It is not uncommon to find empty mussel shells in the woods around our home, the two halves still attached to each other but usually missing one piece of one shell. Crows will pick a mussel from the shore, fly up onto a tree branch, hold the mussel with their feet while prying it open with their beak, pick out the meat, and drop the shell when they are done.

Yesterday I spotted a shell in birch and poplar leaves, probably 200 feet from the river. It will soon be completely submerged, slowly releasing calcium and other minerals into the forest floor over the next decades. Forests think and move in centuries, while humans count days and weeks and months and years. Is it any wonder humans can’t see what trees are doing, how they communicate to each other (and us)? They probably feel we need to slow down a little.

Last evening I gathered some dry grass from the shore below our house to use as mulch in my garden. It floats on the river and gathers after storms, a mixture of seaweed and terrestrial grasses. Other things can arrive, too: pieces of wood, branches, dead fish, feathers. As I gathered a few hay forkfuls, I picked out and disposed of a short piece of plastic rope, the plastic top off a coffee cup and a couple of plastic bags.

I left the mussel shells I found in the pile of grass, and they will disappear into my garden, breaking under my rubber boots, split by a hoe, freezing and thawing, rubbed by worms and microbes, catching the rain.

I appreciate more and more the riches I have around me, even if, to some, it’s just a pile of old dead grass. With an endless supply of fallen leaves and grasses, I don’t need to buy bark mulch that is trucked in from far away. The mulch I use would definitely not be welcome in a beautifully manicured neighbourhood, but that’s not where I live. It’s taken a while, but I’m getting more and more comfortable with the rougher look and letting nature move right up to my front door.

The crow and I gather from the shore, apart but together, same-same.