We are only visitors

Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. 

But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship
from a one-way street into a sacred bond.

– Robin Wall Kimmerer

Fifty years ago tomorrow marks the first Earth Day. It was organized as a teach-in on college campuses by Gaylord Nelson, a junior senator from Wisconsin, who had long been concerned about the deteriorating environment in the United States. Today, it is the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people committing to a day of action to change human behavior and create policy changes. Well, at least that was the case before a pandemic swept over the earth...

Since we are sheltering in place, I will spend Earth Day 2020 much as I've spent every day of the last six weeks. I'll rise and go for a walk along the paths. I may collect some edibles along the way. I'll probably toil in the garden until Ed finds me to go out into the fields and woods, hunting down and destroying invasive plants. Later, we might stop at some of the 1000+ trees that we've planted to clear the weeds from their bases, fertilize and mulch them. We might divide some perennials in the Bee Garden, or add a new layer of wood chips to tamp down the weeds. The grass needs mowing and the fences need weed whipping. The list, as always, is unending.

Ed and I have been grateful to have this work this spring. Our days pass quickly; we fall into bed well before 10 p.m. with a duel sense of achievement and exhaustion.

We are the caretakers of this patch of land; we understand that we do not own it. Sure, we possess a legal piece of paper that says it is ours, but we know...we are only visitors.

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Margaret Atwood

RIP, John

We've been fans of John Prine for a long, long time and were saddened to learn that he died last night from complications of the coronavirus. In his memory, I'm republishing a blog that I wrote 10 years ago when we were just dreaming of moving to the country. RIP, John. 

Eat a Lot of Peaches

At the Palace Theatre on Friday night folk singer/songwriter John Prine put into song a description of what I hope our life on the farm will be like. In his Spanish Pipedream, he sang:

Blow up your TV,
Throw away your paper,
Go to the country,
Build you a home,
Plant a little garden,
Eat a lot of peaches,
Try an find Jesus on your own

The song goes on to talk about a topless dancer doing the hoochy-coo, which sounds kinda kinky.  And I'm also not sure Ed would be willing to blow up our TV as he is quite fond of Jeopardy, college football, golf and Modern Family. But I really like the part about planting a little garden and eating a lot of peaches.

John Prine in concert on Friday night

John Prine also sang about the glory of true love, which seemed especially poignant to me as Ed and I celebrated our 25th anniversary earlier in the week.

Oh the glory of true love
Is a wild and precious thing
It don’t grow on old magnolias
Or only blossom in the spring
No the glory of true love
Is it will last your whole life through
Never will go out of fashion
Always will look good on you

You can climb the highest mountain
Touch the moon and stars above
But Old Faithful’s just a fountain
Compared to the glory of true love

So here's to my true love. May we move to the country. Plant a little garden and eat a lot of peaches. Check out that hoochy-coo thing. And, who knows, maybe even find Jesus on our own...

Home, thankfully

Until a week ago, Ed and I were in sunny Mexico, fairly oblivious to the fright and panic that our friends and family were experiencing on a minute-by-minute basis. Yes, we knew that a virus was coming to the US – but it was not being reported as dire before we left.  We were largely insulated from the stress by 1) our desire to live a week without news coming at us from every direction (combined with our lack of understanding Mexican-language, thereby never turning on the TV news)  and 2) the Mexican government's resistance to acknowledging the possibility that the coronavirus may have been alive and spreading even as its people continued to gather in large groups.

We flew home last Wednesday on nearly empty planes and I admit that I was relieved to be safely back home. I am grateful for our life here on Farm Dover and happy to wander our ever-greening paths, weed and mulch the gardens, forage from the woods and meadows, and plan and plant vegetables to feed us in the coming months. If only I could gather my dearest friends and family around, I would be content.

I know for others, life is a lot more complicated. It is scary for many and the future uncertain for all.

It seems a bit inappropriate to put up a bunch of photos from our trip when folks have other things – more important things – weighing on their hearts and minds. Because I don't want to forget the highlights, I've added a section to this post I wrote about our first trip to Mexico in 2018. I'll save the other pics for a happier time.

