Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 22, 1990 TAG: 9004230025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She is quick to admit that, even on Earth Day.
"I wanted to have a piece of land in South Roanoke with trees on it," she said. "That is almost impossible to find."
Spicer was elated when she located her woods in a ravine with a rill trickling through it on Cassell Lane.
"Everything!" Just beautiful. Then I wanted to build a house that wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. So I made it very gray, like the shade of trees."
One of Spicer's objectives was a low-maintenance yard. She owned a travel agency and didn't have the time or desire to toil over grass, to grow, mow, spray, fertilize and rake it. The natural setting reaching to the very eaves of her house was to be an alternative to turf.
"I am a plant person," she said.
But when she moved in, her interest quickly broadened. All she had to do was look outside her kitchen window and see wildlife close up. Her woods were a mini-paradise for flickers and cardinals, for squirrels and raccoons, for owls and voles. She was fascinated.
"I came to love the animals by observing them here. That was the order that this happened. Not that I bought the woods because I love the animals. It worked the other way around."
Spicer began to look at her grounds from the animals' point of view. She cataloged what was there and why it was there, and pondered ways to keep it content and attract still more.
"So I began to plant the things, like autumn olive and other berry-producing plants, to augment the things that already were here."
Spicer now has what the National Wildlife Federation calls a Backyard Wildlife Habitat. Hers is one of more than 200 in Virginia certified by the national organization, which is located in Washington, D.C.
With the emphasis on Earth Day, the concept of turning a typical status-symbol yard into a mini-wildlife sanctuary has gained wide interest. In one three-day period last week, the federation received 1,022 requests for its free packet titled "Backyard Wildlife Habitat."
Homeowners aren't the only ones anxious to have wildlife close up, said Deloris Manns, a federation staffer. Backyard habitats are being cultured by schools, by businesses, by corporations, by government agencies. Since the federation began the program in 1973, about 8,500 have been certified.
You can count Manns and her husband in the trend. They have provided cover and bird feeders on their three-quarter-acre property.
"We get a lot more birds coming to the property because we are doing this," she said. "And it actually is a pleasure for us. That's what people do it for, because it is a pleasure."
Sometimes it is so fascinating it can rob you of sleep.
"I have gotten up at 3 a.m. and taken pictures of the raccoons eating on the bird (feeding) shelf," Spicer said.
The wildlife, she added, became a special joy during the illness of her husband, Dr. Donald Spicer, a radiologist, who died last year.
Spicer does not attempt to apply any type of human order to her wild kingdom by selecting and rejecting what will live in her oaks and eat at her feeders.
"All birds and animals are welcome to come to my table," she said.
She delights in the cardinal that eats her sunflower seeds, but she does not begrudge the fat gray squirrel that does the same. There is no choosing sides, no lists of enemies and friends. Spicer keeps the wild in wildlife. For its sake and hers.
This creates tradeoffs. The same raccoon that can delight you at 3 a.m. can trample your flowers at 4 a.m. and rip into your garbage cans at 5 a.m., unless you have the tamper-free kind. She does. And there are times when the raccoons overpopulate and one or two must be live-trapped and relocated to the wilds.
There is but one pet outside the house, and that is Moses Joseph Spicer, a huge cat.
"Every now and then he likes a little fresh meat," Spicer said. "He is part of the ecology; part of the balance of nature."
When Spicer built her house, she served as her own general contractor in an effort to preserve as many of the trees and plants as possible.
"I hate it when people go in and cut all of the trees."
A hollowed-out oak now is home for a family of raccoons. Other oaks produce mast for mammals and birds.
Dead tree limbs are stacked in piles to offer cover for rabbits and chipmunks. A variety of fruit-producing shrubs, bushes and trees hold food well into the winter.
Flowers provide nectar for hummingbirds. Stone walls form crevices for little critters. Pines reach out to anchor bird nests and offer protection from winter's winds.
There is little regimentation, few borders. The plant life blends together, slowly dividing itself according to soil and moisture, light and shade.
The pools of a spring-fed rill contain drinking and bathing water, and are nurseries for aquatic creatures that are a part of the food chain.
Nature's banquet table is supplemented with well-stocked bird feeders and a large feeding station on a deck. A screen protects it from the wanderings of Moses.
"There are so many things people can do, even if they just leave a corner wild on a city lot," said Spicer, whose backyard habitat was certified two years ago.
She has but a single tuft of grass, which she mows occasionally with a push machine. She uses no pesticides.
"That's one thing the Roanoke Valley Garden Club stresses," she said. "I have learned a great deal from it."
Her son, Lewis Hopkins, is working on the development of a permanent grocery bag to prevent the litter of plastic and the waste of paper. Innovation and ecology run in the family.
Spicer's helper in her wildlife habitat is H.T. Simpson, a retired railroader.
"It is a Driving Miss Daisy friendship," she said.
Their next project is to build a trail through the grounds and label the plants along its course.
In her business life, Spicer said she had the opportunity to travel all over the world. Now her favorite trip is a simple one, to her deck, where she can enjoy nature close up.
"This is the best spot of all."
by CNB