Welcome Back!

 

I saw my first hummingbird this week.  I had put the feeder out just the day before, after hearing several people say they had seen one or two.  The next morning, I was sitting on the front porch, talking to my neighbor, Clay, and suddenly there he was, jeweled head shining in the sun and hovering just in front of the feeder.  “Look!” I pointed.  “Welcome back, little guy.”

I had spent the afternoon before inspecting my wild flower garden, checking on the shooting star, which was finally blooming,
and looking around down at the branch at the bottom of the holler.  I spent countless happy hours down there as a kid, playing in the water, catching minnows and tadpoles and building dams of mud and rocks.  My friend Alice and I used to dam up little pools to contain the minnows then knock the dams down and watch them dart away.  I don’t remember ever wondering where the minnows came from, but now I do wonder.  The branch wasn’t big enough for big fish, especially during the hot, dry summer months.  It was fed by tiny springs all along the banks – I don’t remember exactly where it started but it certainly wasn’t what you would classify as a creek.  It trickled and meandered down the hollow, merged into gullies and eventually emptied into the river.  Maybe the minnows came upstream somehow from the river?  I found two little springs still feeding the branch, the water bubbling out from under the rocks along the edge of the branch.

My good neighbor came and disked up the garden this week.  So, now we have a beautiful expanse of rich dirt, just waiting for plants and seeds.  The smell of freshly plowed dirt is intoxicating.  It can cause otherwise sane people to run out to a garden store and fill their trunk with plants.  I feel the urge to visit Martin’s Greenhouse to buy tomatoes and squash and pepper and okra seedlings, but I’m trying to wait until at least my mama’s birthday to plant anything.  The ground is still a little cold for tender plants, but it sure did work up good!    We found the ancient implement the other day in the wood shed that we used to make the rows.  It’s pretty rickety now, but maybe it would work.  We also found the broad axe head that has been misplaced since I moved to the farmhouse three years ago, several more boxes of Christmas decorations and a wonderful vintage milk crate.

On my wild flower walk in the holler this  morning, I found the putty root I thought I had lost and what I think is a Star of Bethlehem I had forgotten about.  I spent some time on my sitting rock, listening to a raucous woodpecker and wondering what the dogs were finding so fascinating in an old hollow tree up the hill.  The larkspur is still putting on a show and the trillium are hanging in there, but the bluebells have given up their finery.  On my way down the path, I was startled by a tree that appears to be haunted by goblins. 

I don’t know how their faces got in there, but I hope they don’t get out.  All I need are goblins haunting my woods and stirring up the dogs.  Come to think of it, maybe that’s what the dogs have been chasing down there almost every night.  As I started back up the hill, I noticed a tree that surely could have been an Ent.  They were part of the good guys in Lord of the Rings, so maybe this Ent will keep the goblins contained.

My cousin has already planted potatoes and onions in the newly tilled garden, and I heard the first whippoorwill the other night, so I know it’s time to plant corn.  The busy garden season is upon us, but today I took a whole morning to explore the woods and sit on the front porch with the dogs, watching the hummingbirds dart around the feeder, admiring the yellow and blue pansies I planted this past week, and listening to the tap, tap, tap of my resident woodpecker.  I had planned last night that I would cook something this morning but it was too nice a morning to spend in the kitchen.  I made a ham sandwich instead and ate it in the swing, sharing with Sophie, who always seems to sense when food is nearby.  Maybe the impulse to cook something will return later today, but I doubt it.  The porch swing is a remedy for many things.  The urge to cook is one of those things.  I think there is enough ham for at least one more sandwich.  

Ready to plant

 

Another Spring

 

Every year I am eager to climb down the hill to the holler where my wild flower garden blooms.  Usually I go too early, when just a few green shoots poke timidly out of their blanket of dead leaves. This year I put off my trip, worried that last summer’s dry weather and the extreme cold of late December had taken a toll on my old friends.  As I have written before, this wild flower garden is extra special because it has been a project for me and my mom over about five decades.  As sometimes happens,  fear took over my better sense and I was convinced that it would be a barren hillside.  I have had a rough few months and that’s the only excuse I can think of for my uncharacteristic pessimism.

