"Let me tell you about the birds and the bees
and the flowers and the trees
and the moon up above and a thing called love"
There is no place I would rather be on the first weekend of April than my five acres of pasture, ponds, gardens and log home in Hendersonville, TN. One thing that I love about Tennessee is the biodiversity of plants and wildlife that exists in the Volunteer State. That diversity is never more beautiful than on the first weekend of April.
Stepping off the back porch I startled the Chickadees that apparently have "hooked up" and are now building a nest at a very inappropriate spot on the side porch. They will soon be followed by the even messier Barn Swallows that have adopted the same spot for 2o years where they build Adobe high rises. Not long from now the eggs will be hatching and baby birds will be covering the porch with bird crap. Oh the "circle of life" now where is my pressure waser?
From the porch I can see over twenty varieties of Butter Cups in bloom, brilliant yellow Forsythias, red Hawthorn, the burst of white from the borders of Pear Trees, Purple Saucer Magnolias, hot pink Redbirds, and the first green leaves of the Weeping Willow. I think our natural attraction to flowers must be teaching us lessons in beauty and the mysteries of sexuality.
This display of color in a reawakened earth is in sharp contact, to a snowy landscape of six weeks ago. The season changes are so dramatic in Tennessee. I love the beaches, the desert Southwest, and Mountain peaks, but I could never live in an environment where there was not distinctive season changes.
The bees are buzzing today and wood bees large and small are eating our log home. The holes they bore will soon be plugged entombing a new generation of soon to be hatched baby bees to feast on the oak, cedar, and poplar logs that shield us from the elements.
Walking toward the gardens I pass the frog ponds in the Bald Cypress swamp. The frog pond is the amphibian equivalent of a disco, complete with the music of the three varieties of frogs. One variety chirps like crickets while the bullfrogs lay down a base and tuba riff. A real meeting spot for the mating dance, and yes Wild, Wild Sex. I have already seen my first tadpole.
My next backyard observation can be best expressed in today's hippty hop rabbit vernacular. A home bunnie is chasing his bitch around the field. She stops, he catches up, she runs off, hecatches up; what a tease. I can't say I observed them doing what rabbits do, but I am sure that the hare and his ho had a successful booty call. Soon there will be a gang of little bunnies eating my new lettuce plants in the garden.
All this excitement and stimulation is just too much and I sit down by the Koi pond to contemplate if there really is too much exposure to sex in our society. Well the answer came quickly. The Koi have started their spring break and it's time for "Fishes Gone Wild". If you have ever seen Koi before spawning it is quite a show. The males flash by turning sideways on the bottom, and all the males gang up and chase the female at time pushing her up and out of the water. A whole lot of splashing going on! I wonder if there is a web site for fish porn?
I could go on and on with my observations, but instead I will challenge you to make your own discoveries. It's a wild, beautiful, sexy world and there is no better time and place to observe it than in the first week of April in your own back yard in Hendersonville Tennessee...
