EnviroStewardship: Leaving the Leaves

Dad's Environmental Stewardship column for the month somehow went missing from my inbox, so I had to go pick up a hard copy yesterday. We've had a thaw since he wrote this last weekend, so I can just add that he has raked up the leaves that were plowed onto his front yard. But the grass in back is still covered up.

🍂

Back in November of last year, I suggested that procrastination in the clean-up of the yard and garden beds might be a very good thing for birds, bees, and beneficial insects. I have no way of knowing whether anybody chose to follow that suggestion, but this year, Mother Nature seems to have decided for us.

At the time I am writing this essay, it is well below freezing. The yard and garden beds are covered with several inches of snow and leaves with dead portions of plants still uncut still sticking up through the snow. Even those leaves raked into the gutter for city pick-up and composting have been plowed back onto the lawn in a couple of feet of ice and snow.

The sudden cold snap that started in October may have been hard on some birds and other creatures, but many already are benefiting from the mulch of leaves and snow. The bees and other beneficial insects have burrowed into the ground under it all and are set to hibernate. Birds are enjoying the seeds left on the dried up plants.

We might have a very late Indian Summer in which one can once again decide to rake the lawn, chop up the leaves into a better mulching, clean up the gardens... or not. Whatever one decides, one should take into consideration the other creatures with which we share this earth.

Man — and Woman — were given dominion or governance over this earth, so we should be sure that what we do for ourselves does not unnecessarily put too high a cost on the other creatures. I prefer to say we were given stewardship of the earth. All the earth is the Lord's, as the psalmist says, but He apparently needs or wants stewards to help Him run it.

To quote the ELCA Social Statement on Caring for Creation once again, "The principle of participation means they [all living things] are entitled to be heard and have their interests considered when decisions are made." Even small decisions about our yards and gardens.

—John Berge