Nature, like our cats, abhors a vacuum. A large percentage of our time here at the Drainfield of Dreams is devoted to efforts to put nature where we think it should be, and nature basically ignoring us.
Our neighbors have called me at work to report deer standing on our front porch looking in through the glass door, no doubt preparing to ring the doorbell with their little hooves to ask what we might have available in the vegetable crisper. Other “peeping toms” include hummingbirds who suspend themselves in midair to stare reproachfully through the kitchen window when their feeder is empty. By contrast, the raccoons rarely spare us a glance when they lumber by the patio, being far more interested in looking for snails in the pond than in watching “So You Think You Can Dance” with us.
In an effort to keep the nocturnal masked bandits at bay, S.O. just bought the Rac Zapper 3000. Tired of waking up every morning to the sight of expensive waterlillies dessicating on the deck, S.O. is hoping instead to be lulled to sleep by “zzzzzt” sounds of the electric fence, followed by the pitter-patter of little feet scurrying back under the gap in the deck from whence they came.
The invasion of our space is not confined to mammals. Colonies of wasps live in every nook and cranny of the garden. The worker in the photo is fanning the entrance to a nest built inside a solar light, to keep the inside cool. They are deeply uninterested in us and seem to enjoy eating aphids, so we’ve left them alone for the most part. But I try not to think about how many there are when I’m out on the patio watching the paper wasps with long dangling legs hovering around the eaves. There’s also real drama on the balcony outside our bedroom, as the hollow-tube railing has been filled over the years by innumerable small spiders who hide inside during the day and emerge in the evening to check their webs. Occasionally one will venture too far and be seized by one of the iridescent blue mud-dauber wasps that patrol constantly. I once saw a mud-dauber grab a hapless spider, accidently drop it, and zoom down to catch it before it hit the ground, like a comic-book superhero (though no doubt not heroic from the poor spider’s point of view).
Some creatures actually do make it inside the house. We used to let the cats out through a kitty door until we discovered that the territory they were willing to defend was approximately the living room. Taking the Neville Chamberlain approach to diplomatic relations with the neighbor’s cats, ours achieved peace in their time by cowering under the coffee table while others made short work of their dish of cat crunchies.
Five-inch dull blue dragonflies whizz in through open windows, their huge wings making a distinctive dry, papery rattle. Hand-sized crane flies find their way in on summer evenings and cling to the drywall, far too big for the web-spinning spiders who came in on the flowers I cut from our backyard. Every fall when the heat kicks on, enormous mouse-sized (to my eyes, anyway) hunting spiders move in and spend their evenings scurrying toward wherever I happen to be sitting. All these invaders are duly evicted, but it’s a never-ending task.
Keeping nature where we want reminds me of a simplified version of the three laws of thermodynamics I once heard:
- You can’t win.
- You can’t break even
- You can’t stop playing the game.
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