Day 2: Piedmont Carolina

The Carolina morning is sweet, cool and clear, a frisky breeze ruffling the new leaves.

We’ve left the coast, and with it the bowl of still and humid air that is the mid Atlantic, even in the freshest seasons.

We’re further south but higher, resulting in the same stage of spring: radiant dogwoods, new leaves, early bloomers still bright, with the irises in bud.  Yesterday we climbed and climbed. Route 360 through Virginia unfurled in wave after wave of low hills, each one cresting just a bit higher than the last. Now the land is labyrinthine hollows and piney woods, with no roads that follow any cardinal line.

I can feel the mountains even though they’re at least a hundred miles away.

This lovely house is a haven for birds, butterflies, blossoms. Mama cardinal nests outside the door. The beams and planks of the old part of the house are fragrant with age: a bit smoky with a frisson of ancient dust. I’m sleeping in a slant ceiling room with white beaded ceiling, in a nest of pillows and comfort. I found a tiny vase of lily of the valley beside my bed, something my grandmother Bea would have done.

We’ve had a beautiful day of coffee, garden, kitchen, luncheon with friends under maple leaves so new they were nearly yellow, vivid against the blue. It’s been lovely to BE here, taking in the beauty of the place, knowing that the next few days we will be dashing through many places worthy of lingering.

BTW, if you want to follow us on Twitter, use hashtag #coast2coast. I’m @patriseart.

Here’s a few pics; if you want more, they are on Flickr, at right.

North Carolina farmhouse

Stubborn Cherry Blossoms

DC is rightfully famous for our very special flowering cherry trees, “as a gift of friendship to the People of the United States from the People of Japan.” The world renowned collection bordering the Tidal Basin is packed with tourists every year in early spring. Check out the live webcam here.

And for me, it’s often the first plein aire painting session of the year. This year I was eager and organized by March 15, about the earliest we ever see them bloom. And, since I have an enthusiastic student who loves painting from the landscape, I was really ready to get out there. But the trees were not cooperating!

March 31st near the Capitol: usually warm and blooming by now

April 5: not blooming yet!!

That’s what they’re supposed to do, but for weeks the have clung to their tight little buds, shivering in the long cold spring.

But FINALLY! We achieved blossoms and the pink clouds opened up, and the people and the bees were overjoyed.

halleleuyah!

And we made art.

young artist at work

Neil’s painting

Patrise’s painting

Spring brings friends out of hibernation

I’m waiting for spring. And I’m dreading it.

(click to listen to peepers)

I’m eager for song: choir, bird, frog. And blossoms: those first wild daffodils push a silly grin up from my belly. A forecast of snow, cause for joy last week, makes me angry today. I want to frolic by the river with dogs, and laugh with friends on the deck.

But then, the spider walks across my bedroom floor and there’s a tick on the dog.

It’s not that I don’t like bugs; I am appreciative of all sentient beings, and my definition of sentience is broad. But I still have a lingering horror of arachnids. Creepy wolf spiders and those Lymes-spreading deer ticks can all just DIE, my karma be damned.

Of course, strictly speaking, neither ticks nor spiders are true bugs. ‘True bugs’ are of the order Hemiptera, comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of critters like cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and more.  That distinction gets lost in the common speech, however. The word bug comes from bogge, the Low German word for goblin. Clearly the word implies a pest, if not a monster.

But back to those arachnids. They are pretty much on my hate list. The purported source of my arachnophobia is a story of my young parent’s ill-fated trip to Arkansas in 1956, where upon I was traumatized by the sight of my mother being chased from the shower by a tarantula. The legend continues to describe the horrors of southern life for these innocent Michiganders: coral snakes on the patio, 300 ticks on the dog, and my favorite: baby Patty playing with a scorpion in her bath.

As symbols go, the Scorpion has a mixed message: fearless and resilient, but with a sting. I am indeed proudly November born, and astrologers have been known to apologize to me when they see my chart. Scorpio Sun, Moon, Mercury with Saturn sitting on my natal sun. Saturn, the task master. But that is a post for another day. Suffice to say that I’m well acquainted with the celestial Scorpion.

