Goldenrod and dogwood (purple leaves) being serenaded by insects!
Firefly Summer Night
EDITORāS MUSINGS: If you get to know me, youāll quickly learn that I love our great blue mother, the Earth. I love all its interconnected life but most of all, I love its green. Yes, plants, our āgreen neighborsā that fill every corner of the planet except those far beyond hospitable but even then, they find often a way to live there too.
I grew up in a rural area surrounded by farmland and forests. The natural world was a playground. I climbed trees. Picked wild berries. And made toys out of sticks, mud, burdock, and more. And yeah, those burdock balls always did end up in someoneās hair! Summers spent in the sun with no sunscreen and hardly ever shoes.
Part of the life that always surrounded me were insects. I chased the plentiful butterflies. Listened to crickets and other night insects sing. Grasshoppers jumped and flew. And spit ātobacco juiceā on your hands if you caught them. The mosquitoes bit. The June bugs clung to window screens. The bumble bees buzzed. And the fireflies light up the night. Life was good.
When we bought our house, it too was in a rural area but the world had changed in the decades since I was a child. The chorus of birds much smaller along with a distinct lack of many of those familiar insects. The first summer, I saw exactly six fireflies. It made me sad. There should be an earth-bound sea of stars on those warm summer nights.
The previous owners had copious gardens and used to ādustā their plants regularly, obliterating insects. Insecticide hasnāt been used in any of my space since. Gardens, which were filled with foreign plants, one-by-one dropped off my radar. I had more garden space than many have lawn and the babies plus working full time just made it impossible to manage. I let nature reclaim most of it. And outside of my veggie garden and woodland garden, all my plant additions were either native species or working plants-āedible or medicinal. I planted with purpose.
In the decades since, the land has
