Transforming Chateau Papillon's Landscape: Building a Wildlife Sanctuary (Part One)

Here at Chateau Papillon, we've been hard at work on the outdoors as much (if not more so) than the indoors.  When we first moved in, the lot was something of a blank slate, outside of the wonderful mature trees surrounding the yard.  We waited through the frustrations of a short sale largely due to the yard's potential, as it backed up to Fairfax Villa Park and offered the certainty of attracting a large variety of birds and other wildlife.  Since moving in, we've planted dozens of native trees and shrubs, have reclaimed large sections of drab lawn into more naturalized habitat, and have chalked up a list of 54 different bird species to-date.  So when the Northern Virginia Audubon Society announced the "Audubon at Home" wildlife sanctuary certification program, we thought to ourselves, "We're already 95% of the way there!"

Our Habitat Certification Sign!

The Audubon at Home Wildlife Sanctuary program encourages everyone--from schools, businesses, and churches to individual homeowners--to treat their property like a wildlife habitat, by taking steps to naturalize, bring in more native plant species, and provide food, shelter, and nesting habitat to our most important and needy species of native wildlife.  The program stresses environmentally-friendly landscape management practices, from reducing and managing runoff to cutting back on pesticide and fertilizer usage, all of which are important but often-overlooked adjutants to caring for native flora and fauna.

We recently completed our certification, and looking back, have come a long way at Chateau Papillon in the just-shy-of two years we've spent here.  Though I could fill up several posts with just the "before & after" shots, a few do bear inclusion for comparison's sake today:

Backyard, in June, 2008 (before)

When we first found the listing for Chateau Papillon, the back yard was one of the biggest draws, but as you can see above, not a whole lot was going on beside the shade from the mature trees along the periphery.  We didn't do that much work outside immediately after buying and moving in over Thanksgiving in late 2008; we had too much to do inside even if the weather had been more amenable outdoors.  After a visit to Merrifield Garden Center in the early spring of 2009, we came away with a lot of ideas in our head for what to do to transform our yard and make it "ours," along with five dogwoods and a river birch to plant.

Back yard, September 2010 (after)

That first winter was fairly mild, as was the start of springtime, but we already knew one of our first challenges was going to be runoff management: after a series of March rains, we had a swamp and a river running through it in no time flat.  Just about any rainstorm left similar signs of its passing upon the yard.

Ile du Papillon?  Spring showers make for puddles and rivers in the back yard.

We have tackled that problem in stages.  The first phase is visible, in fact, in the photo above: mulching the yard and replacing grass which simply doesn't get enough sun and which doesn't thrive atop our yard's densely-packed clay.  We undertook several courses of sheet mulching, recycling many of our moving boxes into a layer of weed-choking cardboard atop which we spread several inches of leaf mould and then shredded hardwood mulch obtained free-of-charge from Fairfax County's recycling center.  (In fact, we've to-date trucked in more than 40 cubic yards of free mulching material--worth a few thousand dollars if bought by the bag from the neighborhood Home Depot.)  Over time, the sheet mulch breaks down, forming a layer of rich, well-drained soil atop the hard-packed clay.

We created mulched zones originally as "natural areas" in the shadiest parts of our yard, recreating a more natural "forest floor" beneath the mature trees.  Just the mulch alone has significantly improved our runoff management; now only the most intense of monsoons produces any "rivering" in the yard, and we've extended the mulched areas significantly across the back yard and into a large section of the front as well.  Where before a solid rain meant a muddy morass that persisted for days, we now have rich soil and mulch cover which can be walked upon within minutes of a storm's passing.

Beth and Chance Plant a Dogwood

Next, though sometimes our choices haven't been perfect, we've planted stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Starting with those five dogwoods and a river birch, we have gradually begun to define a mid-story of smaller trees and shrubs beneath the towering mature trees edging the yard.  Those first trees have been joined by many more--four more river birches, an American redbud, a pussy willow, two hawthorns, two cypresses, and numerous self-seeded tulip poplars and a mulberry.  Native shrubs by the truckload have joined the party: common ninebark (one of our favorites); more than a half-dozen red osier dogwood shrubs (beautiful red stems in the winter); American and inkberry hollies galore (and one English holly hybrid for contrast); Virginia juniper; native hemlocks; several different native Viburnums; several blueberries and a blackberry; two sweetshrubs; and several more exotic junipers.

That doesn't count all the bulbs, wildflowers, ferns, and perennials we've added, which include meadow-loving tickseed (coreopsis), purple coneflowers, Black-eyed Susan, wood aster, cardinalflower, columbine, violets, foamflower, and much more.  Outside the hostas (requisites for a shade-covered yard!) and several of the bulbs, pretty much everything is a native species, too.

