Lands Capers and Workers!

 Before our twice-monthly work days, we sometimes get a landscaping update from Richard (you saw one here as a past blog). He usually has suggestions for potential tasks, so we decided to combine his epistle with some photos of last Saturday’s work day. 

Hi, Neighbors

The fall colors this year have been mixed. I thoroughly enjoyed the early bunches of leaves dropped in the circle by the Mighty White Oak. Yellows, flame orange and bright red, sometimes in clusters falling next to each other. A welcome surprise from an oak tree. Perhaps another sign that our signature tree is doing better. It certainly looked more healthy by the fall than it did in the spring. We will continue to limit erosion and let natural processes condition the soil under it.

The Three Raketeers! On work day these three set to work raking up all those beautiful oak leaves and twigs.

Linda gets the last bit of the leaves on the path between the South Quad and the Common House.

Jacquie can attest to the Mighty White Oak having Mighty big piles of leaves. 

The Scarlet Oaks, on the other hand, were disappointing. Not their year. But, as if to compensate, the Sweet Gum stepped up. They went through their own color show, capped by the brilliant reds still lingering at the intersection of the Pedway and EB Lane.

A flock of small birds burst from the Swamp Sunflowers as I walked down the Pedway just days ago. Now I have to restrain my impulse to clean out the bed. I admit to being as greedy for the seeds as the birds are, collecting whole stalks and stripping the heads into places in the bed where Sunflowers, Sneezeweed and Goldenrod have not yet taken hold.

We still have one shrub blooming. It is Sea Myrtle, a type of aster, not related to Wax Myrtle or Crepe Myrtle which is not even native to this hemisphere. You can see large ones along the edge of the woods west of EB Lane and a couple east of the stock barn.

Everyone should be anxious to get outdoors again after this rain, and our next work day will be a great opportunity. Saturday will be brisk and partly sunny. The landscape committee needs to collect the irrigation donuts and gator bags. Karolyn and Ayn will do that and then go on to harvest zinnias.

I will work on clearing around the Old Apple Tree with Mary Kay. The south end of the EB Lane bed is a good place to weed.

The compost yard is ready for your input. So bring it on.

Any other suggestions?
Richard

Richard didn’t really have to ask. There were plenty of other suggestions of work – from excavating a new South Quad path (Mary) to spraying vinegar on weeds in the pedway (Vonda).

The log cabin has been a favorite project for years! Indeed, for more than a century before we got here. But now it’s our turn to make it weather-tight again. Karen has been learning the art of chinking and patching some very old logs.

One of the purposes of our all-purpose room is exercise. Here we’re swapping out one piece of equipment for a better one - and getting a little exercise doing that! 

Probably just like most of you, we too have surplus exercise equipment. This piece was stored unused in the log cabin until Stewart and Joyce helped it on its way to the Habitat for Humanity store.

Even when work is fun, it’s more fun to take breaks! This was a socially distanced midday break in the sunshine.

Not all the work was outside. Down in the Woodshop, Mike has been building a small wall that will eventually serve to hide the bins of party decorations that we have stored in a loft above the Media Room in the Common House. Saturday Mike put parts together in the Common House.

Nobody relaxes as well as a cat! Arthur’s already looking forward to taking breaks during our next work day! 

The Ugly Day

I confess, I've always loved lousy weather —

cold gray days when most people are inside doing normal things 

like reading, or cooking, or cleaning out closets.

It's been raining all day, the temperature dropping. I'm stir crazy. 

Time to put on my chicken boots, grab my iPad and head outside with a plan to find beautiful things on an "ugly day."

Neighbors

As it turns out, my neighbors Vonda and Cecil also don't know when to come in out of the rain either! Instead, they're repairing a fence post in Cecil's raised bed out front.

Down to the gardens

I’ve become quite familiar with the gardens since moving into my Elderberry home five months ago. I’m inspired by “common gardener goddesses" Vonda and Karolyn. 

I’m a newbie, mostly pulling weeds. I’m finding a second vocation 

however as mechanical fix-it person — mending fences, 

improving gates, whatever! I find surprising gratification in making 

things beautiful and more functional!

Karolyn’s dog Lucy looks forlorn as I walk past her 

along the pedway on my way to the gardens. 

“Are you going to the garden without me? I’m bored as well!” 

This patch of collards is old, but still lovely with drops of moisture 

collecting light on large, blue green leaves. Not too long ago, 

our gardens were so dry, I’m still very happy to see rain drops everywhere.

I’m a graphic designer by profession, and so a sucker for color! 

