Tag Archives: Field Notes

What Is Your Yard For?

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Photo from the Guardian

 

What I Noticed

While taking my daily virtual field trip through the news, I noticed an article about a couple in Highland Park, Illinois, who gradually transformed much of their conventional lawn into a landscape filled with native plants.

What had once been primarily grass now attracts birds, butterflies, bees and other wildlife.

At first, I noticed the article because of the nature connection. I have spent much of my life thinking about landscapes, wildlife habitat and conservation. But as I continued reading, I began thinking about something broader.

What It Made Me Think About

What is a yard actually for?

That sounds like a ridiculously simple question. But how often do we actually ask it?

Many of us acquire a house with a lawn because that is what came with the house. We mow it. Maybe we fertilize it. We control weeds. Some people water it. We buy equipment to maintain it or pay someone else to do the work.

And year after year, we keep doing it.

But why?

There are plenty of good answers. A lawn can be a wonderful place for children to play, for a dog to run, for friends to gather or simply for someone who enjoys the appearance of an open green space.

But what about the portions of our yards that we maintain primarily because that’s what we’ve always done?

That is what this article made me ponder.

A yard is an asset. And like any asset, perhaps it is worth occasionally asking what we want it to do for us.

Could part of it grow food?

Could part provide habitat for birds and pollinators?

Could a tree provide shade that makes sitting outside more enjoyable?

Could a small garden give us flowers to photograph, butterflies to watch or simply a reason to walk outside every morning and see what changed overnight?

Could changing part of a lawn actually reduce some maintenance while increasing enjoyment?

And there is no single correct answer.

The point isn’t that everyone should replace their lawn with native plants.

The point is to notice the lawn in the first place.

Instead of seeing it simply as something that needs to be mowed again, perhaps we could occasionally stop and ask:

What is this little piece of land for—and what would I like it to provide?

Maybe the answer is grass.

Maybe it’s tomatoes.

Maybe it’s a pollinator garden.

Maybe it’s a shade tree and a comfortable chair.

Maybe it’s a place for the grandchildren to play.

Maybe it’s some of each.

That seems to me like a small example of The Stewardship Way.

Notice something we already have.

Become curious about it.

Ask whether we’re managing it intentionally or simply continuing what we’ve always done.

And then decide whether anything needs to change.

Sometimes the answer may be nothing at all.

But we wouldn’t know that until we stopped long enough to notice.

Read the Article Yourself

The article that started me pondering this was “How one American couple ditched their lawn and created a wildlife haven.” It tells the story of an Illinois couple who gradually changed their conventional yard and what happened as wildlife began returning.

Read the article in The Guardian

A Question to Ponder:
If your yard is an asset, what return would you like it to provide—not simply in dollars, but in time, enjoyment, food, beauty, wildlife, purpose or memories?

 

Another Jack-o’-Lantern

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A few days ago, I took another short walk down Waldenmaier Road and noticed another small patch of bright orange Jack-o’-lantern mushrooms growing at the base of a decaying tree.

Did you know?

Jack-o’-lantern mushrooms are bioluminescent. Their gills can produce a faint greenish glow in the dark through a chemical reaction similar to the one that allows fireflies to glow.

But there is more going on here than an interesting mushroom.

Fungi are among nature’s great recyclers. They help break down dead wood and other organic material, returning nutrients to the soil where they can become part of another generation of life.

The orange mushrooms are simply the part we happen to notice.

Much of the real work is taking place out of sight.

Sometimes stewardship begins by noticing what nature is already doing.

Before We Change a Place, Do We Know What It Is Already Doing?

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What I Noticed

During my daily virtual field trip through the news, I noticed an article on a website about San José, California, and the city’s effort to make it easier to build small multifamily housing in existing residential neighborhoods.

There are plenty of stories these days about communities trying to increase housing supply, so that alone probably would not have caused me to stop.

What caught my attention were the exceptions.

What the Article Was About

San José is considering a process that would make some small multifamily housing projects easier and faster to approve. But the city is not proposing to treat every residential parcel exactly the same.

Properties in certain flood-prone areas, along riparian corridors, in environmentally sensitive locations, or containing significant historic resources would continue to receive additional review.

That made me stop.

San José has more than 30 streams and roughly 136 miles of riparian corridors. Those narrow pieces of land beside streams may perform several functions at the same time. They can carry and temporarily store water, provide wildlife habitat, support vegetation, influence water quality, offer recreational opportunities, and affect what happens upstream and downstream during heavy rainfall.

Yet on a zoning map, the same piece of land may simply look like a parcel where someone could build another home.

