Holmes also drives home the point that what goes around comes around, as in pollution. Skillfully, she telescopes natural history, describing the evolution of Maine’s landscape and habitat in a paragraph: “The number of different animals and plants…in my yard had been shrinking since the first people and dogs sauntered in twelve thousand years ago….Then, when the Europeans arrived, nearly every tree in the state was felled.” She reveals the paradox that, while the wild animals couldn’t survive on pastures, the creation of suburbs reversed this trend with their trees and flowers. Holmes writes in a strong, sweeping style, describing shifting plates of rock, receding glaciers and the paths that water and wind take as they pass or have passed over her neighborhood, both now and through history - in addition to observing nature up close. Regarding Mainers with patches of green not turned to vegetable-growing or a compost pile, she writes, “And if we must have a shag rug outdoors, by gorry, we ain’t gonna manicure the blasted thing.” No weed-killing chemicals spilling into groundwater and the Atlantic, on whose shore she lives. Her lawn, like an experimental patch at the White House (yes, that one) among others, is of a type called Freedom Lawns that allow whatever survives the mower and drought to grow. For Holmes, there’s no question that chemical intervention to create velvet turf is too high a cost. “Each time I sit in a lawn chair,” she confesses, “I cringe to think how many little citizens those plastic feet are crushing.”Īnd then there’s the lawn dilemma. She takes on the challenge to observe the small plot of land around her 1920s bungalow for a year from a lawn chair (except that she rarely seems to sit - more often it’s crawling around on the ground or tracking critters around her mini-Eden).
In Suburban Safari, South Portland writer Hannah Holmes manages to make science and nature writing fun, understandable, amusing and amazing.
There are worlds within worlds around the tomato plants, the bird feeder and the lawn. Crows take on a new meaning, squirrels gain respect, earthworms (a European immigrant) fascinate, and slugs, well, they remain slugs. Anyone who reads this book can’t look at their backyard the same ever again.
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