The Survivor Tree

The Survivor Tree is a Tulip Poplar (which is actually not a poplar, but a member of the magnolia family). She is old and she is tall. In 1992, she was hit by lightening. The bolt took out the top 20 to 30 feet of the tree and deposited in the back yard (it was not yet a garden). We expected her to die, for not many trees can survive a direct lightening strike and live to tell the tale. But the next spring, her jagged top sprouted new branches and she lived on.

Years passed, and she regained her height, now with two trunks that had sprouted from just below where Thor did his not so gentle pruning. Looking from afar, one could not see the scars left that fateful day. She was beautiful again.

In 2004, during a hurricane, one of the twin trunks that had grown above the lightening strike was ripped from her and thrown to the ground by the twisting winds. Other limbs that were ripped away are still lodged in a neighboring poplar about 30 feet away from her, having become "widow-makers". The next spring she began the process of growing more new limbs to reach toward the sky. We watched in awe as she refused to give up her quest.

In 2007, a windstorm took outmost of the new top growth from the lightening strike upward and several more limbs, flinging them to the four directions. Part of the original trunk was ripped away. It still carried the charring from the lightening strike of fifteen years before. Once again the back garden was littered with limbs, some driven so far into the earth that we could not remove them, instead we cut them off at ground level with a chainsaw.

Even this set-back did not defeat the Survivor Tree. She lives on and still produces her beautiful tulip shaped blooms each year. Her jagged profile can be seen from the road across the way, for even with all the damage, the Survivor Tree still stands tall and proud.

We all have endured the storms of this life. We have been struck down when we least expected it with a mortal blow. We have been blown and tossed about by the four winds. The lesson of the Survivor Tree is to bend in the winds of adversity, to stand with our roots deep in our faith, staying strong in our beliefs. To always reach for the sky, and to never, ever give up.

After days of wet weather I finally got to spend most of today in the garden. I transplanted some flowers into pots for their summer on the patio. Then I transplanted more tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant into the garden beds.

Once the "babies" were safe in their new homes I was finally able to prune the forsythia so as to have an unobstructed pathway down the steps to the back yard. It is amazing how quickly it can send branches out and completely hide the steps, making passage to the back yard look like an impossibility. The forsythia shades the steps to the extent that ferns have begun to establish themselves between and alongside them.


On the other side of the steps is a flower bed that we struggled with for years. Made of excavated dirt from when the cottage was build, it had no nutrients and nothing we tried to grow there could live, or so it seemed. About 5 years ago we put down a thick layer of cypress mulch, thinking it would look better than the bare ground. Later that year I put in some hosta. The hosta thrived and in years since the bed has become a home for volunteer ferns, some sedum, and Japanese Spurge. It is now a lush area, where once was hopeless bare ground.

After my path clearing session I rested for a bit on the deck. It can be a bit overwhelming sometimes to see how the lower gardens became so overgrown last year while I let them sit idle. They were not really idle during that period at all! All the undesirables have gained back the foothold I had spent several years taking away from them. Wild honeysuckle, poison ivy, wild violets have been having a party in my absence.

Deciding enough was enough, I took my spade and went to break up their little party. Let the weed pulling begin! I managed to clean the beds and reclaim my mums and yarrow. I gently broke up the soil so their roots could get some air. Our clay soil tends to pack down and smother tiny root systems.

I made a lot of progress, and I made some discoveries. Some Sweet Annie plants have begun to grow where their mother was two years ago. I found a St. John's Wort that had decided Shady Hollow was a good home. I found about 25 or more tomato plants that have to be Thailand Pinks, for they have come up where the pinks were growing last year. That was a wonderful find, as I had not yet started any of that variety of tomato. It is a heirloom grape-type tomato that is absolutely fantastic in salads.

Left to its own devices, the land will return to its wild state. I see that ever so clearly in my back garden. As I cleaned around my plantings today I removed many young tree seedlings whos goal was to return Shady Hollow to forest. I asked their forgiveness as I tugged them from the earth and told them "not yet". Maybe when I'm gone you can reclaim this place, but not yet.

True Friends

If you have a friend, someone who you know in your heart understands you in your best and worst moments, then you are blessed. If you have a friend who knows the good and bad sides of your personality and still is there for you, you are twice blessed. If they love you, warts and all, you are thrice blessed.

