First Saturday Green 101: Trees, quail, mosquitoes, and neighbors talking loudly of porn

They’re all connected

By motomynd

When I bought the old farmhouse I grew up in 50 years previous, three dramatic changes jumped out at me when spring arrived and I aspired to spend most of my time outdoors. The neighbors who lived in the surrounding houses were much louder than those who were there when I was a child. There was a missing link in the bird population. Mosquitoes patrolled in Luftwaffe-worthy squadrons.
    The Washington, DC escapee within me lamented the changes but welcomed the space and relative quiet. The writer within me wondered if I should have instead returned to the cabin in the woods where I had lived before being briefly lured back to DC. The college-educated biologist still lurking somewhere deep within me wondered if the three were somehow connected.
    The farm that surrounded the old house was sold long before my family bought the place in the mid 1950s. A few acres had been preserved with the house, but around us were working-class brick ranch homes on 1/4–acre lots. There was a resident covey of quail in our yard and even now, nearly 50 years later, if there is a single sound that cuts through the chaff and carries me back to my youth, it is those sharp notes: “Bob-bob-white! Bob-bob-white!” Even though I grew up in this somewhat country setting and there were neighbors close by on two sides, we barely noticed them except when they mowed their yards.
    Sitting on the back porch at night, we seldom heard a sound except for chirping insects, our resident barred owl calling on the hillside to the north, and the tiny screech owls on the knoll to the south. The neighbors were on their back porches too, we knew this from distant, muffled voices and the occasional glow of a cigarette through the patch of woods between us and them. But we never heard a clear bit of conversation, and we could sit there for a couple of hours before bedtime without being bothered by a mosquito.

So it came as a shock that first spring evening when I sat on the back porch, expecting to enjoy the calls of the owls and a shot of Scotch, and instead had to listen to one side of two cell-phone conversations, replete with f-bombs, and a couple having an intimate chat about their plans for the night, and all they wanted to do when they went inside, also replete with f-bombs. I will never forget the heartfelt words I heard the chubby but marginally attractive, recent college-graduate wife say to her husband as they retired for the night. She was in their yard, 150 feet from my porch, calling their dog, when she uttered these arousing words. “Your dog doesn’t listen for shit.” I didn’t catch his reply because by then I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes and was likewise retreating inside.
    Bear in mind that the distances are the same as in my youth, there is a view-blocking and allegedly sound-deadening hedge I planted for my mother when I was in my 20s, and my hearing is certainly no better now then when I was a teen.
    Times change, yes, but did everyone go deaf when the 21st century arrived? And how is it possible that 20somethings are arguing about which porn video to watch so they can get revved for sex that night? You are fresh out of college and your sex life is struggling? How the hell is that possible? And isn’t that the sort of thing you should be discussing very quietly and discreetly, instead of telling me all about it, and the other neighbors as well?

So how do trees, quail, mosquitoes, and neighbors talking loudly of porn all connect in an alleged nature column? Well, here is the explanation, and believe me, you should care.
    Logic, and a study on the topic (“Cellphone study confirms: Talking loudly in public to someone not there distracts others”), explain part of the problem with the cell-phone conversations. Where logic also takes us is, if you are a self-centered, oblivious slob who talks very loudly and constantly drops f-bombs while on a cell phone, you are likely to do the same when not on a phone. Some conjecture here, but if you are of the digital generation, and grew up sitting in front of a computer instead of playing sports or at least getting some exercise, and spent your teen years chasing virtual chicks on the web instead of real girls in the neighborhood, you may be mentally, physically, and emotionally out of synch and unprepared for the real world. So porn may be as essential to you at 24 as it was at 14, and will be at 34, 44, and so on. And you may be more likely than not to have a dog that doesn’t mind and a new wife who isn’t the most beautiful or cultured catch in her class. Like I said, logic and conjecture, and no studies to link you to here. But if you, or someone important to you, fit the profile, you should care.

Trees factor in as well. Believe it or not.
    When I lived in the old house as a child, the nearby brick ranches were part of a new neighborhood built into old forest and vegetation. Native trees and leafy wild plants in those backyards helped form a sound barrier between our back porch and theirs. Since then, thanks to ad campaigns foisted on a gullible public by Scotts and other facets of the lawn-industry mafia, homeowners have been shamed into destroying as much natural vegetation as possible to plant more of the green desert known as fescue. And why not? Image, and staying in lock-step with the neighbors, is all that matters: Why care about the environment?
    The bad news for those of us who still have “natural” yards is we can now see and hear the oblivious slobs who live next door, and we occasionally have to defend in court our right to a lawn that hasn’t changed in 50 years because they updated theirs last year. The good news is killing trees kills people, so the neighbors are killing themselves and we won’t have to put up with them much longer.
    You think I am joking? Well, a recent study (“A Lack of Trees Can Kill You, Study Says”) shows there is a spike in deaths from cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease when trees are removed.

With the loud-neighbors issue resolving itself thanks to their tree cutting, we still have the mosquito problem. Why is that? At my home place we not only have the original native mosquito I grew up with, but we also have the “tiger mosquito” newcomer. Some reports claim this Southeast Asian interloper arrived in Texas 30 years ago in a tire shipment and spread from there, which again raises the obvious question: “Does anything good for America ever come from Texas?”
    Isn’t there some sort of predator that could kill just the mosquitoes, and not harm anything else?
    Well, yes there is, which brings us to the missing link in my bird population, and those sharp notes that used to ring across my yard: “Bob-bob-white! Bob-bob-white!”
In the past few years, back in the place I grew up decades ago, I have spotted more than 100 different species of birds: Not bad for an in-town location. But one bird is notably missing: the bobwhite. Why? When the neighbors cut their trees, they also destroyed the native groundcover, such as periwinkle, so they could plant fescue and achieve the ornate lawn the ads told them they needed. When they did so, they destroyed the cover in which bobwhite quail could hide their nests, their baby quail, and themselves, from predators. And would you care to guess what is a favorite summer food for quail? Insects, including mosquitoes. In fact, some reports say one quail will eat thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes in a summer season. Which may not completely kill off the mosquitoes that now flock around places where they didn’t used to be, but it could help.

So there you have it. Trees, quail, mosquitoes, and neighbors talking loudly of porn are all connected. And they are all connected to nature. And you should care.
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Copyright © 2013 by motomynd

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