What It Made Me Wonder

That made me wonder whether one of the problems we sometimes create for ourselves begins with how narrowly we define an asset.

If we look at a piece of property only as a potential building site, then the obvious question becomes:

How much can we build there?

But what if the same land is already doing several other things?

What if it helps carry stormwater?

What if it provides room for a stream to move?

What if trees growing there help cool a neighborhood?

What if it provides wildlife habitat?

What if it contains something historically significant?

Suddenly the question becomes more complicated.

Maybe the first question should not be:

What could we put here?

Maybe it should be:

What is this place already doing?

What I Am Pondering

This does not mean that San José should not build more housing. Housing is also an asset, and communities have legitimate reasons to consider how existing neighborhoods can accommodate more people.

But perhaps good stewardship begins with a more complete inventory.

Before changing an asset, do we understand all of the functions it currently performs?

Who benefits from those functions?

What would be lost if they disappeared?

Could some of those functions be replaced somewhere else?

What would replacement cost?

And are there things that cannot easily be recreated once they are gone?

The same questions could be asked about a wetland, an old building, a golf course, a farm, a vacant lot, a neighborhood park, or even an apparently unused piece of land.

There may also be another important question:

Are we solving today’s problem in a way that unnecessarily limits the choices available to people tomorrow?

That does not mean preserving everything exactly as it is.

It means noticing what is already there before deciding what it should become.

What This Might Mean in Anyplace, USA

San José may be hundreds or thousands of miles from where most of us live, but the stewardship question is not really about California.

It could apply in Anyplace, USA.

A town wants more housing.

A developer wants to build on a wet field.

A community wants to widen a road.

A school district owns unused land.

A golf course closes.

An old factory becomes vacant.

A stream runs through property someone wants to develop.

A wooded parcel looks like an obvious place for another subdivision.

Before deciding what comes next, perhaps we should stop long enough to notice what is already there.

Not simply what we call it.

Not merely what the tax map says it is worth.

But what functions it performs, what history it contains, who depends upon it, and what choices changing it may eliminate.

That seems like a pretty good place for stewardship to begin.

Question to Ponder:
Before we decide what a place should become, have we taken the time to notice everything it already is?

Read the Article Yourself

This Field Note began with something I noticed while reading about San José’s proposed changes to its housing and land-use policies.

Don’t just take my word for it. Read the source material yourself. You may notice something I didn’t, wonder about something different, or come away with an entirely different perspective.

Click Here to read the plan.

Then ask yourself:

What did you notice? What did it make you wonder about?

Come wander and wonder with me.

Each day I take both real and virtual field trips looking for Notice Moments—things that cause me to stop, become curious and ask questions. Sometimes I find them along a trail or roadside. Sometimes I find them while reading the news. I don’t share them because I already know the answer. I share them because they seem worth noticing—and because you may notice something I missed.

A Journey Across the Road

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While walking at Hollyhock Hollow a few days ago, I noticed this unusual creature slowly making its way across the gravel road. It is a hellgrammite, the aquatic larval stage of the dobsonfly.

For most of its life, it lived hidden beneath rocks in a clean, well-oxygenated stream, where it was an active predator. But when the time comes, it leaves the water and crawls onto land to complete one of the most remarkable transformations in the insect world.

To me, it was simply crossing a road.

To the hellgrammite, it was the final leg of a journey that had taken years.

It made me wonder how many extraordinary stories are unfolding beneath our feet every day—stories we never see because we never stop to notice.

Stewardship begins with noticing.

— Ron Dodson

I also can’t help but smile at the mystery behind the adult’s name. No one seems to know for certain why it’s called a dobsonfly. Perhaps somewhere in history there really was a Mr. or Ms. Dobson who admired them… or maybe even a distant relative. 😉

Deadly flooding in West Virginia finds prevention plans unaddressed

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When a community already knows where flooding is likely to occur, at what point does repeated disaster stop being only a weather story and become a stewardship story?

What I Noticed

West Virginia prepared a statewide flood-protection plan in 2004. After devastating flooding in 2016, it created a resiliency office partly responsible for keeping that plan current. Yet major recommendations, dependable funding, and implementation mechanisms remained incomplete as damaging floods continued.

What It Makes Me Wonder

What is the practical difference between having a plan and stewarding a place according to one? Who was supposed to act, what prevented action, what costs were deferred, and what evidence should the public expect to see before the next storm?

Source Article to Read

To read the article in Mountain State Spotlight’s July 29 investigation, click: “Deadly flooding in West Virginia finds prevention plans unaddressed.” 

Stewardship Way Virtual Field Trip

Every day I take a virtual field trip through the news searching for stories that help us better understand the stewardship of places. Most simply go into my Notice Moment Reserve. Occasionally one makes me stop, notice, and ponder. This is one of those stories.

