With the small one in the other stage of walking , I ’ve begun to see the farm in a newfangled perspective : one that is lower to the ground and moves a fiddling more easy .
She holds onto my fingers and we toddle through the grass , up the mound and to our champaign . What might be described as an comfortable sashay for you or me is a grand adventure for her . But she conquers it with the heart of an explorer .
Along the way , we stop to wager in a clay puddle or pluck clovers . She has a tedious , deliberate room of approaching her environment that ’s not concerned about the bag piling up in the sink or the weeds growing in the garden .
She ’s immersed in her environment with no distractions or other objective than to respect and ravish in this wild wonderful world .
A New Perspective
This change of pace has allowed me to apprise the body politic in a new style . My eye are opened to the tiniest creatures that call this situation home .
Down low , we take part in the dance of the works life , sword of pasture intermingle with briar and wild flower and sapling . We travel along beetles , cricket and other bugs that move too quickly to discover as they traverse the flora and rocky stain .
When her legs get well-worn , we sit and watch green toad frog horn in their principal above the surface of the pool . Or I pick her up so she can study a leaf hanging from a arm .
Rachael Dupree
Discovering Nature
On a recent risky venture , we fleck a wad of leave dangling from a tree diagram on a silk thread . At first I thought nothing of what I saw , assuming it was junk that had gotten caught in a spider connection .
Then I visualise another . And then another .
Then I earn these “ spate , ” despite being made of different tree material , all take on a similar human body . Upon closer inspection , I found a worm crawling around inside what was n’t a wad at all but a bag - like structure . Rachael Dupree
Rachael Dupree
Unlike the lilliputian one , I ’m not always so content to just observe how the world around me crop . give thanks good that when wonder escape me and the itch for firm fact overcomes , Google ’s drag - and - drop curtain image search functioncan avail me find my answers . It quickly told me more about this newfangled discovery : cedar bagworms .
Blessed by Bagworms
This native pest favour the easternred cedar , which grow prolifically in our area . And indeed , I ’ve seen its little bags made up of browned cedar leaves and low true cedar berries cover many of the cedars in our field .
( Is n’t comic how once you know something exist , your newfangled perspective witness it everywhere ? )
While its preferred hosts are evergreens , they also work up their cozy cocoon in hardwood trees , such as the boxelder . This is the tree under which I discovered that first “ plenty . ”
The dirt ball feed on the trees and can defoliate them to the gunpoint of last . While this can be a problem in urban areas and for those with ornamental or an orchard harvest , it ’s not much of a forestry concern . And I ’m definitely not implicated about it on our land .
Here , the cedar tree are understory tree diagram , which will eventually give way to tall hardwood . Should we lose a few cedars to bagworms , it would barely put a ding in our supply . If , in the time to come , we plant orchard trees that were to become stirred , then we might consider a pest - control strategy .
For now , we ’ll continue to allow the bagworms do their matter , and grant their natural predators — birds and parasitic wasps — to take care of any infestations .
This land always teaches me something new . And thanks to our odoriferous sister , my eye see a whole new layer of life here .
I ca n’t even start to fathom what we ’ll get into as she begin to toddle on her own and ask enquiry about her discoveries . All I can say is I ’m ready for the adventure .
