Spring Has Sprung on the Dingle Peninsula - Living with Critters

After a soggy, soggy winter, spring has well and truly sprung.

This little one was resting across the fence from the church yard this morning, along with its twin and mama. Two days old.

I got into the garden today. Just cleaning up. No big ambitions this year. I have a dozen daffodil bulbs to get in the ground. That’s it for planting. No potatoes. A friend asked, “What are you harvesting this year?” My answer: “A book.”

Seventeen days to pub date. There is an air of unreality about that. So many of those promo things that I am letting pass me by. Some disruptions on the health front—caring for a loved one is a higher priority than recruiting a ground team.

Yesterday I was determined to take a sanity break and get into the garden. Today it happened.

Okay, there is something else I am harvesting: reels. This is my second. The first went up on Instagram. Hopelessly amateur. But hey—the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the pro has made more mistakes. I’m just beginning to make mistakes.

Anyway—that bumblebee. The blessing of living in this village in Ireland and the blessing of living in that gritty little tourist town in Costa Rica is the lived experience of sharing the planet with other critters. I can’t mow until June, because bumblebees, as well as rabbits, some birds, and who knows who else, make their nests in my tall tufts of unmown grass. Not mine, is it? It’s theirs. It’s ours. We share the space. And if I take up more than my share, surely I can bear to have a lawn that looks like I am too busy doing other things than to spend it destroying other critters’ homes.

We lost heart about our little casita in Costa Rica. We lived in a condo association, along with four other houses. For a long while, the others were owned by a landlord who wasn’t into maintenance. But then North Americans bought those houses. They decided to fumigate the entire property three times a year. No more bugs.

No more bugs meant no more geckos. Each year there were fewer, and fewer kiskadees, those cheery yellow birds that sing their name, kiss-ka-dee. Desarrollo. It means development. Sounds like destruction.

Will “development” kill the bumblebees on the Dingle Peninsula? I don’t know. There is a strong ethos of connection to the land, and to the sacredness of the land here. It will hold out longer.

You’re welcome to come and experience this place. But don’t stay. It rains a lot. A lot.

Or if you stay, don’t mow your garden until June.