Most yards really shouldn't be oceans of neatly-cut grass, anyway; grass requires a lot of fertilizer and pesticide application--bad for many reasons, including runoff--and isn't all that great from a biodiversity standpoint, either.  In fact, wide swathes of green lawns weren't in fashion in the United States until post-World Wars, when troops brought back the idea from Europe.  Habitats like meadow (filled with wildflowers and native tall grasses), wetland, and forest edges are much better homes to wildlife and better for our environment.

More to come: the Audubon Habitat at Home program is not just about the new plantings, but about control of invasive species, too.

Revisionist History from the Religious Right, Deep in the Heart of Texas

When I said I'd have to take up the ridiculous notion that America was somehow founded to be a Christian nation in a future blog post, I didn't realize I would be writing on that topic so soon!

A recent article in Britain's Guardian newspaper describes the logical (if deeply disappointing) extension of the fruitcake fringe's attempts to force creationism into our science classrooms: the Texas state school board is "considering" revising the state's history curriculum to include the "role" [the Christian] God played in the history and success of the United States.

From the Guardian article:

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual".

Barton's knowledge of history clearly deserves a bright red "F" and reflects an apparently- growing misconception of the United States' founding amongst religious (and perhaps broader) circles, which erroneously conflates the historical fact of the religious backgrounds of many of our earliest settlers with the demonstrated and deliberate secular principles of government laid down by the founders.

Yes, the Constitution was written with "God in mind": if you accept protecting citizens from the tyranny of religion as having had God in mind. Madison, Jefferson, Paine, et al, expressly excluded the very concept of a state religion in the First Amendment to protect citizens of all faiths (and none) from the very religious persecution so many groups had fled in Europe.

Debate about recognizing Christianity did arise amongst the founders, but examining Jefferson's own words on drafting Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom, it's clear that the intent, time and time again--from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution--was against establishing Christianity and indeed to reject that it and other religions as having some special place in our government:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-- Thomas Jefferson, from his autobiography

Jefferson's writings are filled with similar sentiments, as are those of other of the founding fathers who played a critical role in the shaping of our government and the early history of our country.

Likewise, a common notion offered up by revisionist Christian "historians" is that the Declaration of Independence somehow defines America as a Christian nation, which fruitcake-fringer and TX school board advisory panel member David Barton seems to be talking about with his references to the laws of "God and nature" and a "creator." Disregarding for the moment that the Declaration is hardly of real legal standing in our system of government (unlike, say, the Constitution), or the fact that it was written largely by no friend to religion (Thomas Jefferson), let's look at the language so often cited by these revisionist fruitcakes:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

-- US Declaration of Independence (emphasis mine)

Oh, my--see that "Nature's God" and "Creator" bit? Doesn't that mean the Christian God is explicitly spelled out in one of the most important documents in America's history?

Not quite. Well, not even close.

As any real historian would be able to explain, "Nature's God" and the generic "Creator" do reflect a religious belief... just not a Christian one. They are hallmarks of deism, an Enlightenment philosophy held by several of our founders and which do not bear much resemblance to Christianity (they're also--to the delight of conspiracy theorists--the hallmarks of Freemasonry, to which many of the founders also belonged). If these terms were reflective of the Christian--or even the broader Abrahamic God, to include the Judaic God and Islamic Allah--then why use such a generic term as "Nature's God?"

The acclimation of "a creator" is common to nearly every religious faith, but you do not see Barton demanding a recognition of the creation accounts of classical Greek mythology, the many Native American mythic traditions, or the farcical faiths of the Invisible Pink Unicorn or Flying Spaghetti Monster, do you?

Simply put, Barton and his ilk are poor historians at best, deliberate revisionists at worst, and rather telescopically Christiancentric in their views.

Of course, Barton doesn't limit his ignorance and ethnocentrism to religion; he twists and conflates the very notions of democracy and republican government with none other than the Democratic and Republican political parties; in a bit suitable for a late-night comedy sketch, he says (again, from the Guardian article):

Barton, a former vice-chairman of the state's Republican party, said that Texas children should no longer be taught about democratic values but republican ones. "We don't pledge allegiance to the flag and the democracy for which it stands," he said.

The most frightening aspect of this discussion--aside from the fact it exists at all--is that unlike prior attempts to insert Christian religion into the public school system, it is not occurring in a backwater like Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, or rural Pennsylvania (no disrespect to residents of those areas; stick with me for a moment), but in Texas. As described by Diane Ravitch in her fantastic (and non-partisan) lament for the detrimental role of special interest groups in the public education system, The Language Police, school textbook publishers base much of their content on the demands of the public education systems of two states: California, and Texas.

That means should the religious right successfully rewrite history as presented by the Texas public school system, their egregiously incorrect revisionism could show up in textbooks used throughout the United States. While a footnote on "intelligent design" in a Dover, PA, school biology text would make local residents the butt of late-night jokes, such a ridiculous addendum would not find its way into the science texts in Massachusetts, Idaho, or Hawaii.

