Sparkling Lotus-land

glad you're here ...

I hope you'll enjoy wandering through my garden with me.  If you're more interested in looking at stitching, beads, and art journal pages - plus creative process musings - you may want to jump over to nichobella.  Otherwise please scroll down for the latest posts.

january thaw

Yesterday morning Celeste and I took an inspection tour of the property.   It wasn't really cold enough to need my winter boots but the swaths of gooey mud made me glad I was wearing them.  One of my most surprising discoveries was the emergence of several skunk cabbages along the edges of the stream.  Tried to get some pics but the mud was so deep and thick I thought it would be much too likely I'd get myself stuck back there.  So just take my word for it.  There are skunk cabbages up and about - maybe they are always around this time of year but I haven't noticed because I've never lived in such close proximity to them.  Their appearance revved my engine alot. 

The cat has been quite frustrated because snow and ice have frozen the gap in our side gate in a position that's too narrow for her to squeeze through it.  I keep telling her this is nothing compared to the six foot snow drifts that kept her inside most of last winter.  At least this year she can go outside and maintain her patrol of the properties' edges.  And that's important. 

Does anyone happen to know the name of this prostrate evergreen?  It's some kind of spruce, no?  During our first summer here I wandered around a local nursery jotting down names of the various foundation and landscaping plants we have that I didn't know by name.  Then I promptly misplaced the list. Was able to remember most of the names but not this one.  It's very pretty and I feel badly that it's all but obliterated once the ferns have unfurled in late spring.  The visual displacement doesn't appear to impede the plant's vigor.  I like to walk around the frog pond so I can stand right next to it.  This feels really good; it has an extremely calming and grounded energy.  It doesn't appear to produce any sort of visible flower because if it did, I'd be all over any given opportunity to prepare an essence from it.

The white pine tree at the top of this image seemed to be beckoning to me.  But, when I got to the upper portion of the field, the ice was packed tight against the ground.  After last winter's fall (from which my dominant arm/shoulder/rotater cuff has yet to fully heal) I have grown wary of ice-walking especially when it's optional.  When I was a kid I spent a lot of time with my grandmother and her friends.  They were all petrified of falling and I always wondered why because, otherwise, none of them came anywhere close to being fearful about much of anything else but long-haired hippies.  But now I'm starting to get it and I'm sure in another fifteen or twenty years I'll understand completely.

Compare and contrast:  late January 2012

mid July 2011.  It will be interested to compare last July's garden to this year's model.  I'm sure there will be all kinds of changes once the plants re-emerge.  One of my childhood friends thinks it takes 7 years to build a truly satisfying and fully productive garden space.  I think it takes about 4 or 5 but the changes, additions and improvements are always ongoing.  I don't think a garden is ever really "finished" unless that end result is such an important goal that there's more human imposition than cooperation and very careful observation. 

now let's compare and contrast the vegetable garden.  I can't begin to tell you (and, if you're a gardener yourself, I really don't have to tell you, do I?) how much time I'm currently spending getting super excited about whatever lies ahead during the coming growing season.  I hope to continue creating the sort of meandering herb garden I've always wanted in the front half of this bed.   Then we will expand to make more room for the food plants - gradually building raised beds as we go along.  I told Jim I want to make an asparagus bed this year.  And a designated pumpkin patch.  And ... and... and ...

This picure was taken on the same July afternoon as the contrasting flower garden image.  Notice the shade patterns farther back in the field.  There wasn't much tree damage back there but, level with the garden spaces, many many many branches fell.  Am very curious to see what kind of changes that makes in the shade patterns and how far they encroach on the field.  There may wind up being more room than I thought for introducing some fruit trees on the road side of the vegetable patch!  Oh lord.  My pulse is racing just thinking about it...

re-treat

One of my favorite people said it best:  this week has felt like I'm a pair of running shoes banging around and around in the clothes dryer.  It has been a time of many stark and irreversible changes; some that were expected and others that popped up, like a ring of mushrooms, out of the proverbial Nowhere.  So I thought it would be the perfect time to re-visit two previous posts about The New England Peace Pagoda.  This is one of the relatively local destinations I keep in mind, carrot-on-a-stick style, when I'm doing the unglamorous and baby-step riddled work of building physical stamina and strength. 

