City Mouse, Country Mouse

The truth is that I want to live in “the country.” I fantasize about it all the time. I believe in fantasizing; I think it is a powerful and positive tool for all kinds of things... But sometimes it’s also a little bit of a distraction from the fact that the Fox has taken to hollering “help me!” and then whispering “please!” over and over while I am trying to fix, for example, his rice and beans with cheddar and salsa and avocados. (Sounds good, right? I’m eating it too. All praise brown rice and black beans.) Anyway, it’s a little like trying to cook with a schizophrenic car alarm going off five feet away. So I picture us in a little cabin, way out in the woods and I fantasize:

How my dogs would be perfectly behaved because exhausted from running through endless waves of grain.

How time with the wild animals would make me peaceful crunchy earth mama, imparting to the Fox wisdom and empowerment each and every day.

How we would find all this for about $1,000 less a month than our current mortgage, allowing us to continue this one income family experiment while eating out from time to time. And eat rice and beans anyway, but only because we actually do love it.

And really, don’t it look pretty?

Thing is, there are no restaurants way out in the woods.

Also, M points out that you can’t just walk up to the pub or coffee shop in the country. So where the fuck will I go when my peaceful mama self hits the cabin fever wall and I need to just go be a woman in a bar?

You see what the problem is. So, we stay.

And, there is something to be said for staying. One of the wisest people I know, an amazing climate warrior priest named KC Golden told me once that so much of the climate problem comes from all of us moving around all the time. “Trees teach us to stay,” KC said.

But, if I am going to stay, I want animals around. I want trees and flowers. I want frogs.

Enter: Gardening for wildlife.

Look, I realize that I can’t solve all the environ-mental problems my little old self. But having the Fox has made it so important to know that I do something, every day, which makes things better. Something that, if everyone did it, would make things a lot better. Cities are part of the solution. And I say, what if cities were truly beautiful for us and for the beasts? What if that were possible?

And, actually, it’s happening already. I mean, I’ve been working on my own experiment here, including this nice little pond. I’ve got about 300 square feet of front yard that I’ve been cultivating for only a few years, and it is a wildlife condominium. If the hummingbirds and ground beetles (and even tanagers!) get any thicker on the ground, they are going to need a condo association agreement and next thing you know, it’s monthly meetings and consensus process and it’s all downhill from there.

But I mean, it’s happening on a bigger scale. Yesterday, I found out that the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) certified Alki beach, a neighborhood northwest of me, as a “Community Wildlife Habitat” just last fall. Here’s a quote from an NWF article:

"For animals that roam, contiguous yards and common areas that provide habitat help them survive and ultimately reproduce to maintain their numbers," says Roxanne Paul, who coordinates the Federation's habitat programs. For the humans who create those oases, the benefit is a close, everyday connection to animals they would otherwise have to seek out.

Hot damn. They did it. The Alki neighborhood made hundreds of yards and several public spaces wildlife welcome.

This gives me hope that I can be a country mouse and a city mouse.

Okay, I’d still have to exercise my own dogs. Okay, I still have to tell the Fox: “You can wait for your rice and beans in the kitchen quietly, or you can cool your heels in the living room” and deal with the ensuing tantrum. But let me tell you something: his favorite books these days? My field guides. I kid you not. We are spending bunches of time, looking at photos of dragonflies and dark-eyed juncos. And, we are looking out the window at our front yard, seeing the wild. And it’s just one yard. What if, instead of having to choose between all the perks of density – from pubs to transit – and the deep, soul fulfillment of living among the birds and the bees, what if we could have both? And what if it didn’t have to start with an election or a new policy? What if we could transform our cities into a place where the wild was welcome, one backyard at a time? Isn’t that a dream worth dreaming?

And isn’t that dream worth a toast? Say, at the local, walkable pub?

Resources:

Number one most and best resource: "Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest" by Russell Link. I love this book: it's got the wildlife photos that the Fox loves, plus plans for everything from which native plants attract birds and which common garden flowers attract butterflies to detailed plans for a wildlife pond. This book is the bomb, so much so, that you can click right through and get it your hot little self. Everyone should own it, in my opinion. 

Another great resource for us out here in WA: the Washington Native Plant Society.  Their site has lots of plant porn. But more importantly, it has the data on their upcoming sales: the central Puget Sound one is on May 8 in Bellevue and it is an AWESOME event and a great way to get hard to find native plants, cheap!

National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat Program gives you more on the four basics: Providing wildlife with food, water, shelter and a place to raise their young. As a mom, when you read that, doesn't it sound so reasonable? Hint: a wildlife pond, even a few inches deep, does all four.  But if that is not your idea of fun, don't despair. A native bush like mock orange provides seed and cover, plus an amazing perfume in oh, about three weeks from now. Throw in a bird bath and a thicket of beautiful roses and you are good. Refer back to resource one. Russell Link is your man, really.

Also, big fun for kids: Nest boxes. The Seattle Audubon Nature Center in Maple Leaf sells good ones. Russell Link (have I mentioned him, yet?) tells you where to put them to create the appropriate romantic conditions for each species. If you are so DIY, Link's book also has plans for building your own nest boxes. And Wild Birds Unlimited sells them on the Web.

And tell me what you think!