Last weekend I took the plunge.  On the way, I almost literally took a plunge because Carli jumped against me on the way down and almost caused a dive off the hillside.  But my trusty stick came through and I kept my balance, admonishing the eager puppy against such shenanigans. This was her first trip on a wildflower walk.  Scout and Sophie, old hands at this adventure, ranged ahead, checking back with me occasionally to make sure I was still following.  This hollow is their territory – the source of many adventures and a hunting ground.  A few weeks ago, it was the scene of a brief war.    I do not know the result, and I did not know all the combatants.  Bear, Scout, Carli and Sophie were on one side, but I have no idea who their opponent was, nor do I know the end result.  I suspect it was a draw, since I saw no blood and no one brought home a trophy.

Hysterical barks echoed from the holler, as if all the hounds of Baskerville had cornered their prey.  I couldn’t see where they were, and I was not about to go down there.  I was unloading feed in the rain, transferring it from the truck to the Kubota.  Starting the Kubota usually brings the dogs running from wherever they are, if they are in earshot.  So I wasn’t surprised when Sophie arrived, unscathed and relatively clean.  I expect she must have been more of an observer than a participant, although I swear she can keep herself cleaner than any dog I know in rain and mud.  Somehow, even when she runs through the mud, her paws are still white.

By the time I got the feed transferred, Carli had appeared, panting and muddy.  The battle was winding down.  Scout was the next to appear, covered in gritty mud from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, with his tongue hanging out but still rearing to go.  It was obvious that whatever they had cornered had gone to ground – probably a groundhog den – and that Scout at least had tried to root it out.  Unlike Sophie, he enjoys getting wet and dirty.  He’s the only dog I’ve ever had that will just lie out in the rain.

Then Bear came slowly up the hill.  He looked like an old general, bringing up the rear of the guard, muddy and exhausted.  As he came closer I could see that he too had been digging.  His nose was scratched, his tongue was hanging out, and he had a look of defeat in his eyes.  He spent the rest of the day sprawled unmoving on the front porch, so motionless that I checked on him a few times just to make sure he was recovering.

But today was peaceful and the dogs found no enemies to chase.  As I drew closer to my destination, I glimpsed blue through the trees and my heart lifted.  At least the bluebells were there.  I stopped just above the little grove where we have spent so many happy times.  There they were – bluebells, trillium, trout lilies, even a few Dutchman’s Britches were blooming.

I scrambled down the last few feet and took inventory, feeling slightly foolish at my needless worry.  I should have known that nature is resilient.  Wild flowers and wild creatures have been surviving since before a human set foot on this particular piece of land.  The delicate shooting star was there, lifting its buds above a wreath of green.  The trout lilies were even bigger than normal, in defiance of the fickle weather.  And I found one small jack-in-the-pulpit almost hidden among the other blooms. 

I had to clear a lot of dead branches from the path to my sitting rock and swept leaves and dirt from its surface.  A little patch of Dutchman’s Britches had taken root on top of the rock and hung a few tiny pairs of pantaloons out to dry.  I took a picture of it just before Sophie and Scout sat on it. 

I didn’t even scold them – how can I complain when they lay their heads over my shoulder and look at me with love in their eyes?  The Dutchman’s Britches will survive, I imagine, to bloom again in other springs. 

 

Bluebells and Other Old Friends, a Fifty Year Legacy

The late afternoon sun was inching toward the horizon when I made my way down the path through what I call Trillium Holler. It had been cloudy for the first part of the day and I had been busy, but when the sun brightened mid-afternoon, I hunted up my good hiking shoes ( I have to hide them from Scout, who I may have mentioned has an affinity for footwear) and set out with my sturdy stick.

This was my latest trip to check on the wildflowers, and I was afraid I had missed the trout lilies. They are sneaky little critters, and you must slip up on them at just the right moment. Last week they had no blooms and all that was visible were the spears of mottled leaves. Then it rained and the weather was too damp and cold for my old knees. Usually when I delayed more than a day or two, the bright yellow blooms would be past their prime, a mere hint of yellow against the leaf covered ground. But I was in luck. As I looked down the steep path toward a sea of bluebells I could see amongst the blue, scatterings of yellow. 

We didn’t plan it exactly, but somehow the bluebells and the trout lilies, quite on their own, have woven their own tapestry of blue and yellow that our skill could not have created. It’s my favorite color combination, so much so that I use it in just about every room in my house. 

 Sophie stayed by my side as I made my careful way through the trees on slippery dry leaves. Scout darted ahead, trying to keep Bear in sight and excited to be along for the trip, whatever the purpose was. The dogs didn’t trample anything this time and seemed to understand they shouldn’t flop down on top of the blooming things. 

