what has NY got that we don’t got in oregon? we might have gigantic trees and the biggest ocean in our coastal bioregion, but there are some ways that new york outshines us.
woodchucks. high prevalence. not available in oregon.
snow after mother’s day. see those flakes? not gonna happen here at most times of the year, and definitely not in may.
fireflies. not pictured; our visit was too early in the season to see them- we need another pilgrimage in july some year! a much more compelling reason to love new york than snowflakes in may, i might add.
puffballs!
registers, otherwise known as heating vents, the perfect place for children to get dressed on mornings in may when the temperature dives under 40. see snowflakes in may, above.
burdocks. they can be grown in oregon. they cannot not be grown in new york! if i put my permaculture hat on, i see dynamic nutrient accumulation, enormous leaves for chop-and-drop mulching, and edible/medicinal roots! however, if i put my weeding the garden hat on….
ditto on stinging nettles; we have to actually look for them out here! in new york, you have to look everywhere you walk in order to avoid being stung. these happened to have sprung up in the time since my dad parked this tractor in this particular spot.
but maybe the biggest re-realization for me was that new york has rocks. in oregon, i can’t find a rock if i need one. in new york…
enough rocks to build your barn foundation
enough to provide flagstone sidewalks
and no matter how many you remove from the garden, a new crop of rocks arises every spring! new york rocks!
celebrate your bioregion in the comments! what makes your place in the world unique?
NC rocks! We have water – so much it escapes the rivers and lives in the air. We have kudzu, which grows so fast you can see it simply by remembering to look at the same vine twice in a day. We have sweet-smelling honeysuckle – I realized one day a few weeks ago that it had bloomed, because the sweet sweet fragrance hit me like a wall on my morning run.