I don’t share these to tell you what to think. I share them because they raise questions worth asking. I invite you to read the original article and come wander and wonder with me.

“I don’t share these to tell you what to think. I share them because they raise questions worth asking.”

Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail, Delmar, NY — July 22, 2026

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Yesterday I went for a walk along the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail where it passes through Delmar, New York.

There were several other walkers and bike riders on the trail—and at least one reddish-brown stag beetle.

As I passed him, I politely said, “On your left.”

He didn’t seem to care.

Sometimes a Notice Moment doesn’t need to lead to a grand conclusion. I noticed a beetle sharing the trail with the rest of us. I stopped long enough to take his picture. And for a few moments, an ordinary walk became a little more interesting.

That is reason enough to notice.

And the photograph is terrific for it: this rather imposing beetle occupying his little piece of asphalt while the enormous human traffic goes around him.

The Sound of a Season Passing

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Field Notes — July 20, 2026

Early this evening, I went for a short walk in a nature preserve in Bethlehem, New York. As usual, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I was just walking and noticing.

The first thing I noticed was something that wasn’t there.

Birdsong.

The preserve was surprisingly quiet. I heard very few birds and saw only a couple of robins. Just a few weeks ago, the woods seemed alive with birds singing, calling, establishing territories, and raising their young.

Now, things are changing.

The spring migrants have long since passed through on their journeys farther north, and many of the birds that nest here are mostly finished with the busiest part of their nesting season. There isn’t as much reason to sing as there was earlier in the year.

The seasons are moving along.

Then I began noticing some of the things that were there.

A few fungi.

Different plants.

And Joe-Pye weed beginning to flower—a plant I associate with mid- to late summer here in upstate New York.

I didn’t need a calendar to tell me that summer is moving along. The preserve told me.

Less birdsong. Joe-Pye weed blooming.

Those were my Notice Moments today.

Sometimes we notice something because it suddenly appears.

And sometimes we notice because something that was once all around us has quietly disappeared.

Either way, nature is always telling us something.

We just have to notice.

A Cell Phone, but No Toilet

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A Notice Moment – From the Field

Today I listened to a TED Talk, something I do on a fairly regular basis. I enjoy learning a new thing or two, picking up some little morsel of knowledge that I didn’t have when the day began.

Sometimes those morsels are interesting.

Sometimes they are useful.

And sometimes they stop me in my tracks.

Today was one of those days.

According to the speaker, around 8 billion people in the world now have access to a cell phone. At the same time, around 3.5 billion people do not have access to a toilet. And of those, around 400 million people still practice what is referred to as “open defecation.”

Now, I haven’t dug deeply into those numbers yet. That will come next.

But this isn’t a Stewardship Guide. It’s a Field Note—a Notice Moment—and Notice Moments often begin before we have all the answers.

We notice something.

And then we ponder it.

My immediate reaction was pretty simple:

In 2026, there is something deeply flawed with the overall system.

Think about it.

As a global society, we have developed the technology and infrastructure necessary to put a sophisticated communication device into the hands of billions of people. A person can potentially stand almost anywhere on Earth holding a small computer capable of communicating across continents, accessing vast amounts of human knowledge, taking photographs, watching videos, conducting business, and connecting with people thousands of miles away.

Yet billions of people apparently still lack access to something as basic as a safe and sanitary place to go to the bathroom.

I’m not suggesting that the problem is simple. I’m sure it isn’t.

Nor am I suggesting that cell phones are somehow the problem. They aren’t.

What caught my attention is the contrast.

There is also a certain irony in all of this that is hard for me to ignore.

I suspect that a fair percentage of those billions of people who have both a cell phone and a toilet routinely use the two at the same time. Apparently, sitting on the toilet and scrolling through a cell phone has become something of a modern human pastime.

Which makes me wonder if we’re looking at this problem all wrong.

Maybe the world’s cell phone companies should get into the toilet business.

After all, they have already figured out how to get their products into the hands of billions of people around the world. Perhaps it’s time they started working on creating a few billion more cell phone use stations.

I’m kidding, of course.

Well…mostly.

Because beneath the humor is a serious question about priorities. We humans are remarkably good at creating systems that can manufacture, market, sell and distribute things people want. Yet we seem far less successful at creating systems that ensure everyone has access to some of the most basic things people need.

Why is that?

I don’t know.

At least not yet.

But now I’m curious.

And that is what happens with a Notice Moment.

You are moving along through your day when something catches your attention. Maybe it’s a bird you’ve never noticed before. Maybe it’s something growing alongside the road. Maybe it’s a pile of stuff in your basement that hasn’t been touched in twenty years.