Like kidney stones, this too shall pass. In the meantime, I hope you and your beloveds stay healthy.

Comings and Goings: Brooklyn

You should know that I mostly blog for myself. Yes, I'm glad that you are here – showing interest in our comings and goings from Farm Dover – but if I don't write about our travels, I have only the vaguest recollections, forgetting many of the details.

We are just back from a winter weekend getaway to visit Mary, Brian and Saltie in Brooklyn. It's a rainy Monday; no going out to poke around to see what might be coming up in the garden, so I thought I would spend a few minutes recording the details of our trip.

View for Mary's and Brian's loft in Red Hook

First of all, it was great. Mary and Brian are such gracious hosts, always planning our days and nights full of fun, paced perfectly. This trip was no exception.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon, checking into a charming Airbnb in South Slope, not terribly far from Mary's and Brian's Red Hook loft. We met up for a beer at Sunny's Bar, a Red Hook institution, that was remarkably quiet on an early Thursday evening. Ed had recently read Sunny's Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the edge of the World, a book given to him by Mary, and described as "an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world – and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it." (It's also the setting for a movie that we recently watched: Hearts Beat Loud, starring Nick Offerman.)

From there, we walked over to Fort Defiance for dinner, a Red Hook neighborhood restaurant where we had dined previously for brunch. It's eclectic and delicious.

Brian had a business appointment on Friday morning up north of the city, so Mary met us at Four and Twenty Blackbirds for coffee and a scone before boarding the R train for the Lower East Side and a long browse through the Strand Book Store and its "18 miles of books." Then, with a bag full of books, it was on to Katz's Delicatessen, the no-frills deli with theatrically cranky service serving mile-high sandwiches. Pastrami on rye, with a side of slaw and pickles. And don't dare lose your yellow ticket or they won't let you leave (not sure what they would actually do to you, but I don't want to find out)!

We needed to walk off our lunch so we headed to The New Museum of Contemporary Art for a look at four floors of some pretty spectacular paintings (especially those by Jordan Casteel). A final stop for the afternoon took us to the Despana wine shop, where Ed acquired a bottle of orujo, a brandy from northern Spain.

After a nap back at our place, we met Mary, Brian and their friends: Alena and Matt and their one-month-old baby at Folksbier Brauerei, a small Carroll Garden's brewery. We oohed and aahed over Baby Dom while she slept soundly against her dad's chest snug in her carrier.

Dinner that night was just down the street at Frankies 457 Spuntino, a neighborhood Italian restaurant. One of the things I love most about dining with our kids is turning the ordering over to them. I've trained them well. We had a lovely dinner, ordered by Mary and Brian. This is the second time we have dined at Frankies and I'd be happy to come back any time we are in Brooklyn.

We spent Saturday morning at Mary's and Brian's loft, having pour-over coffee and sweets from Baked and watching Saltie lie on her bed or stretch on the floor.

For lunch, we headed to the East Wind Snack Shop for some amazing handcrafted Chinese dumplings. What a find. I could lunch here every day! The sun was out, but the wind was cold; nevertheless, we took a walk through nearby Propect Park after lunch. From there, we headed to Queens to take in the Museum of Moving Images (film, television, and digital media). My favorite exhibit was the Jim Hanson exhibit, where I got to see all my Sesame Street friends.

Meanwhile, Ed got to catch up with Howdy Doody, a childhood favorite of his. He has this exact same doll packed away in the basement. I may need to go dig it out.

Pizza was the nomination for dinner on Saturday night; we walked over to Pizza Moto and scored a table in the kitchen (marketed to us as a chef's table). It worked out great. We watched as five guys made dozens of thin-crusted Neapolitan pies, while eating three of our own.

Sunday morning we were up and out, meeting Mary for a chai and scone before church at First Presbyterian Brooklyn. Attending church at this welcoming sanctuary is always a highlight of our Brooklyn visits. The music alone is worth the visit (but the sermon is also always inspiring).