Elsewise it's seed catalog season.  Have felt really certain that I'll be modest and sensible with any purchases I make.  And then I actually opened the Seeds of Change catalog.  They are offering varieties of raddichio that weren't part of my trials last summer!  My heart started racing over this.  Got way too excited at the mere idea of doing another round of variety trials.  Now there are several dog-eared pages in the catalog.  And that's just one of four ... 

it's normalcy

Sometime before daybreak snow fell for the first time since late October.  I was up early and watched the wind move a miniature snow squall throughout the tree canopy.

January is settling into itself.  Winter is settling against the horizon line.  Just yesterday I looked through these windows in the flashing light of the afternoon sun.  My cat was making her way along the edge of the woods across the street.  I watched her progress without a hint that the weather was about to change.  What would I have done differently if I'd felt the shift or thought to check a weather report?  The strange green winter had begun to feel unshiftable as one day sliding into the next can feel like page after page sliding against each other in a photo album.  But then one volume of images falls to the floor and another is opened.   Remember the story of snow on the ground?  That's winter in new england.  It's imperative that snow fall and cover the earth.  But who any longer expects or predicts what's imperative.  These times.  And the whirled in which we live ...

back & forth

Yesterday I wandered around the property taking pictures of this strange "green" winter season.  Total projection on my part but it seemed Mary was in a pensive mood that matched the grey skies.  Today it's quite sunny and at least 20 degrees warmer!   The air smells enticingly of the bewildered warming earth and I think that makes it perfect weather for skimming my favorite seed catalogs.  Am thinking I don't need much beyond what's already here but those are famous last words when it comes to compulsive gardeners with a raft of new catalogs.  Seriously.  I don't need much.  Some lettuce, spinach, borage and dill.  Last year I bought two packets of borage seed with intent to scatter it at the edges of the field and the very tip of the front yard closest to the neighbor's beehives.  The seeds were misplaced and haven't turned up yet.  I know I will be unable to resist a few new flowers.  But basically I'm set and hope I remember that as I browse the pages and make a mental wish list.

continuing the Re-visiting project.  so far I haven't consolidated my photo library very much but it's certainly a lot of fun looking through the individual folders and albums.

These turtles have a very happy home at the New England Wildflower Society's Garden in the Woods.  This is a wonderful place that we've visited just twice - once when Tony was still quite young and we lived in Boston, always on the lookout for interesting weekend field trips.  Jim and I went back a few years ago to view the amazing Rock On art installation.  I know I did a two part blog post about this exhibition but it must have been on the blog that no longer exists.  So here's a look at some of the Rock On highlights:

Stone work was deftly placed along the pathways and sometimes in the water

Some of the sculptures were abstract and others were anthropomorphized

One of my favorite features was a carefully arranged rock garden full of mossy tuffa stones surrounding a lovely sundial tower adorned with spirals and solar symbols

As I recall the informational plaques explained the classic buttermilk "paint" recipe for a quick moss crop.  Below is a glimpse of my favorite sculpture.  Would love to have this as a bathroom sink!

and a few more humanized rock spirits

 p.s.  I tried to find something about this exhibit online for an informative link but kept getting re-directed to Ronnie Wood's rock-n-roll driven art and rock (and roll) photography masterworks.  Have included my faves of that group, just for fun.  Wish I'd been in Birmingham to see this show a few months ago.  Mick Jagger never looked better ...

pictures & stories

a detail from one of my favorite farms in Amherst, Massachussetts

 Despite how often I've promised myself I would buckle down with a massive sorting and culling process, and then promptly drifted off in six or seven other directions, I'm determined to focus on that often-broken promise and once and for all get a better grip on my thousands upon thousands of digital photographs.  Winter is the traditional season of storytelling so I thought it might be fun to devote ongoing blog space to some favorite images and a few details of their meaning to me. Are you up for that?  Let's get started while the calendar year is still new and fresh!

Hawthorn trees on the far side of Snow Pond in early July

Snow Pond is rather small in size but virtually limitless in terms of the personal meaning(s) it came to hold for me over the course of this century's first decade.  The pond is located a few miles from my previous home.  One summer I kept a special co-creative garden space at the top of the hill across the road from Snow Pond.  The garden was located inbetween a few acres of CSA gardens and a 40 acre orchard.  The more time I spent with my garden, and walking around the periphery of the CSA fields, the more clearly I grasped the inter-species alliance of the entire landscape, including Snow Pond and its attendant berry fields.  Because it was so dear to me I blogged about the Pond innumerable times.  As an enhancement for this post I've just republished three older entries which offer differing seasonal glimpses here here and here.