Over time you can lose contact with someone who is your dearest friend. Life happens to us all. People move, get divorced, marry. People have heartache and loss and become involved in the long process of moving past their pain. All sorts of things can cause us to lose track of our friends, even if they rank "best friend" status.

Some of us get lucky. At just the right moment, the Universe moves, and we find that friend again. It might be a few years, or twenty or more in the making, but the Universe is not concerned with how much time. Its only concern is the right time.

The Universe moves and there is your old friend again. If this is a true friend, you find that conversations flow as if you'd never had a gap in time at all. The only manifestation of a time-gap is that the children are grown, and you both have grown or nearly grown grandchildren, and well, there is a lot of catching up and filling each other in on details that has to be done. But, the bond, the thing that made the friendship special is still alive and well.

As one who has experienced this special friendship and reunion, I consider myself to be most blessed by the Universe and Creator.

Starting the Garden for 2009

The garden is starting to take shape. I have planted the flowers boxes out front, although they will not fill in for awhile yet. The planters on the deck are planted with hibiscus and cannas. The pots are starting to fill with home-grown begonias; saliva, more cannas, coleus, and an assortment of planters contain seeds waiting to sprout. Seed packets of more flowers and vegetables are on the kitchen counter, waiting for tomorrow. After a quick trip to the store for some soil amendments and a little work to finish prep, the veggie garden will be on its way. The bunnies know; I have already spotted one laying in wait at the edge of the vegetable plot.

This year I am taking more photos as I go along, a visual journal to supplement the written one I keep of successes and failures.

Gardening is in my blood. My mom and dad always had a huge garden. I spent many spring and summers following daddy as he tilled the soil and prepared it for planting. Following behind that small tractor I learned the smell of freshly turned earth. In my mind there is no sweeter smell. I learned what was and wasn't a weed while helping thin the rows. In that hot South Carolina sun, I learned about the cycles of the earth, early and late planting, the joys of a good harvest, and the needfulness of winter so the earth, plants, and humans could rest.

Mama had a pantry and freezer that she filled to capacity with frozen and canned fruits and vegetables from that garden. She made jams and jellies from berries I helped her pick. Wild strawberries grew in the lower pasture, blackberries and dewberries along the fence rows and edges of the woods.

Mama and daddy's garden was bigger than the lot our cottage sits on. It was in full sun and was blessed with rich soil. My garden encompasses the entire lot around the cottage. I don't call it a 'yard' anymore. It is just the garden. Here in the North Carolina Mountains, we are tucked into a north facing hillside and surrounded by very old, very large trees. The garden is a series of small beds, conforming with the terrain as much as possible to reduce erosion and optimizing the sunlight that does get through.

Below the garden, the joining property is wooded and is a flood plain. There lies the bottom of the garden and the domain of the fairies. There also is the slowly growing area where beloved pets and familiars lie at rest. There, on the north-east corner, below the Fairy Tree.

Tomorrow morning, while the mountain air is still crisp, I will walk the garden as I do every morning. But tomorrow I will be making the final, or nearly final, decisions on where things will go this year. And after that quick trip to the big box store, I will dig and smell that sweet smell of freshly turned earth and remember daddy and the things he taught me. And I will plant hope, for that is, when it comes down to it, what you do when you plant a seed.

I played in the dirt today. Spring is here, and there is a spot near my back door that has been crying out for cultivation. Two years ago I moved a very old woodpile from that location. Since it gets plenty of sun, I put a few candy roaster squash in and harvested a bumper crop. Last year it lay fallow.

Many things lay fallow at Shady Hollow last year. It was in April that my husband became ill. It was a long spring and summer filled with surgeries, visiting nurses, therapy, fast trips to the ER and near misses with the Lord of the Underworld. The seemingly never-ending cycle lasted well into fall. While I nursed my husband the garden took care of itself. It endured drought and hardship outside as we dealt with pain, uncertainty, and the shadow of death inside.

Time seemed to stop inside the cottage. Winter came and we learned how to live with my husband in a wheelchair. We learned how to cope with simple things not being so simple anymore. When the Silver Wheel turned and the first crocus emerged to sample the air and then bloom, our hearts sang.

