From The Innkeepers

On Sharing Space

In its verb form, the word “spring” means to take a giant leap, which is exactly what’s been happening around here in recent days. After months of a muted brown and gray landscape, we are suddenly surrounded by vibrant greens. We have tulips and daffodils popping with color in the front garden beds. The lake, pond, and wetlands are now alive with frogs singing, muskrats swimming, and turtles sunning themselves in the grass. Two trumpeter swans have claimed the lake. They will share it with geese, ducks, and cranes, but no other swans are allowed. Down at the pond, different negotiations have been unfolding.

We had geese on the property last summer and fall, but I didn’t pay much attention to them. They were already here when we arrived in August, and we were occupied with more important details, like finding which box our socks were in and learning how to run a business. But after surviving the long, brutal winter, noticing each sign of spring became a new sport. The geese were some of the last waterfowl to return, arriving only after the swans and the sandhill cranes had already staked out their territory. When a pair of geese began showing up at the pond to spend their days sampling the lush grass around the banks and taking an occasional swim across the water, I thought we had our summer residents. But a few days later I noticed that there was only one goose who spent the day at the pond. That went on for a few days. It seemed odd to see a goose by itself. 

Soon, the lone goose was gone, and the couple was back. At first I thought the goose’s mate had returned, but then I saw that the lone goose was in the backyard while the couple reclaimed the pond. Later that night, I saw the solo goose and the pair floating in the same area of the lake. A pattern developed. Some days the couple would be by the pond, and the lone goose would be in the backyard by the pavilion, and some days they would swap locations. By sunset, everyone would return to the lake, but the couple made sure the lone goose kept his distance. They chased him off when he got too close. 

The more I observed, the more I learned about geese. They honk when they’re getting ready to take off. They honk when they feel threatened. And they spend less time in the water than you would think. They spend most of their days on land, eating grass and just sitting around. It made me sad whenever I saw the lone goose sitting in the grass by the pond passing the hours by himself. When he was ready to fly back to the lake, he would honk, telling no one in particular, and then take off on his own. It was a certain kind of heartbreak to watch. I named him Han Solo. 

I did a little research on why a goose would be by itself. It turns out geese mate for life, and a goose might be alone for a few reasons. It may be a young goose that hasn’t yet found a mate. It may be a male who has a mate on a nest, or it may be a goose that lost its mate. I have been watching this goose for weeks now, and he is truly alone. He isn’t always going back to the same area, so that rules out the possibility of a mate on a nest. I can’t tell how old he is, so I don’t know if he’s just a young guy looking for the right lady. And I hope so very much that he isn’t a widow.

Regardless of Han Solo’s circumstances, the hardest part in watching him is knowing that there is nothing I can do about his aloneness. He is a wild animal and I am a domesticated human, and the natural order of things says we should not be interacting. We must keep our distance, but we can coexist. That seems to be a theme around here. 

The other day, Aaron and I were walking the lake trail and decided to hike up into the meadow. As we crested the hill, we inadvertently startled a sedge of cranes that had been congregating in the meadow. (Yes I just looked up what a group of cranes is called, and yes, a sedge!) Seven sandhill cranes taking off at once from thirty feet away is a sight that takes your breath away. Better yet, rather than flying away from the meadow, they swooped into the air and soared in circles around the meadow, spiraling higher and higher until they were hard to see. They were clearly waiting us out, standing their ground from high in the sky, waiting to reclaim their resting place in the grasses. 

The wild animals tolerate us around here. The other day I was weeding below the bird feeders, and a red-winged blackbird that lives in one of the maples out front was clearly annoyed by my presence and yelled at me for quite some time. After a while, he gave up and landed on the bird feeder, grabbing some seed as a test run first, and then begrudgingly returned to have an evening snack while I dug in the dirt a few feet away. In the back wetland a few days ago, Aaron and I spotted a beaver hunched over a snack on a little island near the shore. As we watched, it slipped into the water and swam away, clearly disturbed by our excited chatter and picture taking. Paparazzi are loathed by celebrities and wildlife alike.

Around this same time that I noticed Han Solo and contemplated whether I could help him, the Artemis II mission launched into space. It wasn’t until my sister-in-law shared a video of the launch from her Florida vacation that I even learned it was happening. Watching my family witness this historic moment captured my attention and immediately brought me back to memories of being home sick from school one day in 6th grade and watching the Challenger explode on live TV. Thankfully, the Artemis launch was a success, and over the course of their mission, I got caught up in the excitement, watching video clips of the astronauts sharing their awe as they witnessed their first “earth rise” and did a drive-by on the dark side of the moon. I lost it completely when I saw the video of astronaut Jeremy Hansen requesting to name a crater Carroll after his crewmate Reid Wiseman’s late wife, who is now a bright spot on the moon in a place that can be seen from Earth on clear nights. I learned that one of the astronauts, Christina Koch, was born in Grand Rapids, and spent her childhood summers at her grandparents’ farm in Sparta, MI, less than an hour away from the Inn. 

On the last day of their mission, I said a silent prayer that they would return safely and felt so relieved when they did. In the days following, the four-person crew spoke to audiences, sharing what they’d experienced in space, still glowing with love for each other, for their supporting team, and for our home, planet earth. I watched astronaut Victor Glover standing outside his house telling his neighbors he loved them and challenging them to actually be neighbors to each other. 

These brave souls hurtled themselves a quarter of a million miles away from our planet and came back to tell us how much we should love our neighbors. That evening, I watched from the back deck as Han Solo spent the evening by himself by the pavilion and then flew back to the lake after sunset, keeping a respectful distance from the other two. 

Days after they returned, I continued to see clips of the astronauts being interviewed. The one that has impacted me the most is Christina Koch, sharing what she knows now for sure after she saw what she calls “Tiny Earth” hanging in a void of blackness, a lifeboat to us all. She explained that she had learned some things about what it means to be a part of a crew. That a crew is a team that has the same cares and needs and is “inescapably, beautifully, dutifully linked.” It made me think of every creature on these 136 acres, sharing space in the same water, the same grass, the same air. Inescapably, beautifully linked. She then shared the epiphany that rang so true to me, especially now, living here on this land: “Planet Earth, you are a crew.”