A new book describes the joys and lessons that come with paying close attention to the nature around us.<\/p>\n
Daryln Brewer Hoffstot lives on a farm in rural Westmoreland County. She\u2019s published essays about her life there in the New York Times and other publications. Her latest book is This Patch of Earth: Observations on a Rural Life.<\/a><\/p>\n Kara Holsopple: In the book\u2019s introduction, you write that readers have told you that your last book felt like a love letter to your family, and you describe this patch of earth as a love letter to the land where you live. Can you say a little bit more about what you mean by that?\u00a0<\/p>\n Daryln Brewer Hoffstot: I came from the East Coast. My husband is the Pittsburgher. I think I always thought maybe I\u2019d go back at some point. The longer I stayed and the more I paid attention to the beauties of this farm, the more I fell in love with this place. The previous owner had it for 40 years ,and we\u2019ve had it almost 40 years. So it\u2019s really untouched. I don\u2019t think you find places like this that often anymore.<\/p>\n Once I slowed down and I started to look, I began to notice stinging nettles and ghost pipes and morels and purslane and all of the varieties of birds we have. And I set out to know more about it. Then I realized how lucky I was.<\/p>\n There are some environmental problems nearby: fracking and coal mining. It\u2019s not perfect. But I just think I began to realize, and we all need to realize, how lucky we are. As the late Wendell Berry said, may he rest in peace, only by paying attention and appreciating what we have will we want to save the ground beneath our feet. And so that\u2019s what I meant by a love letter to the land.<\/p>\n Kara Holsopple: I like the way that you combine the observations from your land with research and reporting from experts on topics that you write about. What was surprising to you in your research or maybe fun to learn more about?<\/p>\n Daryln Brewer Hoffstot: First of all, that Pennsylvania has lost 99% of its bats. I mean, wrap your head around that statistic for a minute. That when I was doing a piece on chanterelles, and that only three to 8% of the fungi in the world have been described. How important snapping turtles are to the health of a pond. Everybody hates them, and everybody\u2019s terrified of them but they eat the carrion and balance the ecosystem for the plants and the frogs and the fish and the insects.<\/p>\n That purslane, which is a weed we think we see everywhere, might have the highest omega-3s of any plant. That our 150-year-old apple tree is either an Early Harvest or an Early Ripe, both of which produce yellow apples in July. I could go on, but so many things are so interesting to me.<\/p>\n Kara Holsopple: I loved reading the chapter in the book about the maple tree on your property. Why did you include it in the book?\u00a0<\/p>\n Daryln Brewer Hoffstot: That maple tree really meant a lot to me. It was huge. It was 13 feet in diameter, and it started to die back. My husband and I kept saying to each other, \u2018Oh dear, it\u2019s not doing well.\u2019 And I was completely irrational. I said, \u2018Well, let\u2019s cut a few branches.\u2019 Well, the whole thing started to come down. It was very dangerous. You couldn\u2019t walk under it. So we finally had to tear it down.<\/p>\n