The hawthorn trees grow in a curving line along the path at the north edge of the pond.  They were the first group of hawthorns that I had an opportunity to know at an up close and personal level.  I adored each and every visit I had with them and once made a flower essence from their radiant white flowers.   The hawthorn medicine spirit holds many practical and metaphysical healing properties.

a late October afternoon at Quabbin Reservoir

Jim and I first visited The Quabbin, as it's locally known, in the spring of 1979.  It was one of our first day trips from Boston shortly after we moved to town.  From there it was a two hour drive to the enormous drinking water system ringed with stone-strewn beaches.  When we moved to the central part of the state our travel time was cut in half.  I couldn't even begin to count the number of times we've visited over the past 32 years.  In 2002 an emotionally devestating winter and spring was softened by the fact that I lived about ten minutes from the reservoir's maze of walking trails and beautiful vistas.  I found it was a perfect spot for bird-watching, slowing my physical & emotional pulse, and getting to know myself (as well as the languages of trees, stones, and water) at a deeper and more fully sustainable level.  In that same year, on my birthday, I was detained by a reservoir employee who took great umbrage at my barefoot journey along the water's edge.  And that marked my first personal experience with the paramilitary state that seemed to bloom all of a fearmongering piece in the wake of 9-11.  On a much happier more recent occasion I posted some glorious autumn photos which I have just re-published.

autumn's first flush at Walden Pond

Gosh.  What's left to say about this pivotal and inspiring point of collective trancendentalist awareness?  Thoreau made it famous a long time ago and people have flocked to see and experience it for themselves ever since.  When my son was young we often escaped the peculiar summertime claustrophobia of city living with visits to this Concord landmark.  He remembers learning to swim there.  I remember his radiant joyous face as he clung to his father's shoulders and begged for just a little more time at the water's edge before we made our way home.  Jim and I last visited Walden in the early fall of 2009.  I shared images and links in this post.

I hope you will enjoy further installments of the Revisted theme.  Of course I plan to move forward as well as backward on this blog; all the while staying in the present's moment at hand ...

a little tour of the field

We think these are frozen slug egg cases.  It was startling to retrieve the small fireplace shovel and discover them on the underside.  Spent some time looking at Google images in an attempt at positive identification.  Another would-like-to-identify surprise which I first noticed earlier in the week:

Pretty red fungus on one of the tree-gifted garden stakes. 

Here's a glimpse of some remaining tree damage debris.  This is roughly a third of what's left.  Weekend before last Tony and Jim helped our neighbor cart-away everything that had fallen in the front yard. There were two large truck loads.  The field and back yard still need a lot more attention.  Jim's on a work furlough this week so he's been going out every day to chip away at it.  It helps that there's no snow.  Yet.

As you can see there are still plenty of trees in tact throughout the property.  Below is a closer look at the vegetable garden mulched with leaves and straw. 

I had Jim spread the leaves on the part of the garden that's had the least amount of tilling and conditioning.  Past experience tells me the decaying leaves will be a great addition to the soil when we start working it next spring.  He put them down on Tuesday.  Yesterday we drove over to the Hardwick Co-op for a few bales of straw to complete the task. By the time we got home I was too wiped-out to help.  Today I was touched to discover that Jim had also added extra straw to some of the spots in the flower gardens where I had skimped a bit as the initial bales of straw ran low.  Now everything should be nice and cozy. 

The little songbirds that live in our spot of woods use these gardens as a foraging ground.  I have been reluctant to cut anything back since I wouldn't want to inadvertently remove one of their food sources or sentry perches.  Image above shows vegetable garden, one of the smaller square transplant beds and the edge of the long perennial/transplant border.  Note the visible neighbor's house and camper.  They lost two gorgeous white pine trees that were elderly and wide spreading enough to obscure a view of their house.  The cleared space allows me to see a very lovely birch tree behind their garage.  I look at it alot because it's definitely one of the elemental anchors that remains unchanged in the landscape beyond our property.  And we're now in the lunar year's first monthly cycle. Birch is the sacred tree guardian and teacher for this cycle so the tree seems especially vibrant and compelling.