Orange was my favorite color as a kid, so I’m still attracted to this riotous combination of orange on the marigolds. Color is more vivid with rain, as the colors brighten and the gray skies flatten contrast, a perfect reason to walk along the flower beds on any rainy day!

I wish you could have quietly walked up with me to this adorned fence! It burst apart with small, forked-tail birds that took flight from their invisible hiding spots as I approached. I’ve always loved silhouettes and these dried vines are lovely, their random pattern contrasting against the rigid pattern of the fence.

Vonda and Karolyn planted “three sisters” this year in the summer garden. Corn stalks grow first to support the beans, and then the broad leaves of squash grow to shade and protect the soil around all three. Native Americans used this technique. I love this spent mass of plant confusion left here, partly for the history behind it.

Down the lane and back

Continue along Elderberry Lane past the community and gardens and you approach Bel Cielo, or beautiful sky, a quiet open meadow edged by forest, and the entrance to the Potluck Luck trails at the woods’ edge.

Today, Bel Cielo is gray and close and intimate with rain clouds. The rain has flattened the view, so the pattern of trees stands in stark contrast along the sky’s edge. In summertime I often walk here in the late evening to watch the sunset, or meet friends for a socially distanced Saturday night wine-down.

Today I’m surprised to find our neighbors chickens foraging through the meadow. I must have spoiled their fun as they headed off back to the woods as I approached. There’s something delightful about their grouping and regrouping, as they move along. I took several images as they made their exit.

This is the view as I turn back towards Elderberry. A gently curving dirt road always pulls on my imagination, and reminds me, “walk slowly, enjoy these woods.” I recall the Mary Oliver poem, When I Am Among the Trees, maybe you know it? My favorite line, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.” Indeed.

Such an abundance all around, I can become blind to the small discoveries. I almost walked by this “window” along Elderberry Lane, until I recognized the late blossoms of honeysuckle. When I walk before dawn brings enough light to see what surrounds me, I instead recognize the blooming honeysuckle by their sweet, heavy scent. Summer has arrived! 

Crooks Corner in Chapel Hill serves honeysuckle sorbet from blossoms painstakingly gathered by hand. This view also reminds me of that beloved May tradition.

Closer to home

There is so much to see walking along the trails and paths, you can be forgiven for not looking up! But looking up across the curve of Elderberry Lane from the gardens presents this spectacular view of the old white oak that shades our central circle. 

Don’t you wish we could hear these lovely old trees tell their histories? What might we hear? Maybe take just a moment of silence...

Closer to home and hive

Under the oak is one of three entrances to our "hive", the community building we built, literally, when Elderberry was just forming. This is a path I take multiple times a day, to the kitchen, our laundry room, maybe the multi-purpose room. It’s much quieter, with Covid restrictions, as are so many parts of our lives right now. 

I’m aware of the change in seasons as one last spot of brilliant yellow remains near this entrance. What you might not see is the tidy black shape of Panthe, Linda’s solid black cat just beyond. We trade turns watching each other. One day while working in the small grove of trees by the parking lot, I turned around to find her under one of the cars watching me, almost invisible except for her yellow eyes.  Much the same color as the mums.

Something as mundane as a car windshield might seem a little out of place here. However, rain has transformed this common object into something worth a second, or third, or multiple look! Each raindrop is a small curved reflection of light and color, repeated again and again. On nicer days I watch the ripples on the pond at Potluck Farm playing the same game as the radiating circles reflect the sky, woods and water around it. In the sun!

Garden eggs are not easy to grow for a beginning gardener. 

As I was packing my posessions, having recently moved out of both my office and home in town, I discovered many small caches of rocks, collected from my travels and hikes. I’ve been slowly returning some of these rocks to the woods as I hike, but some are simply too lovely and full of memory to part with. So, they are now "planted" in my little garden in front of my home.

My weeders’ dilemma. Yes, it’s a weed, but it’s incredibly beautiful to me, especially with water jewels. To pull, or not to pull?

The deeper story

I hope you’ve enjoyed my exploration to find beauty in an ugly day. Before I end this, a little deeper background to this story. 

Earlier in the day, I could feel myself sinking, contemplating and worried about what the future held for all of us. Last summer, I found myself in a similar place, in a more serious way, floundering. Once I pulled through, as we all do at some point, I decided to make a list of what I needed to remember when I found myself starting down this path — ten suggestions to make a positive change in my outlook. I affectionately call this my "personal manifesto". 

Suggestion number eight was good advice from a dear friend, presented to her at a recent workshop. “When I start to feel low, just making an initial effort creates energy for positive change.” 

Thank you, be well, and keep looking for beauty every day.