We created this place, my mama and me. From just a few transplants, the bluebells flow down the hillside now, the shooting star has (finally!) begun to multiply and the dutchman’s britches has decided to bloom. There are more trillium than anyone can count, tiny anemones resemble a dusting of late snow, and, a little later, Jacks will pray under their green pulpits and larkspur will replace the earlier flowers.

Last year I found a big patch of puttyroot just up the hill from the main garden, and just today I discovered another smaller patch about twenty feet away. I don’t know how we missed it all these years or how it got there. There are one or two lonely specimens living amongst the trout lilies at the entrance to our garden. We always wondered where they came from and I guess that mystery is solved.  The columbine I moved from another spot last year is thriving and blooming and I am thinking about some fire pinks again. They have stubbornly refused to take hold down there, but maybe my luck will turn. 

The hillside leading to that holler, carved out hundreds of years ago before my ancestors made their way here, is a haven within the paradise where I live. My worries and woes slip away, and I can always find peace there. The birdsong and the music of the water that travels through the rocks at the bottom of the holler are soothing.  Or, I can listen to What a Wonderful World on my phone and reflect on my blessings. 

 

As I always do on these spring excursions, I thought of Mrs. Carothers, who introduced me to the joys of the local wildflowers over five decades ago in high school biology class. I don’t remember how to dissect a frog, I never was able to see anything under a microscope, and I doubt I could recite the classifications of living things. But my heart sings every year when I spot the bluebells and trillium. And I breathe a word of thanks to my mama, who nurtured my love of wildflower hunting and was the primary instigator of our wildflower garden. I have to admit that she did most of the work of planting and caring for the flowers that are there today. She had the green thumb that I lacked and the time to spend, in the days that I was working. She also had the foresight to know that eventually we would not be up to long hikes up and down all the other hillsides on our farm and that we would appreciate having our blooming friends closer to the house. As I huffed my way back up the hill, I was glad of that! 

Wildflower 2022 

Who Needs a Church?

This past year has been a strange one, in so many ways. Our little congregation didn’t have church for about 12 weeks, except online and on the local radio. It was an interesting time, going to church in my pajamas while eating breakfast, or catching the service during the mid afternoon.

 Listening to some people lament not being “allowed” to attend church, I couldn’t help feeling pity for such a limited vision of where one can meet God. I guess I just can’t understand how people think they can keep God in a box, or a building. I’ve visited with Him in many places and circumstances through the years, riding a horse along a country road, enjoying puppy kisses on a summer lawn, listening to the laughter of a child, gathering sun-kissed sheets from a clothes line, tasting the first sweetness of strawberries off the vine. And I can always find God through music, which plays almost continually in my house these days. (Who needs a sermon when you can listen to “Why Me, Lord?”) 

But on many mornings, I make my way down the steep and rocky hillside to my little piece of paradise, where wildflowers bloom and God reaches through the trees to take my hand. Some of my most special times take place on that hillside. In my peace of paradise, I know that heaven is not so far away. 

 

Who needs a church? 

The hill folds its arms around me

 Arching branches form an altar,

 And the breeze is a brush of angel wings.

 A mossy stone to sit on, dry leaves that cushion my steps.

 A loyal dog at my feet,

 And music in the air. 

A wood thrush sings a sermon 

The rushing stream plays a melody, 

While a choir of sparrows celebrates. 

The sun through the trees paints mosaics on the ground, 

And a sea of wildflowers lifts my heart. 

My heart is warmed, my soul sings 

In the golden hour, when the veil is thin 

That separates heaven from here.

Thank You, Mrs. Carothers

Note: I wrote this essay many years ago and it was published in the newspaper. It is just as relevant now as when I first wrote it and I wanted to share it again. It is especially timely on this rainy March morning when I saw my first bloodroot of the year.

I don’t remember much that I learned in my tenth grade biology class. I wouldn’t have any idea how to classify anything, I almost got sick dissecting a frog and I never could see a thing under a microscope. But early every spring, I joyfully retrace a path I first took when my teacher assigned our groaning class a wildflower collection.
In the years since, my mom and I have spent countless blissful hours trekking over hills and up hollows, scrambling over steep bluffs and rocky outcrops to see the spring wildflowers It is a ritual for us, anticipated impatiently through the dreary months of January and February. Our discussions begin in early March. “Reckon anything’s up yet?” we ask each other. “When was it we saw the trout-lilies last year?” We always go looking too soon, hoping for early bloomers. And sometimes we are rewarded by a few eager trillium or a precocious bloodroot.