The hemlocks at the top of the field are loaded with pine cones.  I'd love to make some decorative swags like those featured here. But, once again, I'm unclear about which creatures might rely on the cone seeds as a food source.  We have a line of nine trees and I'll be sure to gather modestly just as I do with red clover blossoms and goldenrod...

sweet medicine

In my absence(s) from this blog I've been balancing very tenuous mobility and low energy levels with a variety of items on my to-do and wish lists.   Every day I've done a couple of things to make life easier and pleasant for my family.  I've also been developing some new ceremonies that bring greater joy and comfort than I might find otherwise.  Last week, on the solstice, I walked across the road to purchase honey from our neighbors' farm.  Their bees are frequent visitors to our gardens.  Have always been one to plant with bee needs in mind but this is the first time I've been able to consume the fruits of our combined labor.  The honey is thick and has a little tang to its sweetness.  As I carried it back into the house I realized that I was talking to the bees in my head; thanking them for all the enjoyment they bring.  I was also talking to the sleepy winter sun - encouraging Grandfather to find his light bringing trajectory and expressing gratitude that the sun guides and fulfills so many life forms here on earth.

may the sweetness of Light sow seeds of illumination throughout my heart & soul ...

listening & looking

I can remember one or two late autumn seasons that remained as green and unfrozen as the current landscape.  In both cases I went a little bonkers because my garden beds were full of life and thus overflowing with psychic input during a time when I was accustomed to resting that part of myself.  This year I am not overwhelmed.  Is this a sign of personal maturity?  Psychic fine tuning that allows me to filter more effectively?  A gift from the land spirits that do the most profound 'talking' whenever I'm willing to listen?  I don't really know.  I just know I am willing to listen.

Last weekend we mulched all the garden beds we've created since the move.  This is a task that I love performing with my husband.  Our most powerful bond relates to a shared creative imperative.  It takes different forms for both of us.  His first language (and love) is music.  My primary language is color - especially as it articulates itself through petal-speak. A second bond is no less powerful but merely a bit shorter on our shared timeline.  That of course is the conscious conception and mindful raising of our son who will be 27 in a few short months.

while we tended the vegetable plot tony often sat in a hand-me-down highchair we placed right at the center of the garden.  he was a solemn baby who watched and listened very carefully.

Third on the list - first forged before our son was born but not as frequently experienced - is the accomplishment of birthing and building new garden space.  Although I tend to refer to the gardens as mine they are most assuredly ours.  Jim provides muscle power and extended stamina that I don't possess.  He also hears and feels the land as only an earth sign can.   He consistenly confirms, without prompting, some of the more out-there perceptions I experience all along the watchtower of liminal realms. 

Our shared ritual of putting garden beds to sleep began in the early 80's.  In the first autumn season of a garden I named Little Findhorn Jim scavenged a dozen oversized garbage bags crammed full of raked leaves.  We used them to cover our raised vegetable beds that he double-dug and amended with the freewheeling insouciance of a young man.  The next spring thousands of tree-seeds sprouted in the beds.  From then on we used straw for mulching.  There is something very exciting and precious about putting a garden to bed.  Our motions are tender and mindful.  Past growing seasons rise from memory and heart space.  We are one with each other, the plants, and the ground that holds All...

urban earthkeeping circa 1982

the other side of silence

In recent weeks I've been somewhat consumed with health-related issues.  This includes coming to terms with a healing/recuperation process (Graves/thyroid) that's taking longer than I somewhat arrogantly imagined it would.  It also includes synthesizing my ongoing fibromyalgia and neurological experiences in ways that may allow me to be of help and inspiration to others who are committed to a strong and vibrant quality of life within the confines of chronic illness.  Stay tuned for more details later in the month.

In this same time frame much focus and energy has gone into clearing out the worst of the snowstorm tree damage.  Obviously the first step was to liberate most of the pathways and remove fallen limbs from the roof of the garage and potting shed.  Then it was time to clear the frog pond.  In the above image Tony and Jim are working (last weekend) to reduce the bulk of a fallen trunk.  It broke from a coppiced maple tree; this is one of three trunks and I was very upset before I realized the fallen portion meant there would be more sunlight on the pond's surface.  This in turn means I'll be at liberty to grow a lotus or blue water lily next year!  Previously I thought I'd have to grow them up in the field in some whiskey barrels. 