We brunched at Colonie NYC, sharing a pot of french press coffee and warm donuts served with lemon cream before ordering our entrees.

Just in case we got hungry on the flight home, Brian drove us to Court Street Grocers to pick up a sandwich to go, and then we headed to the airport. Time to head home.

Thank you Mary. Thank you Brian. It was great.

More plants, please

Some people think that a girl cannot have too many shoes. I personally think that a girl cannot have too many plants. While I've purchased my fair share of plants, I'm now learning how to propagate them; you know, turning one plant into two or twenty-two. I haven't tackled layering, budding or grafting, but I have taken a stab at cuttings, root division, tuber separations and bulb cloning. Here's a look at my efforts at plant multiplication.

Propagation by cuttings
First there was one. It belonged to Mary and when she left for New York City, she asked me to take care of it; it being a fiddleleaf fig houseplant. I told her I wouldn't make any promises for its long-term health, but I'd try my best to keep it alive.

I liked it, and it liked me -- or maybe it just liked being where it could soak up the light from the front windows of our study. In the beginning, it was only about a foot tall. But inch by inch, leaf by leaf, it grew and grew, shooting up toward the 16-foot ceiling.

At one point it got so tall that it started bending over. So, I took a deep breath and cut about three feet off the main trunk, cutting just above a leaf node. Because the leaves were so large and beautiful, I plopped the cutting into a water-filled glass vase, and basically forgot about it for a month or so.

Two things happened. One: the main stem of the original plant branched where I cut it, changing the shape of the tree (for the better).

Two: when I pulled the cutting out of the vase, the bottom had roots! I stuck it in a pot filled with potting soil. It grew. So now I had two beautiful and healthy plants. We took the baby one to Brooklyn when we drove up to see Mary and Brian. It is thriving in their Red Hook loft apartment, sprouting its way up to their 30-foot ceiling.

Since then I have repeated the process and now two plant babies live at Maggie's and Nate's house while two reside on either side of our fireplace.

This past weekend, I took cuttings from the original plant and from the ones in our living room. So, the original plant has now turned into 10 plants, two of which are second generation. Let me know if you want to adopt one.

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Propagation by root division
While Jack was visiting last week, he helped me move the Lenten roses that I had tucked too far back under the hydrangeas that line both sides of the cottage. He dug; I pulled. Then we divided the plants, replanting some near the front of the row of hydrangeas, some under the tulip tree in the front bee garden, and some in the side birdhouse garden. From four, we ended up with eight.

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Propagation by tuber division
Waiting patiently in my basement is a box of dahlia tubers, lifted from the garden after the first frost and stored in peat. This spring, I'll divide the clumps of tubers, making sure each division has at least one strong, healthy dormant bud (eye). From the 10 or so clumps, (fingers crossed) I'll be able to plant about 40 tubers, which should produce about 4000 dahlias. That's a lot of flowers!

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Propagation by asexual bulb cloning
In between rain showers this morning, Ed and I headed out to the back field where I had spied some clumps of daffodils that we had planted when we first moved to Farm Dover a decade ago. Since then, we have let the field grow up into native grasses and wildflowers. The original daffodils were lost among the growth. We dug up the clumps –– noting that there were many more bulbs than what we had originally planted –– and replanted them down by the creek path where they can show off their spring blooms.

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Propagation by seed
Last month I ordered a number of flower seed packets from Floret Farm, including celosia, cosmos, amaranth, quinoa, strawflowers, yarrow and zinnia. I've been dreaming of how to expand my cutting garden and will strike out this spring with hoe in hand to plant these seeds and then sit back and wait (or weed like crazy) until they are ready to harvest.

I still know so little about propagating plants, but I'm having fun learning. Between Google and experimentation, I'm making progress toward making more plants. Just as Ed calls my foraging for edibles free food, I think of propagation as free plants. And a girl (farm-her) can never have too many plants!

