In Celebration of Fireflies

Over the 6 years since we bought our home in Southern New Hampshire, our backyard has gone through many iterations – but only this last one has done the impossible: It has brought the fireflies back.

Our little homestead is located on the side of a hill near downtown. While our front yard is fairly level and normal, our backyard is tiered to account for the drastic decline from our home to the yard proper. There are three tiers: the deck, the landing, and the yard. It’s really quite a lovely space – it’s hell for a mower and impossible for a snowblower – but it’s ours, and that’s what matters.

The first iteration was the move-in purge. I pulled up everything that I couldn’t easily identify. There was a garden area that grew dust and rocks, generic shrubs along the dilapidated fence, and a giant peach tree that didn’t grow edible peaches. We leveled off one area for a plastic shed/playhouse for the boys. There were at least a few years of fertilizer, mowing and seeding, watering and patching. None of it worked. Our yard did not, by any means, want to be suburban idyllic.

I experimented with gardening to hilariously awful results. I tried flowers, then vegetables, then flowers again. The peach tree, which until this point only grew hard, bitter little things that never turned peach in color, snapped in two during a windstorm. The only things that would (and still do) readily grow were invasive vines, weeds, tiger lilies, and mint, which, let’s be honest, you can’t kill if you tried.

All the while, we’ve had sheds and wood piles and brush piles and dirt piles and, to my count, 3 different firepits with multiple outdoor furniture sets. We rebuilt the entire fence from scratch ourselves. We’ve placed and replaced our outdoor clothesline at least 4 times with rope and then wire, and it’s still not fully functional. What our neighbor must think of the crazy people next door, I’ll never know, but I imagine it’s something along the lines of “What in God’s name are they doing now?” We must be a constant source of amusement.

With our boys out of the “let’s play in the backyard” phase, we got the bees and chickens. With this decision came a big ol’ FUCK IT for the yard. Let the grass grow as long as it wants – the pollinators will flourish. Let the shrubs do their thing – the chickens will keep them clean. There will be no raking – let nature do what it wants. Overall, our backyard looks like an overgrown field in the very best of ways.

This “be and let bee” mentality has had a profound effect both on our yard and our mentality. We stress a lot less about upkeep. The chickens don’t give one shit if the grass is mowed or if there are pretty pinterest steppingstones – they poop everywhere anyway. Never have we sprayed for mosquitoes – that kills everything. Our duck? He loves his little ghetto pond so much. We don’t rake because of the pollinator cocoons that can look like dried leaves, and we only mow paths to the apiary, the coop, and the firepit.

The yard itself is absolutely flourishing. We have a little brown bunny who visits us every day. We have a groundhog I can neither confirm nor deny that we’ve tried to kill in at least 5 different ways (including Alex grabbing his air rifle and creeping down the stairs like a bearded, boxer-shorted Elmer Fudd at 7 a.m.). There are so many birds. The bees are so happy, and the chickens and duck are thriving.

Which leads me to our newest discovery: Our fireflies.

Never, since we moved in, have we seen fireflies. They are a relic of our youths, a pastime, a sign of a well spent summer in the late 80s. But not here – not anymore. The other night, sticky and hot, we walked outside to put the chickies to bed, and there they were. Blink. Blink blink. Blink.

You guys, we have fireflies again. They came back. Nature prevailed. It confirmed for us that finally – finally – we are doing all the right things. This journey we’re taking toward being more natural and self-sustaining is really working. Holy shit.