The right circle above shows the broken trunk.  The circle on the left shows another break that will create more sunlight in an area that will be perfect for transplanting mint next spring.  Temperatures continue to  remain above freezing so the field gardens are still fairly vibrant.  The ground smells wonderful.  Jim and I spent the early afternoon spreading straw mulch amongst the flowers and herbs out there.  As I worked I was quite mindful of the earth spirit energy buzzing and humming all around us. This is something that consistently feeds my joy quotient.  It also supports the kind of stamina and hope that helps me actively process the abundance of cultural and political challenges peppering our human landscape.

This is one of three large piles we've created for organizing and consolidating the fallen tree limbs.  I've been collecting images of handmade trellises with an emphasis on simple construction.  In these pictures the damage and fallen wood doesn't look nearly as imposing as it feels when it comes to dragging things around and figuring out the best way to cut it into more workable sections. 

Beyond the pile there is a brownish haze of dead oak leaves still attached to a litter of branches that fell all around my beloved hawthorne tree.  I worried about the tree quite a lot throughout the past growing season because the canopy was so thick above its struggling form.  Now there is likely to be significantly more light reaching the tree.  I'm thankful for that.  And it was somewhat awe-inspiring to study the way the oak branches fell in a perfect circle around the hawthorne.

Now that the mulching is done I can focus on clearing out the rest of the vegetable garden.  The hardy greens are still growing and so are the calendula.  Generally the ground freezes right before Thanksgiving but this year it's still workable enough to plant english and lemon thyme plants that were part of the deckside container kitchen garden. Slowly but surely I'm actualizing the idealized herb garden that's spent years articulating itself within my imagination ...

mid-november progress

By working really gently, and one slow-moving step at a time, I've been able to make good progress with getting all the garden space winterized. This is a relief as well as a fresh lesson in the beauty & perfection of maintaining a humble but steady pace. Some of the container-grown kitchen herbs are still offering fresh tips.  I really love the subtle shifts in flavor that the colder weather produces.

In the forty-plus years of my gardening experience I've yet to successfully over-winter a rosemary plant.  Naurally I never stop trying but I've also learned to harvest more diligently than I would if I was also concerned with the plant's needs for successful winter dormancy.  This year's Halloween snowstorm 'trick' was hugely damaging to many of my favorite plants as well as the larger landscape  It outright killed the lemon verbena (which I did successfully over-winter last year) that I wish I'd had the foresight to bring inside before the snow began to accumulate.  Alas I was too busy sitting in a state of shock - looking outside and repeatedly telling my cat "I'm not ready for this kinda thing yet."

Yesterday morning I took inventory of what remained alive in the deckside container garden.  It was clear to me I didn't want to neglect any remaining harvest opportunities.  It's my practice not to take anything that's growing in the ground beyond the traditional cut-off point of Samhain.  This feels right; in fact it feels quite important to me, at the cellular level, to honor the purpose of the tradition.  We take what we need and desire from Gaia's abundant growing season and then we leave what remains alive and fruitful for her nourishment.  But, for the last few years, it has also felt okay to keep snipping bits and pieces from the cooking herbs I grow in pots.  I just offer extra rounds of thanks for the opportunity and leave any loose ends of the harvest on my gaia altar.

The altar space announced itself to me during our walk-through the evening before closing.  It's basically a rock about a foot and a half long with a relatively flat surface.  My entire body was vibrating with excitement that evening - not about the house so much as the land.  This beautiful little property was so quick to reach out to me that I knew it had been waiting for just my kind of human/nature alliance.  The rock is located by the side of the lovely path that connects the backyard to the field.  In the image above Celeste is staring intently at the rock which was covered with a moldering pumpkin.  Below (look for the orange blob-form of the disintegrating vegetable matter) is a glimpse of the altar in larger context.

This picture was taken a few days after the snowstorm.  We hadn't yet had a chance to begin gathering and sorting tree limbs that fell.  Today the re-sharpened power saw has been collected and tomorrow we'll begin the process of making manageable pieces of overwhelming chaos.  Much of the windfall is going to our neighbor but we'll keep what we need to make some old-fashioned growing trellises...