A forest in my pocket

When I thrust my hands into the pockets of my farm jacket, vest or overalls, I'm bound to turn up a handful of acorns, gathered from oaks scattered about Farm Dover. Seems I carry a whole forest around with me.

I also manage to scavenge acorns from our travels; and some come from magnificent oaks I see around town, especially those at Second Presbyterian or Cave Hill Cemetery. My favorite source is an incredible tree in the Indian Hills front yard of my friend Jody.

Eventually I get around to depositing my treasures in a baggie of moist dirt that I keep in the fruit-and-vegetable drawer of the fridge. After a couple of months of cold stratification, an embryonic root will appear on some of the acorns and I'll know it is time; I sort the nuts and plant them in tiny pots, prop them near the front window in our study, water them every Sunday morning, and impatiently wait to see them poke up their tiny sprouts.

Eventually, Ed and I plant these tiny oaks along our trails, protecting them from deer, bunnies and weeds with a chicken-wire cage surrounded by a ring of mulch. Then, we take great pride in watching them grow.
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I've always had a thing for acorns. In fact, in my previous life, the logo for my marketing company was a stylized acorn/monogram G. (I somehow equated tiny acorns with good marketing ideas and mighty oaks with successful organizations).

In my life at Farm Dover, this transformation from tiny acorns to magnificent oaks takes on a whole new level of wonder and obsession. As I roll these beautiful nuts around in my hands, I ponder the miracle of having one's destiny within. It was Aristotle who first described this purpose of existence, an internal code which turns potential into reality. It is in the entelechy of a caterpillar to become a butterfly; within the acorn lies the oak.

Not all the seeds that I plant are oaks – some are pawpaw, chestnut or buckeye, a few are hickory. Of all the trees we have planted from seeds or seedlings (over 1000), perhaps 40 percent are oaks. Of all the species that we could chose, oaks sequester the most carbon and support the greatest number of butterflies and moths, 534 to be exact (according to Douglas Tallamy, University of Delaware professor of entomology). And, if you consider the number of species around Farm Dover that depend on acorns for food: deer, raccoons, turkey, mice, squirrels, – plus, the dozens of species of birds that depend on the canopy and cavities for nesting sites, you can begin to appreciate all they offer – truly, they are quintessential giving trees. 

Last week I finished reading "The Overstory," last year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. It was as if Richard Powers wrote this book just for me. I've not stopped thinking about it since I turned the last of its 500+ pages. While the epic is told through nine characters, it is the old trees that are the real protagonists of the story. They are the ones with the real wisdom -- and the ones we must learn to listen to. I'm trying.

There is a folksong written by Malvina Reynold in 1974 that goes something like: If you love me, plant me a rose. If you love, love, me, plant me an apple tree. I venture to say that if you really love me -- or this fragile planet we call home – plant me an oak tree. Now that's true love.

What Bugs Me?

Fact: There are a lot of bugs that call Farm Dover home. Most I consider beneficial bugs and am happy to host them. There are a few bugs that I wish didn't like living here so much, but I (mostly) don't wish them harm; yet would be happy if they didn't show up in the first place. (I'm talking to you: houseflies, stink bugs and Japanese beetles).

One of things that bugs me is little visitors who are terrified by any bug they encounter. A ladybug can send them screaming. A spider can completely undo them. A praying mantis freaks them out. Only the butterflies escape their bad-bug radars.

For years, I have taken photos of interesting bugs discovered in my wanderings around our gardens, meadows and paths. I place the photos in a folder on my computer desktop, appropriately called Bugs of Farm Dover, but didn't have any particular thought about how I might share them. Until now...

I'm determined to help our young visitors get to know the bugs of Farm Dover, and hopefully to make friends with them, or at least not fear them. Granddaughter Hazel is my guinea pig.

For her 1st birthday, I made her a board book using some of my bug photos.

We read it together often and talk about all the good things bugs do, from pollinating fruit trees to eating not-so-good bugs. (I'm careful not to call them bad bugs.) When we are not together, she reads it on her own, studying each photo with laser focus.