He can no longer walk down the hill to the Fairy Tree and see the back garden from ground level. This bothers him, for we tended the plants and trees there together for nearly 18 years. He can see it from the deck, however, which gives him a birds-eye view. So he hasn't lost the hidden garden, he is just looking from a different vantage point. The fairies, well they come up to visit with him. (Yes, there really are fairies at the bottom of our garden.)

If things go well, the garden spot at the back door will soon be home to tomato and cucumbers with a few flowers thrown in for good measure. The remaining spots will also be tilled and will become home to various other vegetables and flowers. I will once again go into battle with wild honeysuckle and poison ivy vines that are itching to take over. If things go well, the majority of the stain under my fingernails will be Shady Hollow soil and not just the grime from my job at the factory. If things go well, there will be herbs drying in every nook and cranny. Motherwort, mugwort, catnip, sage, lemon balm, bee balm, spearmint, hmmmm, the cottage smells delicious when the herbs are freshly harvested and hug to dry.

So much of what was normal here changed last April. The new normal is far removed from the old. To me, who is as much a crazy plant lady as a crazy cat lady, I regained a little piece of the old normal today. I played in the dirt.

 

 

Family

Family means so many things. Each of us grew up with a different concept of what it means to be part of a family, to belong. I never felt that I belonged with the family that raised me. I was an adopted child and came to parents who already had raised three children of their own. Flesh and blood children. Not a stranger like me.

At fourteen I eloped with a tall rangy boy with a funny smile and an old beat-up car. I thought he was the best thing since they invented chocolate. I thought he could walk on water. After 23 years I figured out chocolate was better and he couldn't walk on water. He couldn't even swim.

Not to put him down though, he did give me four absolutely beautiful children. Finally, at long last, I had that family I had wanted for so long.

Raising "the wild bunch" was not easy. Hard times were normal during their growing up years. We lived in an assortment of dwellings that would make most people's skin crawl. We wore second and third hand clothing and took food donated from church pantries. We carried water while living in homes that had no running water, depending on family and friends for that vital liquid. We were poor. We got by.

The children are grown, and I left the place we all lovingly call "red dirt hill" many years ago. My ex-husband still lives there, still struggles in a hell of his own making. The children have also left the hill and have families of their own. Beautiful families who live much better than their parents did.

I have a husband now who is not the best thing since chocolate, nor can he walk on water. . .but he can swim. One's perspective changes from the ages of 14 to 38 when it comes to choosing a husband. One's perspective changes even more from age 38 to 57 as far as what you expect from marriage in general.

And then there is the perspective on family. Family is dropping everything to come to an emergency room when your mother says, "Son, I need you here, it's not good". Family is taking time off work you can ill afford to lose when you get the call that your step-dad is having surgery, now, and mama is waiting there, all alone. Family is calling to check on someone, just because you had them on your mind. Family is a silly get well card, a birthday phone call, a hug, and an "I love you" text message. Family is knowing there is always someone you can call when you need a shoulder to cry on, or are giddy with happiness and just need to share.

Our families, the in-laws, outlaws, spouses, children, parents, grandparents, or those who are our families by choice. From the most stable to the most dysfunctional, they are ours to love, hold, and treasure.

Gardening and Life

The seed catalogs have arrived and my heart sings for it means spring is not far away. In my greenhouse, baby begonias and foxgloves are reaching toward the light, waiting for the day when they leave its confines to feel the soft spring breeze and feel the warmth of the sun.

I often walk my gardens in winter, checking for any signs of life returning. Presently crocus and daffodils are blooming. The approaching cold will nip them. They are too far along to hide from the cold this time. I will bring some of them in so we can enjoy them as the snow falls and the cold winds howl.

This year I will be planting more vegetables among the herbs and flowers. The usual tomatoes and peppers will be joined by cucumbers, squash and other favorites.

Gardening makes apparent that life is a continuing cycle of birth, life and death. As the sun returns each spring the sleeping plants and seeds emerge full of life and vigor. As spring turns into summer they mature and bear fruit and seeds for the next year. In autumn they age and die or go into dormancy. This cycle plays out year by year as it has for untold ages.

As I watch my garden and contemplate the cycle of life and rebirth I draw parallels between the life of plants and of every other creature on our beautiful planet. We are all part of the cycle, passengers on the silver wheel of time as it circles around forever.