November.
Crisp.
Cool.
Stick season.
Bare limbs of unclothed arms held reverent to the sun’s life-preserving warmth. Firewood stacked, retaining life warmth. Children laughing, running, throwing leaves up over their heads. Turkey odors rise with chimney smoke, settling, embracing sidewalk walkers and runners alike.
Walking by, the yard looked abandoned, old, lifeless, dying or dead, a mortuary of flora and fauna. The house looked lively enough, trim, neat, calm colored, not elaborate or large, fitting in place. Dainty white curtains screening but not isolating.
Family home. A place of gathering, resting, dreaming, recessing, grandpa reclining in repose, grandma napping, dad unwinding, children retaining and storing vibrancy, mom setting the Thanksgiving table with fixings from the summer garden. A family maintaining and caring for inter-human relations.
But the yard lacked color and movement. No visible family or neighbors or visitors. The fallen leaves, wrinkled, with brown spots, delicate, tranquil. Flower stalks, relieved of supporting flower heads, nap standing up. Chickory, now blue only in mood. Queen Anne’s lace is no longer as elegant as frilly lace curtains. Black-eyed Susan's eyes closed in slumber. Only rose hips retain a blush of reddish pink in response to the yard's naked exposure.
Movement in the house. None in the yard. No bustling bumblebees at rose and tomato flowers. No grasshoppers tilting grass stems. No green sweat bees delighting on purple asters. No orange Monarchs, or rainbow colored beetles; Shades of nature diluted, faded, seemingly, unfestive.
Sounds erupt from inside the house - conversations, snoring, slurping drinks, munching of appetizers. In the yard chirping from crickets, melodious trill from the nearby pond - absent. Katydids and cicadas diluted from a diminuendo to silence. The “songs” of short-horned grasshoppers, mechanical sounding – buzzes, whirrs, and clicks. The song of house crickets, cheep-cheep-cheep (pause) cheep-cheep-cheep (pause). The songs of other crickets, katydids, and other long-horned grasshoppers - complex, with chirps, buzzes, and pauses. All silent.
The yard has a turkey-like presence with the brown crispy skins, but none of the house table fixings. No orange (yams/marigolds), bright greens (peas/yarrow), flaming reds (cranberries/roses), no sweet odors (turkey baking/bergamot, milkweed, roses).
And so, upon walking along the yard edge, I give thanks for the harvest of the previous spring and summer when movement, sounds, color, and aroma penetrated the walkway. I am thankful to the homeowners for leaving the flowering plant remnants and the yard residents undisturbed, asleep, in peace and comfort in their fall through early spring abode - covered under a critical blanket of leaves, some in bunk beds within standing flower stems, some cozy just under the soil surface.
I give thanks to the homeowner who retains a measure of intimacy with the natural world, their fellow wildlife neighbors; and the family who maintain intimate human-earth relations.
Looking again at the browns on the Thanksgiving table that is in the front yard, I realize this is a table of dessert. The tans and browns remind me of apple pie. The blush rose hips recall the steep strong hibiscus tea.
The yard table is a Thanksgiving table after the main meal is over. What remains is to enjoy the sweetness, and reminisce with or about old flower and sleeping invertebrate friends - our fauna and flora neighbors.
The front yard is not old or abandoned. On the contrary, it is adorned with sleeping quarters, a quiet, peaceful, undisturbed abode with abundant life, resting after a tremendous feast and celebration of wild lives.
The fauna and flora work hard sustaining us in life, delighting us with diversity and wonders. Unlike lawns, this yard is a Book of Nature where the pages of seasons are all connected, not folded or torn.
Now I seek to guide myself and others
into an appreciation instead of
exploitation of nature so that we may become a mutually beneficial presence on the Earth.
I thank the many modes of earth’s life forms and those who strive to accommodate the abodes of wildlife.
Let us give thanks by preserving the natural world in its natural cycles and transformations, a yard at a time.
Happy Thanksgiving
Bernie Paquette
For further related reading:
Research article: Legacy effects of long-term autumn leaf litter removal slow decomposition rates and reduce soil carbon in suburban yards
And read more of my Thanksgiving essays:
Thanksgiving: everybody brings something
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