look for strangely long gone Robins in the backyard, it is impossible to not recommend this unfortunately timeless book.
It is strange. I happen to live in an area that often seems devoid of small mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. I am not saying there are not any specimens, but I have this idea that the trees should be full of squirrels, the ground should be rife with chipmunks, and frogs should be attempting to out jump snakes in the garden.
When I was a youth, not 10 miles from where I am writing, we would gather toads from the window wells of neighbor's houses. Eventually putting them into an old terrarium my mother had once used to create a small scenic ecosystem that included Asian bridges and a stone fisherman complete with line and a stone fish. After a day or so we let them out because the poor things would become listless and not fun to watch. Then we would recapture them all over again a few days later, sometimes in our childhood fantasies we gave them names. There was Big Al who we caught multiple times, Elizabeth the lady toad and so on. They would go about their days croaking to one another about the weather and where to avoid the grasp of children.
Seeing a snake was rare in those days, and you were always envious of the friend who could regale you with a story of a beautiful Garter Snake found under an old terracotta pot or near a down spout. They would talk excitedly about how it was smooth to the touch and even bit them, but somehow it didn't hurt. Of course we called them Gardner Snakes because the word Garter was archaic and we had no clue what that was anyway.
As Summer became Autumn and the leaves turned and the air started to bite our fingertips, the Red Squirrels would scurry about in a frenzy, readying themselves for the Winter. The cruel mouse traps in the sump pump closet would halt all conversation with a resounding click that would echo through our suburban home, and my father would quickly dispose of the evidence. Rodents of such a size were not to be tolerated.
Today, in a very similar Suburban setting, the children run around outside in the Fall air. As the leaves turn colors my household is on the lookout for a local Red Fox. He comes out at twilight to forage. We are told this is a sure sign he is hungry as foxes are nocturnal. I guess I might be too if my carnivorous diet consisted mainly of rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, and field mice. These creatures are nowhere to be seen in neighborhood. Yes their is the occasional Possum and even a Racoon, and a proliferation of Skunks, but the smaller mammals are just gone from the outdoors. Undeniably, we still catch the occasional indoor mouse but the unfortunate soul is just moving inside for the Winter and he has few friends and relations.
When I was younger in the middle Seasons we would go the the Field Museum of Natural History. After we excitedly looked at all the dead and stuffed things, vacantly staring at us, as my siblings and I imagined they still lived behind the glassed in scene, we would inevitably make our way to an exhibit that discussed pollution and sickening of the planet.
I could be mixing exhibits now, but the images I conjure are of bulldozers pushing metric tons of garbage into a heap, black smoke streaming from factory stacks, and dead birds in inky pools of water. In these same halls I saw shorts films on pesticides that were killing pelicans and eagles by altering the shell composition of their eggs, and oil spill containment that somehow did not look very effective. Words like Carbon, DDT, and Herbicide were bandied about like biblical terms such as Devil and Apocalypse. At one point someone called a government agency to ask if they could have a child. After a friendly and comforting voice did a statistical analysis of the number of people on Earth and considered the natural resources available the blinking result was the amber digitized word DENIED.
The exhibit did mention hope. Scientists with bubbly beakers fired under Bunsen burners in a Rube Goldberg inspired kinetic contraption biologically broke down grass and other plant stuff into basic components that eventually were extruded through a clunky scientific version of a tree syrup tap into a glass jar... and as if by magic: thick black oil!
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring spoke about the relational value of our chemical addictions. Logically if you spray away the harmful bugs and weeds that eat away and crowd your crops, plants will grow healthy and strong and the harvest will be bountiful. Of course the side effects are negligible, and if the bugs and dandelions return, spray more. On your farm, in your forest, in your river, on your lawn where your children look for snakes and seek toads in the window wells.
We tell our children to rinse apples to remove the chemical residue, as if it has not penetrated to the pulp, as if we are all born experts in chemical sequestration.
Silent Spring, written in plaintive prose, puts perspective into the whys that lend credence to the missing backyard creatures and the ritual of the fruit rinse. The book is not really a warning, it is more of a reporting of what we have done and how we came to this point. It is a sort of condemnation, but apart from a few instances of pointing out uneven regulatory decisions...mainly to spray more, it is a story that has no real finger pointing or even a conclusion. This book is almost 60 years old. While DDT and other chemicals have been banned, and concepts like Carbon Footprint, Emission Reduction, and Leave No Trace have transcended good practice to become Ethics, the next store neighbors still have Orkin wet their lawn, I put Turf Builder down each Spring to promote greener lusher grass, and my other neighbor like an old West cowboy uses the trigger pump to spray stink bugs away from the windowsill while his dog watches on the other side of the pane.
It was a slow process to read this book. Not because it was a difficult and jargon filled slog, but because that same dread I felt at the Field Museum exhibit began to creep like a specter into the corners of my mind. Somehow we are all culpable for the state of Eden. And even if Greta Thunberg calls on the UN to act, and Global Warming deniers seem to be wanton capitalists who care not for their own children's welfare, somehow it is not enough. The battle for a cleaner world is not lost in the efforts of the few, but in the inaction of the many. Rachel Carson was instrumental in awakening the citizenry to the dangers and casual effects of the Silent Spring. I left this old book feeling that the process has evolved but the results have remained the same.
As I look for strangely long gone Robins in the backyard, it is impossible to not recommend this unfortunately timeless book.