Hazel has happily played with a roly-poly bug and a lady bug. I can't wait for this summer to see her toddle after some butterflies and attempt to catch a firefly, to dig for an earthworm, follow a daddy long-legs or pet a caterpillar.

I've already scouted out a bug project for us. Hanging from a sweet gum tree along our driveway are seven cocoons, that look remarkably like leaves still hanging on to the bottom branches. I discovered them just last week.

Inside each one is a polyphemus caterpillar that will one day this spring emerge as a beautiful silk moth, spread its wings to dry and then fly away to live for a few more days, just long enough to mate and lay eggs for the next generation.

In Hazel's book, I have a photo of a polyphemus caterpillar and of a luna silk moth (same family as the polyphemus moth). Just ask her; she can find the page with the right picture.

I need to figure out a way for Hazel and me to see these gigantic moths emerge. Maybe I'll get a butterfly cage and attach one of the cocoons inside it, placing it on the porch so we can see it from the kitchen window; or maybe I'll set up our field camera and try to catch the moths freeing themselves from their silk casings. In any event, I'm excited. Hope Hazel will be too!

Found: A Sense of Place

Strange to think that tonight's midnight ball-drop marks not only the beginning of the twenty-twenties but also the beginning of our tenth year here on Farm Dover, for it was nearly a decade ago that we traded in our suburban lives and careers for a bucolic life in the country. It was a good trade.

Farm Dover, reclaimed from 38 acres of cropped land, has become a true home for us, a place much like many in Wendell Berry's novels where it is hard to mark the difference between his characters' lives and their places. We have worked hard to make our place; and, in return, this place has surely made us.

For every invasive plant we have cut down and every five-gallon bucket of water we have hauled, we have become physically stronger. For every tree seedling we have planted and nurtured, our hope for the future has taken shape. For every leaf, berry and root that we forage, our admiration for nature's gifts soars. Every day – in large and small ways – we shape this place; and in return, this place shapes us.

Another American writer, Wallace Stegner, contends that no spot can be called a place until the things that have happened there are remembered in history, ballads, yarns, legends, or monuments. (He obviously made this argument before the advent of blogs, specifically this one that has documented our life here in this place in more than 700 entries.)

Before we bought this patch of land, we looked for months for a place to settle. Looking back, I don't think it mattered so much where we settled, as much as it mattered that we chose a place around which to focus our lives. I don't believe that Farm Dover is anymore inherently beautiful or meaningful than any other place, except that we have taken it into our hearts: loving every square inch of it, respecting it, and showing gratitude for the ways in which its bounty is received.

Ed and I have attempted to make a mindful life here, gradually unpacking the mysteries of the place. We've learned to flow with the rhythm of the seasons, to welcome the way the light creeps into our bedroom so early in mid-summer and so late on these dark winter mornings, to accept the natural death and rebirth that comes with the passing months, to watch for the stars to pierce the night sky and to be enchanted by the fog as it settles into the low spots in the early mornings.

We've learned that paths are made by walking and that birds sing most sweetly in the early morning, or just before sundown. Butterflies love the warm late afternoon sun, when their wings are dry and flower nectars flow.

We've learned that beekeeping is a tricky business and we've yet to figure it out. We now know that tree seedlings need constant care to thrive and native plants have an instinct for surviving wet springs and hot summer droughts. We know that Ed loves nothing more than tending to his tiny trees or reading in his favorite chair – and that I'm happiest wandering the paths of Farm Dover, foraging for dinner offerings or harvesting vegetables from the garden for our mid-day meal.



And so, as this new decade dawns, I leave you with this second verse of William Stafford's poem East of Broken Top that so captures our life here in this place:

We could go there and live, have a place,

a shoulder of earth, watch days

find their way onward in their serious march

where nothing happens but each one is gone.

Some people build cities and live there;

they hurry and shout. We lie on the earth;

to keep from falling into the stars we reach

as wide as we can and hold onto the grass.

Here's hoping that all good things come to you and yours in 2020. May your journey this shiny new year take you closer to finding your sense of place in this big wide world.