About

I live in a suburban Oklahoma neighborhood, surrounded by other suburban neighborhoods. When we purchased our home, it was completely surrounded by lawn, with barely any landscaping save a few obligatory boxwood and holly bushes. One day, as I stood in the middle of my eerily quiet back yard, I tried to remember the last time I had seen a butterfly and I couldn't. There were no bees, either. No hummingbirds. With a bit of sadness, I remembered all the wondrous things I took for granted as a child growing up in Maine; splashing in a creek in the woods, munching from a berry patch by the roadside, a fresh spring where we collected the best tasting drinking water I've ever had, and wildlife everywhere including owls, whippoorwills, hawks, foxes, bears, moose, and so much natural beauty. Where do kids find wonder and joy in today's suburban landscape?

For years now, I've watched more and more natural land being gobbled up by developers every month and turned into bland neighborhoods, devoid of wonder, a barren wasteland for pollinators, a food desert for both people and wildlife. Then something occurred to me. Rather than some big unwieldy government program or initiative, hundreds and hundreds of small-scale projects could actually be our best hope right now in this little corner of the world (and maybe in other places, too). We probably aren't going to stop development or even slow it down, but surely we could transform what has already been developed.

So I began. I planted little fruit bushes and flowers for pollinators, gradually turning little bits of lawn into landscaping. Every few months, I'd get a new perennial that was flowering or producing in that season. A year of toil went by and a new spring finally sprouted around the house... and they came, from where, I don't know, but they came; butterflies, bees, moths, ladybugs, and more. One day as I was pulling a cluster of grapes from my grapevine, a hummingbird flew right over my head and hung suspended in the air only two feet away looking right at me for a moment before flitting over to pluck a ripe grape off the vine. I didn't even know they liked grapes as much as I did!

I've learned that we don't have to be perfect. We don't have to solve everything right away. But the moment we simply resolve to do better, and plug away at it little by little, the world responds. It may seem like nature is a fragile thing, but from what I have seen, it is the most powerful, resilient force on the planet. It is programmed to live, and it will do so whether we want it to or not. Don't believe me? Try to keep weeds out of the cracks in your driveway!

I decided to join with so many other people all over the world to start plugging away at our problems, bit by bit, and I've chosen to do it in honor of my new yard-mate, the Beleaguered Bee. Since she came into my yard, my flowers produce seeds, my fruiting bushes produce fruit, and my yard hums with the happiness of life. There are so many different ways to help her, even if it's simply reducing your electricity bill or putting a potted native perennial on your apartment balcony. Those of us already living within urban and suburban sprawl need to stop complaining that it exists and dedicate or efforts to transforming it into something better for all life on earth. That is an attainable goal. So how can you become a busier bee in your back yard or balcony?