MY, HOW TIMES have changed. That’s what I keep thinking, looking around my own garden in recent years. I’ve been struck by the same thought over and over as I read “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,” the latest book by Margaret Renkl (illustrated with gorgeous collages by her brother, Billy Renkl, like the one above), which takes us through a year in her garden 1,000 miles to the south of mine in Nashville.
The “what happens when” of nature is all shifting in the face of environmental change and how we each garden has shifted, too, for Margaret Renkl and for me, and maybe for you as well—toward more native plants and messier fall cleanup and other contributions we can make to our beloved birds and the rest of the natural world that’s increasingly under pressure.
Like many readers, I got to know Margaret Renkl in 2019 upon the publication of her much-praised book “Late Migrations.” Since 2017, she has been contributing a popular weekly “Opinion” column to “The New York Times” each Monday, which the newspaper describes as covering “flora, fauna, politics, and culture in the American South.”
Plus: Enter to win a copy of “The Comfort of Crows” (affiliate link), her latest, by commenting in the box near the bottom of the page.
Read along as you listen to the Oct. 9, 2023 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
Margaret Roach: Welcome back to the podcast, other Margaret, Southern Margaret. How are you?
Margaret Renkl: It’s amazing how often we’re confused for each other, and I’m not entirely sure why. Just the name
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