A different landscape every day

Sally Deng

Letter to the editor in today's NY Times:

Living as part of nature

Re “The Wondrous World That Only Animals See,” by Ed Yong (Opinion guest essay, June 21):

After a year dedicated to promoting biodiversity and planting more native plants on our five-acre property, I remarked to my husband that the big difference between experiencing the typical manicured lawnscape we’re used to and what we have wrought by allowing our land (plants and animals) more self-determination is that instead of a static scene that is the same each morning, I see and hear a slightly different landscape each day.

There are new plants finding a place to grow, a wider variety of birds settling in, and evidence of greater activity behind my back: peach trees and oak seedlings growing where squirrels have planted peach pits from the compost and acorns, a groundhog bringing her new kits out from under the deck for their first outing on clover and grass, a hawk and a fox setting up stakeouts for prey in the early morning.

My 90-year-old husband replied, “Human imaginations are nothing compared to what nature has to offer when you stop trying to control it and learn to live as part of it.”

Janis Richter

Rochelle, Va.