A crow is the first bird Renkl sees on the new year, which she takes as a symbol of hope and transformation.

Renkl discovers a sick, mange-covered fox in her backyard and contacts a wildlife rescue center for help trapping it.

Renkl's fox trap catches a healthy fox instead of the sick one, so she treats it with preventive medication and releases it.

Renkl removes her bird feeders after a hawk begins using them to stake out and hunt the visiting songbirds.

After weeks of rain, Renkl anticipates spring while reflecting on the reality that her sons will soon leave home permanently.

As spring trees begin to flower, Renkl helps her two youngest sons prepare to move out of the family home.

Renkl accidentally causes the death of the last surviving bluebird chick while attempting to rescue it from a prowling cat.

A female monarch butterfly arrives and lays eggs on the milkweed in Renkl's garden after years of her failed attempts to attract one.

Renkl and Haywood buy tadpoles from a pond supply store as a thirty-fourth anniversary gift and release them into the backyard pond.

Renkl's two youngest sons move out of the family home, leaving visible gaps of missing furniture throughout every room.

A hurricane causes widespread damage across Renkl's yard, but the birds remain steadfastly at her feeders throughout the storm.

Renkl places swallowtail caterpillars threatened by a red wasp into a butterfly cage and watches them emerge as butterflies and fly away.

Renkl finds a desiccated snail at the cabin, nurses it carefully back to life in a safe spot, and watches it return to the forest.

Walking through the December forest, Renkl meditates on the line between death and renewal, finding herself trusting that something always comes next.

As winter settles in, Renkl watches the crows inspect a nearby construction site and feels something like hope for the spring ahead.

Renkl begins a new year in her Nashville backyard, finding symbolic meaning in a crow sighting and grappling with the hardships winter imposes on local wildlife. Through spring, she makes a costly error trying to rescue a nesting bluebird while her sons begin planning their departure from the family home. Summer brings the joy of a backyard tadpole pond and a monarch's long-awaited arrival, even as the house empties around her. A late-summer hurricane tests the resilience of the backyard ecosystem, and fall delivers unexpected triumph when Renkl rescues swallowtail caterpillars from a predatory wasp. A chance to nurse a desiccated snail back to life and a December forest walk draw Renkl toward a hard-won acceptance of mortality and renewal. The year closes with the crows still present at a nearby construction site, and Renkl feeling something like hope.

The core seasonal arc and headline events of Renkl's backyard year.

A song sparrow takes up residence in Renkl's yard during winter, singing so persistently it transforms her experience of the cold season.

Feeling overwhelmed by political despair, Renkl begins teaching a class for refugee families and finds brief comfort in the warmth of the work.

During an evening forest walk, Renkl discovers a cluster of chickweed seedlings growing inside the hollow knothole of a large tree.

Renkl and Haywood visit their friend's cabin on the Cumberland Plateau as the first faint signs of spring begin to appear.

Renkl recalls contracting COVID and spending three weeks as someone she didn't recognize, only finding herself again when spring arrived in Tennessee.

While walking her dog in the neighborhood, Renkl unexpectedly comes face to face with a full-grown bobcat before it runs away.

Renkl attends a ceremony to scatter her father-in-law's ashes on a Georgia barrier island now changed by decades of development and tourism.

Renkl drives south to attend a funeral and, visiting her childhood home, finds and replants a holly fern her recently deceased mother had dug up.

Renkl writes a series of odes to unloved animals, praising the opossum, vulture, mosquito, wasp, bat, and snake for their ecological roles.

Young crows make their first awkward, stumbling attempts to fly in Renkl's yard as summer reaches its most abundant point.

A baby rabbit is found dead in Renkl's yard, and she checks the remaining rabbits before reassuring herself there is nothing more to fear.

Renkl drives to her brother's home specifically to watch his rare night-blooming cactus open, calling the fleeting flower the 'flower of dreams.'

Renkl watches the last hummingbirds of the season feeding frantically as an unusually prolonged summer heat lingers well into October.

Renkl criticizes leaf blowers as ecologically destructive and urges readers to leave fallen leaves undisturbed to shelter overwintering wildlife.

The oak trees produce a poor acorn harvest, prompting Renkl to reflect on the neighborhood development that has felled so many mature trees.

During the quiet of winter, Renkl finds unexpected joy in a remarkable song sparrow and teaches a class for refugee families to escape political despair. Spring unfolds through visits to beloved wild places, the emotional difficulty of COVID recovery, a startling bobcat encounter, and the bittersweet rituals of burying the dead. Summer overflows with ecological richness: odes to unloved animals, young crows making their first stumbling flights, and the tender anxiety of protecting backyard rabbits. Fall creeps in slowly due to the extended heat, and Renkl drives out of her way to witness her brother's night-blooming cactus before watching the last hummingbirds depart. As the year winds down, she rails against leaf blowers and mourns a poor acorn harvest tied to the felling of neighborhood trees. Each of these moments adds intimacy and texture to the broader story of the year.

Supporting encounters, seasonal observations, and memorable secondary scenes.

Renkl chooses to read the crow's symbolism as a promise of metamorphosis, clinging to this meaning during a time of personal change.

After releasing a now trap-wise healthy fox, Renkl realizes she will never again be free to simply walk away from local wildlife.

Renkl recalls the dominant 'alpha redbird' of her yard lying dead one day, wondering whether a dense brush pile might have saved it.

Renkl observes that Nashville's seasonal patterns have shifted dramatically since her childhood, accepting climate change as an undeniable personal reality.

Renkl fears that selling the family home would mean a developer tearing it down, connecting her personal grief to wider ecological loss.

While building a pond to attract frogs, Renkl admits that her faith in nature's resilience feels like the very last thing she has left.

After searching days for a pileated woodpecker to photograph at Lost Cove, Renkl keeps her phone in her pocket when it finally appears.

After her mother's death, Renkl places hair from her mother's hairbrush outdoors and watches a chickadee claim it to line her nest.

A spider building a web on Renkl's writing desk leads her to reflect on how nature's cycles offer comfort during overwhelming despair.

Renkl discovers she has cataracts affecting her vision and fears losing the sight she depends on to witness the natural world.

Renkl acknowledges that autumn now reminds her of her own limited time, a significant shift from the ease of her younger years.

Recalling her great-grandmother's refusal to work on the Sabbath, Renkl reframes deliberate rest as a genuine act of devotion and holiness.

Renkl recalls her college mentor Ruth's lesson and reframes the process of aging not as a surrender but as purposeful, active waiting.

Renkl waits for medical test results and directly confronts her mortality, finding comfort in her belief that there will always be a resurrection.

Renkl and Haywood discuss moving to a smaller cabin but find their memories and wild neighbors too deeply rooted in the family home to leave.

From the first crow sighting of the year, Renkl's journey is shaped by unexpected revelations about responsibility, grief, and the irreversibility of change. Early winter forces her to confront the ethics of intervening with wildlife and to accept that climate change has already permanently altered the seasonal rhythms she grew up with. Spring deepens her grief as she fears what development would do to her home, connects her late mother's hair to a chickadee's nest, and admits that faith in nature feels like her last foothold. Summer and fall bring physical and emotional awakenings, from the discovery of her cataracts to reframing the empty nest her sons have left behind. Her great-grandmother's Sabbath devotion and a college mentor's wisdom about rest guide her toward a more accepting relationship with time and mortality. The year closes with Renkl choosing to remain rooted in her home, held there by memory, kinship with the wild, and enduring hope.