Animals adapt to life in the cities and suburbs. They live with people in their cities, houses, and gardens. Cities are host to wild animals, most of whom pay no mind to people. In fact, they are the people’s closest contact with wildness. The animals that live with people are resourceful. People often find snakes, living in their attics, feasting on mice, that live in their houses. Forest animals, such as squirrels, have learned to make their homes in cities. These animals teach resourcefulness, adaptability, and hiding in plain sight.
Nature in gardens is controlled and subdued. Animals that live in there are often shy and nocturnal. Many foxes, moles, and hedgehogs are nighttime visitors. People may see birds at their feeders during the day, but bats, living under roofs, wait for night to eat the insects attracted by porch lights. A hidden world, a magical place with small animals, is what a garden really is.
Draw Inspiration From Your Garden
What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. - Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 1712
Never suffer any of my family to kill those little innocent animals called striped snakes, for they do me much service in destroying grasshoppers and other troublesome insects. Toads are of essential service, especially in a garden, to eat up cabbage worms, caterpillars, etc - Farmer's Almanac
Toads are conservative animals, I think, and not much given to expecting the best from fortune. Some weeks ago, well before the end of October, I accidentally dug up one while turning over some garden earth. I was surprised, naturally, when one of the clods heaved over on its die and there, in some annoyance, sat at toad. - Henry Mitchell
The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. - George Bernard Shaw
Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration. - Yoshida Kenko
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Va. Carper
March 3, 2008