Wild Optimism

In my mind, what re-wilding our backyard would mean was: Poor shorn St. Augustine would be replaced with robust ground cover; trees would be surrounded with friendly understory shrubs; ground-nesting birds (say, doves) and small mammals (say, bunnies) would find refuge among all the nature allowed to grow up around them. I was somewhat informed in my pastoral imaginations by what had happened to our 1-1/2 acres in Dripping Springs when we first moved to Texas 23 years ago: We dug up by their roots the rampant, thirsty Ashe junipers behind the house on our property to allow the live and other oaks and their attendant agaritas to thrive while the formerly shaded and bare caliche soil sprouted thigh-high native grasses that bowed and bobbed in the wind like the green or golden waves of an inland sea, next to a formerly seasonal muddy creek that was restored to year-round clarity and flow. From impenetrable dry scrubland to welcoming, verdant grassland: It was a magical transformation.

What actually happened recently to our suburban plot within a north Austin suburb as we quit mowing and trimming the backyard and started adding the items needed to qualify for a certified wildlife habitat was that cat briar and elm seedlings and broad-leaved mystery weeds (to say nothing of seasonal mosquitos and chiggers) began invading the yard, making any kind of passage across it a fraught effort. There was no sound of the characteristic cooing of the hoped-for doves, no glimpse of a bunny’s hop before it stilled itself to camouflage. A hawk began visiting the back fence, swiveling its head to survey the whole mess before making eye contact with me watching from an upstairs window. The neighbor’s cat may have figured, hey, if they’re not even mowing, they will probably let me lounge on their porch, covering the cushions with my fur; she was correct. But it was the coachwhip snake—more than four feet of its body unwinding from under our porch’s back step—that shook me out of my (misdirected?) re-wilding reverie.

On the one hand, coachwhip snakes are not venomous, which makes them a (relatively) nicer co-resident than the fifteen types of snakes in Texas who are. On the other hand, this one was living very close to where we do, and coachwhips have sharp teeth that they’ll use to bite and fight aggressively if cornered. Also, snakes don’t like to get comfy if they can’t move through tall grasses to food sources—rodents?! Of the non-rabbit sort?! So, the mower came out and the reduction of our snake/rat hospitality began—during which we discovered a patch of wild blackberries rambling over the middle of our backyard, the hidden, dark glistening orbs ripened by the spring sunshine. We found enough to enjoy them as dessert with dinner, even after helping ourselves to their sweet-tart brilliance as we picked from the low, thorny vines. We took the happy surprise—foraged fruit!—as a good omen of what awaits our harvest of our cultivated blackberries. We enjoyed maybe one blackberry last year, after the squirrels and the birds ate the other eleven; this year, the canes bloomed in profuse clusters of pink and white, and now arc with the weight of their immature berries. Endless optimism.