In 1976, when Francie Von Mertens was on the hunt for a place “with room to roam for wildlife and children,” she landed in Peterborough, New Hampshire. In the years since, Francie – a former 6th grade teacher and family therapy workshop organizer – has rooted herself to this place. She has volunteered countless hours over more than two decades at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in nearby Hancock (where, among other things, she’s helped design, plant, and maintain a pollinator garden) and has served on the Peterborough Conservation Commission and the board of New Hampshire Audubon. She’s recently created a Nature Calendar & Almanac, published by the Harris Center, which shares delectable, bite-sized nuggets of the natural history knowledge Francie has acquired through decades of study and observation.
I grew up in Weston, Massachusetts, and spent my childhood more outdoors than in. Weston was very much a country town back then. We were often outside – skating, sledding, strapping galoshes onto old skis, building neighborhood tree forts. I had a prized Davy Crockett raccoon-skin hat that I wore exploring the woods, which seemed endless. My brother and I tagged along with our dad, a hunter, and our mom, a fly-fisherwoman. I did fish with my mom, but with worms, not flies. I never really took to it – I was more interested in exploring the stream sides and woods.
When my children were young, we moved to Peterborough after a long search for a country town with room to roam for wildlife and children. I realized later that a major draw to this place is that Peterborough is a lot like Weston was when I was growing up. There was a bobolink field next to my childhood home, but it was converted to large suburban houses. Down the road from our new home in Peterborough, there were bobolinks in the fields. Peterborough’s Toadstool Bookstore and The Folkway restaurant and folk music scene were signs of an interesting human community, too.
When the kids grew up and moved out, I filled a serious emotional void by becoming a very intense birder, finally channeling my parents’ fishing and hunting – out in the natural world, observant. I began a Backyard Birder column in our local newspaper, the Monadnock Ledger, in 1994 and learned a lot through the research and writing. Don and Lillian Stokes’ bird behavior books were always near my desk. Each spring I gave birding-by-ear workshops and fieldtrips. More learning!
Another big life pivot came when I was asked to speak about birds along the Contoocook River, which runs the length of Peterborough, some six miles. The host group was working to create a “riverwalk” along the shore. After my talk, I heard plans to host rollerblade festivals and other ways a paved walk could attract tourists. Paved! Dramatically, I blurted out that there would be no birds along the river if the many plans came true. At that, the meeting ended awkwardly. People met me in the parking lot afterwards, relieved I’d voiced concerns they shared. With that, I became an advocate for the wild ones. I’m pleased to report that the riverwalk story ended well, with a compromise paved rail trail near the town center.
There have been so many people along the way I have learned from. Three bring a special smile. Dave Stephenson, a loving curmudgeon protective of wild lands from human over-use, was chair of the Peterborough Conservation Commission when I joined soon after the riverwalk meeting. New Hampshire Audubon’s Diane De Luca’s birding-by-ear workshop and field trips launched me deep into the world of birds. Fieldtrips and friendship with Meade Cadot, longtime director at the Harris Center, have also been so important. Every outing with Meade leads to insights into the ways of the wild world. I am among the legions Meade has inspired. I’m also grateful for all the Audubon and Harris Center field trips I tagged along on just about every weekend, and the leaders, so generous with their time and knowledge.
In 2014 I started working on a pollinator garden with the Harris Center, which introduced me to the importance of native plants and native bees, the most supremely efficient pollinators of all. My original, pretty intense focus on birds has shifted over the years to the broader natural world – pollinators included, thanks to the pollinator garden. Along with other insects, and living in the shadow of honey bees, wild bees are in trouble. Plants and their pollinators are great examples of nature’s mutualism. One can’t live without the other.
A couple years ago, Carl and I designed and built a smaller, much warmer house on land we’ve conserved by means of a conservation easement. Our daughter and her family live next-door, and our son is not far down the road in Hancock. They moved back to the area to raise their children where they grew up. Lucky us! We’re landscaping with native plants – perennials, shrubs, trees – that support native insects. I gave an illustrated talk last summer at the Amos Fortune Forum in Jaffrey on wild bees and what’s come to be called “pollination services.” I’m a huge Doug Tallamy groupie, and it shows in my talk. As for birds, I’m happy to report that juncos are coming in to our new pollinator gardens here, gleaning seeds from perennials we leave standing. A pair of pileated woodpeckers takes turns plucking fruits from snowdrift crabapple trees planted last spring.
After 25 years writing my Backyard Birder column, I ended it two years ago. By then I was working on a daily nature almanac, eager to pass along a basic understanding of the natural world in a more accessible way than ephemeral newspaper columns. The result is a page-a-day journey through the ever-changing natural year. Each page has a photo and narrative relating to what you can notice happening outside at that time. Many entries are backyard-focused. Whether out the window, out the door, or farther afield, an amazing, life-affirming world goes about its business. I had done yearly calendars before, but they got thrown out at the end of the year. With the almanac, you can jump in on the date at hand and journey on around the year. January 1 is irrelevant to nature’s calendar. Full credit for the almanac’s teepee design goes to Northern Woodlands’ Season’s Main Events Day Calendar, which sat on my desk for years. It’s brilliant.
My almanac can sit on desks for years, too, I hope. It’s loaded with information. People are honored in the almanac, as well the wild ones. Aldo Leopold and his concept of a land ethic; author-naturalist David Carroll and the “landscape of loss” of his youth that motivated him to champion natural landscapes; Thoreau, inspiring nature journal-keeper as well as the first phenologist in this country. The biggest challenge wasn’t finding enough cool stuff for 366 pages – plus a page for each moon to introduce the month. It was winnowing interesting information down into bite-sized daily entries. Some topics like vernal pools have consecutive entries. Fairy shrimp got their own page. What an evolution story they tell! I profiled a lot of plants and their pollinators, too, stories of species co-evolution that can amaze. The almanac is available at Toadstool Bookshops in Peterborough and Keene, and through the Harris Center in Hancock.
Over the years, I’ve sometimes asked myself, “What’s the basic foundation we need to be good environmental citizens?” I often say or write that we need to fall in love with the wild ones, spring’s ephemeral wildflowers, spring peepers announcing a new season, haunting birdsong from forest depths – and then take care to help them out. We can start in our backyards. There’s so much going on in the backyard that we really don’t know about or feel connected to or honor. My columns often ended, “We’re all in this together,” we humans and the wild ones. The trick to engaging people, I think, is not to be preachy. I’d rather inspire people than scare them.