So I think the dance of fear with my arachnid cousins is significant. Scorpio is said to have a dual nature:

Scorpios are known for their impenetrable defences, and for their ability to beguile opponents into underestimating both their resilience, and the fixidity of purpose that fuels their interminable self-will.   [snip]

Transcendence from the crawling scorpion to the soaring eagle, still predatory, still conveying the essence of patience and penetration, but capable of flight and height, brings together the theme of destruction and renewal …- supports the view that in this respect the eagle is representing the ‘Scorpionic myth’ of the phoenix.

from skyscript.co.uk/scorpio.

 

So much rings true here; I have always been intense, moody, charming, resilient, determined. I have passions that run deep. Unchecked, they can get obsessive, stalker-ish. I’ve been known to get fanatic about what’s ‘true’, and I can spin mystery and imagination into new truths that I uphold as realities unseen.

I certainly rekindle myself out of the ashes of the past. My life has been a series of reinventions, and with each one I’m a bit more trusting that this isn’t a malfunction, it’s my fate, my truth.  Live, soar, fall, get up, dust off and rise again.
I saw the eagle this week; they are awakening for spring as well, and this one, splendid whhite head and spread tail, was diving for a squirrel in the road. Whenever I have to ask: “Was that an eagle?” I know it isn’t, for when I see the real thing I am always stunned by how big they are. Unmistakably grand, beautiful and fierce.

Fortunately scorpions do not inhabit the forests of Southern Maryland. However, should I migrate to the south west, which on occasion I have threatened to do, I will have them to contend with. In the meantime, I have the spiders and the ticks, and most frightening of all, I have my own peculiar nature to contend with.

New Life arrives in Storm

We humans were warned to expect violent thunderstorms late this afternoon. The doe, if she knew of them, was too preoccupied to care. She found a safe-enough place in my woodlot to birth a tiny fawn.

Coming home from the CSA pickup run and snacking on fava beans, I see a deer cross the road, from the woods on one side to a field of tall grass on the other. Between road and field is a ditch, narrow, but rather deep.

newborn deer, about the size of a cat, with longer legs

As I drove closer, this tiny creature, like a cat with stilt-like legs, wobbled after her but was daunted by the ditch, and teetered there, afraid to continue. I backed up the car, put my flashers on. The fawn toddled along the roads edge toward my car. Moma waited nervously in the field, about 40 feet away.

A car approached, and I waved frantically for them to slow, stop. It was friends Grace & Patrick. Another car comes up behind me, and it’s Josephine! Hah, no coincidence that my neighborhood loved ones are all present for the big event. We form a blockade, and turn other traffic away.

Baby deer wobbles over to Grace’s Prius. Patrick gets out and tries to shoo the creature, and it comes to him like a puppy. He starts walking and the fawn is following him like he’s Moma. He leads the babe to a driveway where she can get off the road, but when he tries to go back to his car, guess who trots right at his heel!

At this point we’re all out of our cars, and gently waving and shooing Baby down the driveway adjacent to the field. She follows Patrick and he leads her a ways from the road and into the field. Again he tries to return to us, and Baby follows him. Looks like she wants to meet everyone. He waves us off, and we go back to open the roadblock. Grace waves at her husband: “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, honey!” He rolls his eyes and heads back into the field.

In a little while we see him calmly walking toward us, then running back to the human world. Welcome to the neighborhood, little one!

Today in the Garden: Surprise Gifts

I went to the garden the other day for solitude. To my surprise, five children under 7 ran up alongside my car, squealing about the dogs and can we play with them?

Two girls and three boys were looking for something to do while their families set up for a big wedding at the community center. They chased the dogs in happy circles and were hugely comical trying to help me move the heavy wheelbarrow with a flat tire. They were so eager!

A fellow gardener had ordered a truckload of leaf mulch and my mission was to spread this wonderful black soil around my irises, radishes, spinach, broccoli, red cabbage and day lilies. I had lots of help. There was great competition for the big shovel. Then everyone wanted their own trowel, so more were found.

