Enjoy nature, just like Dillard or Thoreau
Annie Dillard and Henry David Thoreau would have loved my property. It abounds with nature.
I call it an island. And unlike Dillard and Thoreau, I can step out my backdoor to study air, water, and life.
Along its east perimeter, my island is protected by a narrow river that wraps in a gentle arc from south to north; the river begins in the basalt-and-sandstone mountain to the south then meanders down the canyon to a city below (Wenatchee), before emptying itself into the Columbia, a behemoth river that crosses two countries and touches an ocean. To the west my island is bounded by a steep land wall that rises into the sky. These natural features create an eye-shaped refuge, hidden from the world by rows of trees – deciduous and evergreen. The trees and shrubs form an ecosystem ‑home to wild creatures‑ and a protective barrier against the civilized world: from spring to fall before the leaves have fallen and after the snow clots the branches in winter, my island is invisible beyond the joyous river. The only entrance to my island is by crossing one of two bridges: a wide bridge, built with concrete, steel and thick beams; the other, a wooden foot bridge, useable and slightly needing repair.
II.
My island is outside the boundaries of civilization, which has ended in spurts and fits where the last row of city-owned street lights has stopped at the valley’s edge. There are no neighbors, no Starbucks, no book stores, no grocery stores, no bus stops. Occasionally, there is a skunk that seems to come out only at 2 a.m., an announcement he makes with his stink. By day I see quail, garden spiders, a blue heron, the lone coyote or deer, lizards, Steller’s Jays, worms and centipedes. Packages come by way of UPS or FedEx trucks. All year long, people pass by here in cars, on motorcycles, on cycles, never knowing about the secret nearby. The people who pass by my island are headed away from civilization, to enjoy a day up the mountain to ski or to snowshoe; other times, they take their mountain bikes to Devils Gulch, which descends over rocks and branches into the valleys and cities below. They might be fishing in one of the quaint lakes, or hiking one of the trails. Some are hauling the cherries, apples or pears from the Stemilt orchards down to the packing houses. These excursions change with the four seasons creating a symphony of sounds that reverberate up and down the valley. Large trucks with Jake brakes sound like fighter jets roaring down the valley. Motorcycles sound like a swarm of giant bees. Garbage trucks clunk and roll like a New York City street. Snow plows swish by, sounds muffled by the snow. Sometimes the concert begins a little too early in the morning; just like the searing hot sun.
III.
At night my island is dark. As I motor my Subaru up the road and away from the city, darkness stretches for miles. From my perch high in my log cabin, I can look down toward the beaming white city below, lit up so it looks larger than it is. It sits on the Chumstick geological graben, a chunk of spilled lava that once sunk between the river and a fault line, after the lava flowed down the gorges and dried into a hard, flat surface. This is where the town sits and rumors abound that gold riches are stored beneath the homes, stone and brick buildings and pavement. Halfway up to my island, there is a mine that once provided perlite. The tunnels and ladders are still visible, wedged between the craggy vertical rock walls that make the mountain look like a rooster’s head.
My desert slip is 5.19 miles from the city's only post office, but closer each year to the civilized world that marches up the hill to plunk itself down as grids of apple and pear trees are leveled to make way for bare dirt. In the most recent encroachment, a "developer" replaced sage brush and apple trees with forty-three "cottage" homes, neatly scrunched together on the bluff above the region's water tributary. (Civilized folks are concerned with maximizing the economics of such things.) Closer to home, a city dweller purchased land above my island to build his country home; this summer he hired a fence builder to lasso my island on two sides with barbed wire, midway down the steep rock and dirt hill behind my breakfast nook. When I asked the fence builder if the new human would have cows or sheep, he said, no. I wondered at the work being put into an unnecessary fence, how people are so concerned with pissing on a tree.
IV.
And yet, despite the civilization that attempts to assert its dominance, nature usually wins, at least on my island (and in most other places when fire or slides or wind arrives). Without my striving, the trees come to life each spring: first, tiny leaves appear like slow rain drops, then buds, then blooms, before maturing in the sun to fully leafed trees baring fruit. The weeds mount their annual campaign, awakening from their slumber to quickly wage war in my garden, around my roses, and in the grass. They mock me when I try to remove them, either by digging their roots deeper into the soil, or by masquerading as spinach or a daisy. The spiders take joy in following the weeds, multiplying at amazing speed and then inviting themselves into the house.
It is in the fall, as cold air waits just outside the door, that I feel the futility of my efforts to whip nature into a civilized shape. That's when all those leaves, which have been hiding my island, fall to the ground during several wind storms that barrel through the valley. The site of these leaves, and the gaping holes in the protective shield they provide, causes an afternoon raking and piling and hauling a giant assortment of leaves in every brown color and shape, down to the garden where we spread them over the gasping weeds. As I rake and haul, I remind myself these fallen leaves have provided many benefits. I feel a sense of satisfaction when the carport is leaf-free and neat again, when the gravel driveway is visible again, when we have done our part to civilize our place. I try not to look up, at the trees, giggling at me with the plethora of leaves that still cling to their branches.
V.
All of this could have been worse. We nearly moved to a homestead on three hundred acres outside Colville, Washington, five miles from the Canadian border, where the nearest neighbor was ten miles near, and the town even farther, and where winter held its grip for more than six months. The woman selling that home didn't believe me when I told her I could survive out there. (I had visions of friends and family visiting to see the beauty of the area, staying for days in my guest room.)
VI.
And now I feel I must tell you a secret: I don’t live on an island, not some tropical island like those written about in literature or featured in popular movies or displayed in travel getaway brochures. Instead, we are here outside Wenatchee, a small town with big ambitions in Eastern Washington: we are almost close enough to civilization to feel civilized and almost far enough away to forget about it‑at least until the next snow storm freezes our driveway; or a rattlesnake gets a little too close to my door; or the neighbor down the road decides to burn out cottonwoods with fire he forgets to monitor, so that my drive becomes Grand Central Station for fifteen fire trucks as fire, crouched low like Hermes, races along where the barbed wire fence is today, 20 feet from my kitchen window.