As a sad footnote, the Guardian article also points out that the religious right succeeded in Texas in introducing religion into science class. Discussion of evolution now includes the widely-discredited notion of irreducible complexity of the eye, a favorite canard of (un)intelligent design advocate Michael Behe, saying that evolution cannot explain eyes. Evolutionary science has demonstrated credible mechanisms for modern eye development for decades, a fact Behe, who continues to make the argument, is blithely (and likely deliberately) ignorant of; adding this ID notion to a science class is akin to teaching that the Earth might actually be the center of the universe; after all, geocentricism was only discredited a few centuries ago.

Innumeracy, Mixed Metaphors in Anti-Stimulus Ad

There's a new ad out from conservative group "American Issues Project" criticising the recent stimulus package passed by the U.S. Congress:

The ad makes the claim that if "you" spent $1 million every day from 1 BCE until the present, "you" still wouldn't have spent as much in that 2008-year span as Congress and President Obama spent in the single instance of the stimulus bill.  (Let's ignore the dispute over Jesus' existence or the date of his birth for the sake of argument, please, as well as the inflationary effects on the value of currency spread over such a time span.)

On the one hand, the attempt to frame such a tremendous number as $787 billion in terms which may be more comprehensible to the average person is laudable.  Our populace is so innumerate that the difference between thousands, millions, billions, and trillions can be pretty vague to the average American, despite the three orders of magnitude separating each.  This innumeracy contributes to all sorts of problems, from evolution denial to retirement planning which includes winning the lottery (and far less esoteric issues as well, mind you, like fear of flying or terrorism, both of which involve astronomical odds but which terrify the average person far more so than other, much larger risks which are also more easily mitigated), so any attempt to frame a number as large as $787 billion in terms which make sense to the average American is both difficult to accomplish and something to be praised when successful.

On the other hand, though, the ad fails in its approach by mixing metaphors by personalizing the spending when it resorts to the second-person appeal.  "You" clearly refers to the audience--whether or not that was the ad's intent (and I'd argue it was)--and it's really unfathomable for the average American to imagine spending a million dollars a day for thousands of years--due again in part to that innumeracy I mentioned.  The problem is, it's not the individual average American who is performing that spending, but rather a government on behalf of three hundred million-plus Americans.  The sad fact is that our government routinely spends what would be to an individual quite huge sums of money, so the parallel is broken and the metaphor flawed--and by introducing the confusion of individual spending vs. government spending, it exploits, rather than corrects, the innumeracy of the average person, who simply can't fathom spending that much money.

Rather than looking at it in terms of "you" spending $1 million a day, consider what according to the Brookings Institution the government spent per day in Iraq in 2008: $408 million (p. 43 in the linked report, based on the $149.2 billion FY 2008 appropriation--please, let's not quibble over fiscal years vs. calendar years, now!).  Yep, you read that correctly: nearly a half a billion dollars a day.  At that pace, the timeline to spend out the stimulus funds certainly need not stretch to biblical times, or even into the 20th century; no, the stimulus would be gone in just over five years.  Makes Jesus seem something of a miser, doesn't it?  One last thought to keep in mind on the government vs. individual spending point: the Iraq appropriations are merely a part of the yearly federal budget.

There's another good way to turn the problem on its head.  Imagine it this way: suppose Politician X introduces a plan to cut taxes by $180 billion dollars a year, with the tax savings spread (for the sake of argument) evenly across all 300 million American citizens.  Imagine what a great plan that is!  Cut the waste of the federal budget by nearly $200 billion dollars (note the convenient rounding up to the tune of $20 billion, a second-level play on innumeracy there), and give back American taxpayers that massive sum.  Surely everyone supports such a plan, right?

Not so fast; Politician X, the very author of said plan, has already criticized a "stimulus bill" which would refund American citizens at the rate of $600 each for 2009, claiming that $600 just isn't enough to make a difference for most Americans.  That they need real help, that $600 will not even pay a month's rent or mortgage, and so forth.

Mind you, Politician X's "save the taxpayers $180 billion" plan is, at the bottom line, the exact same thing as what he's critical of.  Assuming for the sake of argument that $180 billion is spread out across all 300 million or so Americans evenly, that's only $600 each they'd get back or pay less in taxes.  You see the problem?

Regardless of my position on the stimulus package--and mind you, I'm rather wary of Uncle spending such a large chunk of taxpayer funds, incurring and servicing the debt required to do so, etc.--the "American Issues Project" ad simply isn't honest in presenting its message, and though it presents a novel approach to addressing the problem of the innumeracy in relating the plan's numbers to everyday people, it presents a critical logical failing in its metaphor by comparing spending by one person with spending by entire United States government.