Fern Gully

When I was a kid, I watched Fern Gully at Babci's house all the time. "Babci" (Pronounced Bah-chee) is Polish for "Woman who lets you sleep at her house and watch the latest VHS releases, and then gives you waffles and hot chocolate for breakfast". Or was it for "grandmother"? 

If you were old enough to have memories from the early nineties, you'll remember this movie, which, as it turns out, was NOT made by Disney. Stick it to the man!

"Hey Batty! Hey Crysta! Hey Human-Turned-Fairy, Zak!"


If you need a refresher, this movie is Nature vs. Deforestation. Fairies vs. BigBlackGooMonster. And I always used to root for the little guys. But then we bought this house...and it was a little overgrown. I started calling the land around my yard Fern Gully.

Our property is set above the surrounding land by an 8-ft retaining wall. The surrounding land is beautifully overgrown. 

Ah, the quiet peace of God's creation surrounds us

This is what we really loved about this property when we laid eyes on it. Privacy. Nature. Beautifully overgrown. The problem is, it was not-so-beautifully overgrowing into our property, namely, our chain-link fence. The one that keeps small children and curious friends from falling into the green abyss. 


And the vines were all, "What are YOU looking at?"

And then I wandered just a little ways down the fence and found even more offenses. On the fence. Ha! That was accidental.



This tree actually snickered at me. It ate my fence.

I waved the property deed at nature but it didn't budge. Then I tried to have a sensible discussion about property lines, and I think I saw the vines wrap a few extra tendrils around our fence post.

Okay, Fern Gully, you've had your chance. I'm bringing in backup.

My mom and two brothers came over to help Erik and me start taking the yard back. A little snip here, a chop there...we were pruning really. We were doing nature a favor. Boundaries are good. I mean, we bought this property because it was wild...because it didn't look like a manicured golf course. (My brother Brian is not-so-fond of the wildness. He told me moss wasn’t a reasonable substitute for grass. Nonsense!)

I thought that the yard and I were getting along, but no. Fern Gully struck back with an attack on our youngest member. My brother, Kevin, then 13, was throwing the cut vine-pieces back down into the ravine. And of course he was kind of whipping them around in the air before he threw them. Bad idea.  Kev does his little wind-up-and-throw and then we all hear,  “Uh…umm…uh-oh. Where are my glasses?” I walk over to help, he grabs my camera, and snaps this photo of himself in distress.



Okay, Kev. Get to work.

We all search the yard. We crawl, we squint, we rustle the grass. No luck. The grass was short; there were no leaves or piles nearby. It was a sunny day. Our backyard is flat and small. We would have seen them if they were there. I knew where they were. Fern Gully took them. That blasted vine hooked the glasses to send a message to us human-folk. And don’t you know I climbed down into the ravine to look for the glasses. Poison ivy and all.

Poor Kevin. It was no use. His glasses were gone.

See, the whole time, I thought we were being heroes—saving our yard from years of neglect and all. But that day of frantic, excited chopping;  of full-blown deforestation, well, I think it was too much for Fern Gully to handle. I think it made me look a little bit like:

Boo! Hiss! Rawr!

So maybe I can’t blame Fern Gully for striking back. I mean, if five-year-old me watched this glasses-snatching event happen in the actual movie, I would have spit out my hot cocoa and burst into squeals and applause. I mean, come on…Save the Rainforest. And all of that.

A few weeks later, autumn had settled in and we raked our leaves (take that, nature!). Erik and I were making a few small piles into one big pile. I was rake-rake-raking, when Erik tells me to stop. “Look!” he says. “Look down!”

Say what you will about where the glasses actually were that whole time. I still hold that they fell into the ravine (and, I don’t know…a woodchuck brought them up. Work with me here, people). The fact is that they were found totally intact over 30 feet away from where Kevin was standing when he lost them, which is impressive enough. I made amends with my yard that day. Not that I’m going to stop chopping vines or anything. I just won’t laugh as much while I do it.

Let this be a warning to other vines