Or maybe it’s a statistic you hear while listening to a TED Talk.

You notice.

You stop.

You ponder.

And sometimes you begin asking questions that you weren’t asking five minutes earlier.

This particular Notice Moment is going into my mental compost pile for a while. I need to learn more about sanitation, infrastructure, poverty, public health and the numbers themselves.

But the question that first popped into my head isn’t going away:

If we can figure out how to put a cell phone within reach of nearly everyone on Earth, why haven’t we figured out how to do the same thing with a toilet?

I don’t know where that question will lead.

But I noticed it.

And now I’m curious.

P.S. If you happen to be reading this while sitting on a toilet and scrolling on your cell phone…well, I rest my case. 😂

The Value of a Hole in a Tree

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Most people walking a nature trail probably wouldn’t give a second thought to a hole in an old tree. A few days ago, while hiking through a small nature preserve near my home, I stopped to look more closely at this one.

As a biologist, I immediately recognized it as a cavity likely excavated by a Pileated Woodpecker. These impressive birds, nearly crow-sized, use their powerful bills to carve nesting and roosting cavities into dead or declining trees.

But what caught my attention wasn’t just the woodpecker. It was the reminder that this hole represents something much larger: the importance of leaving some dead and dying trees standing whenever they do not pose a safety risk to people, homes, or other structures.

Wildlife biologists often refer to birds as either primary cavity nesters or secondary cavity nesters.

Primary cavity nesters, such as Pileated Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, and Hairy Woodpeckers, create their own nesting cavities. Secondary cavity nesters, however, cannot excavate cavities themselves. Species such as Chickadees, Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, some owls, and even certain ducks depend on cavities that have already been created by woodpeckers or formed naturally through decay.

In many ways, woodpeckers serve as nature’s carpenters. Their work provides homes not only for themselves, but for an entire community of wildlife that follows.

And the story doesn’t end with birds.

Tree cavities may also shelter squirrels, bats, flying squirrels, raccoons, insects, salamanders, and countless other creatures. What appears to be a simple hole in a tree is actually a valuable piece of habitat.

As people, we often focus on living trees—and rightly so. But standing dead trees, sometimes called “snags,” play an equally important role in healthy ecosystems. A forest without a few snags is a little like a neighborhood without apartments. There simply aren’t enough places for many residents to live.

The next time you encounter an old tree with a cavity along a trail, pause for a moment. What looks like decay may actually be a sign of life. Someone built that home, someone may be living there now, and many others may depend on it in the years ahead.

Sometimes a hole in a tree tells a much bigger story than we realize.

— Ron Dodson
The Nature of Things 🌿

A Walk Through Van Dyke Spinney Preserve

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Yesterday evening, Theresa and I decided to take a short walk through the Van Dyke Spinney Preserve, located less than a mile from our home in the Town of Bethlehem, New York.

This 33-acre preserve was accepted by the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy in 2012 as part of the permitting process for a nearby residential development. What might appear to be a small tract of land on a map provides an impressive diversity of habitats, including forests, wetlands, floodplain communities, and stream corridors.

The preserve features a gently rolling one-mile loop trail that winds through mature woodlands and alongside portions of the Phillipinkill, a tributary of the Vlomans Kill, which eventually flows into the Hudson River. Along the trail, visitors encounter small bridges, seasonal wetlands, towering trees, native wildflowers, and quiet views of the stream as it meanders through the floodplain.

One of the things I appreciate most about Van Dyke Spinney Preserve is how accessible it is. Located at 246 Van Dyke Road in Delmar, New York, the preserve includes a convenient parking area and offers an easy opportunity to spend an hour immersed in nature without traveling far from home.

During our walk, the forest was alive with the soft light of early evening filtering through the canopy. Forget-me-nots bloomed along the trail edges, the Phillipinkill reflected the surrounding greenery like a mirror, and the cool, shaded woods provided a welcome escape from the day’s heat. It was a reminder that meaningful encounters with nature do not require a trip to a national park or a remote wilderness area. Sometimes they can be found just down the road.

Places like Van Dyke Spinney Preserve demonstrate the value of local land conservation. They protect water quality, provide wildlife habitat, preserve natural beauty, and offer nearby residents a chance to reconnect with the natural world. For those of us interested in conservation and stewardship, they also serve as living classrooms where we can observe, learn, and simply enjoy the wonders of nature.

As I often remind readers of The Nature of Things, stewardship begins by noticing things. A short walk on a local trail can lead to discoveries, appreciation, and ultimately a deeper connection with the places we call home.