“Tuck those plants in, put that nice black blanket around them, like your mommy tucks you in at night.” And so they spread the leaf-gro around the young plants then helped me water.

Before they left, I showed them how to pull a carrot. One of my all time favorite things is to watch a child discover a natural miracle. It’s so rewarding to see the astonishment on their bright faces when the familiar orange food comes out of the soil, and after hosing off the bright orange root, they experience the taste of real food.

I was looking for solitude when I went to the garden. But I received a different kind of gift. I guess we don’t always know what we need, until we get it.

The River Flows to the Sea

Sad but Not Surprising

Two days after River Cleanup and the first bits of trash have already washed ashore.

It’s not  messy boaters and fishing folk who create all this litter, as some assume. The bulk of the trash is washed down from storm sewers all over the metro area. When you toss an empty package or bottle, even into a bin, odds are it can find it’s way to the river.

Before the Clean-Up

Washed into drains from all over DC, tennis balls are common enough on my beach for the dogs have learned to look for them.  I’m sure that boaters aren’t dumping buckets of balls overboard! But I am busy training my girls to fetch plastic bottles!

Good news about river trash!

Hundreds of volunteers showed up Saturday all up and down the Potomac watershed. I joined friends and neighbors at the National Colonial Farm across the river from historic Mount Vernon. We enjoyed the low tide and beautiful day that allowed us to clean miles of shoreline. Now hikers, fishing folk, blue herons, eagles and osprey can all enjoy the shoreline without trash. For a little while.

But I did notice some improvement while trash-picking Saturday morning ; there was much less foam trash than  in years past.  Alice Ferguson Foundation‘s Trash Free Potomac 2013 has taken a survey of common logos found in river trash and pressured the biggest offenders (this year McDonalds , Pepsi, Deer Park and Budweiser) to change their packaging to biodegradable materials, and it looks to me like this has helped!

The biggest scourge at the moment is plastic bags and bottles. Please make sure your plastics are properly recycled, and replace them when you can with reusable containers. All of us river dwellers thank you!

Recently-in-the-Garden

Lots happening in the garden this time of year! Last weekend we had a big Fence-Mending work day, replacing the rusted-out chicken wire that was no longer keeping critters out of the garden. Take that! goundhogs and bunnies!

Then yesterday, housemates A and N helped me weed strawberries, water and plant broccoli and red cabbage. Yay for garden helpers!

 

Spring Abundance!

a little over one year ago I posted a photo of my produce haul from my first veggie garden in ten years. I was delighted with the delicious food and beautiful colours I was reaping so early in the season. I’m ready to repeat the tradition, the first harvest that feels like abundance:

My strawberries, zuccini, chard, kale and radishes are all so lush, and everything else is growing while you watch. It’s magic. (and delicious!)

New Music

I awoke to something new this morning, a forgotten sound. The wind was moving through leaves. It always takes me by surprise, this time of year. There’s the winter version, too: the first time I hear the wind waving bare branches. That sound has more of a roar to it. The leafy version is, of course, softer, with all these lovely tender vanes brushing one another, ruffled by moving air.

Along with the undoubtable beauty of new leaves comes clots of oak pollen stems and clouds of irritating green dust. This results in the inevitable post-nasal gunk, and a green film on every outdoor surface. Even the indoor dust turns green with the sperm cells of trees. Sorry, folks, but it’s all sex, sex, sex. All those lovely flowers waving about so attractively, well, they are attracting!

I’m pleasantly whipped from yesterday’s garden tilling. It’s another reliable spring surprise to really feel how sedentary I’ve been, by asking the muscles to power up. This is Garden 2.0, and I am encouraged to be starting with better soil than last year. My indoor seedlings are more than half successful, promising great tomato and broccoli crops, cilantro and spinach, cucumber, and maybe a few more things. (I’m still hoping those peppers will sprout! )

I’m grateful for this life where I can slow down and listen to and feel the rhythms of the earth. Tonight I’ll listen again for the lullaby of the leaves.