May 14th, 2024 Tuesday Cloudy
Shortly after my husband and I started dating, we did an “epic” adventure – walking around a local lake together.
This is not your ordinary “pond in the backyard” lake. The circumference of this lake is over 20 miles, and it took us nine hours to complete the feat. The views were amazing, and the weather pleasing. We packed lunch to have a picnic in a state park by the lake, for a much needed break.
During lunch, I expressed my desire to live more closely with nature. To my surprise, my husband was not optimistic about the idea, or rather, he was very skeptical.
“Nature is not only beautiful things, you know. Nature can be cruel and harsh.” he told me.
That was mind-blowing for me, because I grew up in a culture where “mother nature” has been revered and perhaps a little romanticized, given how little wilderness is still left due to agriculture and urbanization.
My husband correctly foresaw that I would not enjoy living with nature as much as I thought I would. A camping trip with my cohort two months later proved that.
I was excited to encounter camping for the first time. My cohort booked the campsite, provided transportation, and set up the camps. I only brought a sleeping bag, so they let me stay in one of the solo camps. We hang out during the day, and gathered around a campfire to enjoy some s’mores. When it was time to rest, I plunged into my sleeping bag and sealed the tent.
As it turned out, sleeping in the wild (on the ground, without a proper bed) was super uncomfortable for me. The soil underneath was cold and somewhat damp, and the thought of something creepy could sneak in kept me agitated and unable to relax. When it eventually started raining (!!!!), I decided that this could not work, so I knocked on one of the other tents of my cohort.
I ended up sleeping in their car that night.
Now that we have our own house and started gardening, one can say that we are certainly living with nature. However, nature is not always benign. While the sun shines bountifully, instilling energy of growth into our plants even when we are not watching, there are numerous pests, visible or not, that are ready to attack our vulnerable seedlings, threatening to wipe out our hope for a fruitful harvest.
We are committed to the practice of organic farming, especially since WE will be eating the vegetables ourselves. Therefore, we used a variety of “home remedies” – baits, repellents, physical fencing – to protect our plants. They help to a certain extent, yet they are not fail-safe. We still lose some plants, and sometimes we cannot even understand why or who the culprit might be.
Frustrating as it seems, this could be the true spirit of living with nature.
You cannot predict or control everything. Some of the lessons have to be learned by making mistakes and doing better the next time. Some of the experiences come from trial-and-error. And the environment keeps changing – even if we have figured out the golden formula for now, adjustment may be needed in the future.
Living with nature, and being in peace with nature, may be a lifelong journey.