Parenting That Which Is Older Than Me

We had walked the nascent prairie that just days before had been burned in preparation for seeding; we had signed the agreements committing us to ongoing prairie management in exchange for cost assistance, and now the agents from the Department of Natural Resources and the Fish and Wildlife Agency were standing with me looking out over the acres.  We looked past the 1/4 acre garden I have developed; beyond the 2-dozen fruit trees we have planted since moving to this plot of ground almost three years ago, and surveyed the 3-acres we are beginning to restore to native prairie grasses and pollinator wildflowers.

"When we first moved here I couldn't bring myself to dig a hole or cut a tree limb," I reflected.  "It seemed arrogant to assert my vision onto the land.  Now look at us."

The Fish and Wildlife agent turned his eyes from the window and addressed me with parental wisdom:  "Doing nothing is also a management decision."  Which I took to mean "doing nothing is, in reality, doing something."

I know this of course.  I am not unfamiliar with children whose parents have adopted a similar "hands-off" approach.  They are the dandelions of the nursery -- or the classroom or the youth group or, later, the office -- who contribute one annual burst of brilliant color, but otherwise displace most of the more desirable growth and quickly go to seed.  Doing nothing is, indeed, doing something, producing results with generally limited appeal.

The truth is I am proud of the "interventions" we have made on the land.  I prefer to think of them less as "impositions" than stewarding partnerships.  Indeed, if the DNR's aerial photos of our property from the 1930's are any indication, the kind of work we are undertaking represents some undoing of the human interventions that have dramatically reshaped this area throughout the ensuing decades; restoration, rather than alteration.  The butterflies and bees and other pollinators so diminished in those years will once again have a habitat.  That the vitality of those pollinators will also benefit my horticultural ambitions doesn't seem too self-serving or nullifying.  I rather think of it as partnership -- working "with" rather than "upon."

All that said, it still feels brazenly forward to to cut in, cut down, dig out, burn off and plant something new in its place -- even if its presence has a prior claim.  And for the record, it's a lump I hope never gets easier to swallow.  As I recognized in the very beginning of this little educational sojourn, the documents with the bank and the taxing authorities say we own this land, but we are under no such delusion.  We are simply privileged to live here for a time, and to do the best by it that we can.