Of course, the flowers had always been there. We just hadn’t particularly noticed them before my assignment. Now I had to find them – twenty-five if I wanted an A. Not only did I have to collect them, I had to identify and preserve them. So, armed with a pocket field guide and accompanied by my mon and the dogs, I set out on a journey that has never ended.
We discovered toothwort, lacy saxifrage and petite bluets, all right under our noses. Shooting-star grew on a steep path overlooking the river, and Virginia bluebells flowed down a hillside like a blue waterfall. The fragile blooms of rue anemone danced in the spring breeze among the rocks and trees, and shy yellow violets hid in last year’s rotting leaves.

As the years passed, we met other new friends – dainty yellow trout lilies with their mottled leaves, stately Jack-in-the-pulpit almost unnoticed against the leaves, wild hyacinths and the curious walking fern. We have traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains in April to enjoy the parade of wildflowers there and sought nature trails along the Natchez Trace. And we have haunted secret spots closer to home, marveling at showy orchids and lady’s slippers. Each new discovery brought just as much excitement as did that first trillium long ago.

The next logical step was to transplant some of our favorites. There is something satisfying in reproducing the growing conditions of our specimens and seeing them thrive and multiply. Mom soon had a well-established colony of bluebells, rue anemone, bloodroot and larkspur. Later, plants from her garden helped start my own plot, which has been expanded with roots from other collectors and from wildflower nurseries.

As time has passed, a few favorites have diminished or disappeared from our woods. The shooting star is all but gone from its rocky perch, victim of occasional floods and foraging cattle. But a thriving clump blooms every spring in Mom’s garden. The Jacks seem to have disappeared too, suddenly one winter as if they folded up their striped canopies and stole away into an unknown land. But a whole family has established residence next door to the shooting star and an offspring began a large family in my own garden. So we became conservationists of a sort, in a small way.

My biology teacher is gone now. Before she moved to her retirement home, she gave me her collection of wildflower books, which I will treasure always. I’m sure her students remember her well. I expect many of them remember more facts than I do. Some of those students may have gone on to become doctors or scientists because of something she taught them. Their work is important; but just as important to me is the sight of the shiny white blooms of bloodroot or the whimsical pantaloons of the Dutchman’s breeches. She gave me a legacy of beauty – a great gift. Thank you, Mrs. Carothers.

There Are Never Enough Daffodils

Spring has exploded. It started out timidly, like a child sticking a toe in the water before diving in. There was just a haze of green over the trees, a few blooms on the southeast side of the house, a hint of warmth in the air. Then, suddenly, violets carpet the yard, spring peepers serenade the evening, and there is an extravagance of daffodils. The bluebells and trout lilies carpet the hillsides and the bloodroot unfurls its leaves in the shady woods. The birds work nonstop, courting and building nests, and there is the intoxicating scent of newly mown grass.
The full moon was last week, a moon bright enough to lure the adventurous outdoors to walk in its light. It, too, seems to enjoy the spring weather and only reluctantly hides its face long after sunrise.
Easter was a perfect spring day, starting with a glorious sunrise and ending with gentle breezes and a sky filled with stars. What more could you ask to celebrate the empty grave?
There are things I will miss about winter – long evenings beside a fire with a good book, lying under warm blankets listening to the wind whip around the eaves, snuggling with a dog on the couch while snowflakes swirl, and early morning walks in a glittering fairy land. But spring brings a freshness that is a renewal of life. It means open windows, and waking up in the mornings to fresh breezes and birdsong.
My mom and I have had a forty year love affair with the wildflowers that bloom along the footpaths and in the deep woods. I have my high school biology teacher, Fay Carothers, to thank for countless happy hours spent rambling and scrambling over every inch of our one hundred acres to find hidden pockets of beauty. It is a spring time tradition with us to view the bluebells that spill down the bluff and the trout lilies that cover the banks of the branch between us and the neighboring farm. One of my favorite memories is the year of the bloodroot, when the hillside appeared to be covered with snow.
If I were in charge, there would be more of spring. More daffodils, more spring breezes, more lilacs. Even now the daffodils are fading. There will be other good things to come. The dogwoods are just beginning to show their color and the tulips are nodding in the breezes. From my window I can see tiny green snowballs on my snowball bush. The rambling rose, which has been on this farm longer than I can remember, is putting out tiny buds. But the daffodils are my favorite – like the essence of sunshine, captured in a flower. I wish I could catch a moment in time and hold it back for a few more weeks. There are just never enough daffodils.