by Mimi Hedl
Watching the landscape change from winter to spring never fails to take away my breath. I wake up to Narnia each spring, emotional and grateful to walk in the magical land once again. It doesn’t last long just like falling in love. That initial impact becomes dealing with weeds, downed limbs and this year, a fire in the midst of tornado winds. My neighbor John, a man I’ve known since we came to Strawdog forty-three years ago, knocked on the front door, I was almost unable to open it because of the wind, and told me about the fire two miles away. He said, ”With this wind, it’s going to be hard to contain. Better be ready to leave.” Panic crept in. Of course I imagined the worst.
There was virtually nothing I could do but wait and worry. One friend down in Florida on vacation called, scared, her son and young family had to evacuate. I felt less worried about our homestead as I’d recently finished burning the quadrants where the native forbs and grasses grow. With no long grasses close by the house, the fire wouldn’t have sufficient fuel, especially with close cropped grasses greening up nicely.
Alas there was plenty to worry about; people’s homes, equipment, animals, escaping sparks igniting who knows what and where. The best part of this bad moment was the neighbors who fought the fire with the volunteer fire fighters, all of them, together, one with a beer in his hand the whole time, and his fire fighting gear in the other, no politics involved in this very red state. No one was hurt, no homes burned, grasses went up in flames, touching tree tops, threatening to overwhelm the fields. The next day Petra warned me there were still smoldering coals, stay watchful, she said.
The day before the winds and the fire, the head gardener and I walked in all the bare quadrants (what I call our canvasses) surrounding the homestead, sowing the last of the native flower seed. Thousands of seeds. The day was warm, 80°, and only a slight breeze to help distribute the seed more evenly. Of course I couldn’t help but talk about each of the seeds we sowed, commenting on the parachute-like seed of the blazing star, how like hollyhock seed is Bush’s poppy mallow, because it is in the mallow family… only to be interrupted with “Blah, blah, blah, just get on with it. We have all that seed to sow and here you go doing your poetry thing. We’re here to work, to get things done, not talk like ladies at a tea party.”
Ok, I think, no tea party for our Head Gardener, just work. How can she not feel the romance of the day, the sun, the promise of spring, the daffodils, how expectant the earth looks as we sow the seed. How can she not see the poetry in all parts of life? Crossing these hurdles with folks who see the world differently poses challenges. How do we adapt to each new situation when we’re challenged, and heaven knows we all face challenges like never before. Patience and creativity come first to mind. And then gentleness. Maybe a little sadness. Lots of deep sighs. Then, do what the head gardener advised, get on with it!
We sow one variety after another. She asks me, “Why can’t we dump all the seed into pillow cases, mix them up, then sow them all. That’d be a lot quicker.” I agree with her. It would be quicker. And I explain, in order to do that, all of the seed would have to have the same requirements (staying far away from any poetic language). But, I go on, some of these seeds need shade, some like dry conditions, some are tall and need to go in spaces where they won’t overwhelm other….”Ok, ok, I get it. And you know what each of these seeds need, smarty pants?” “Mostly,” I say, “yeah, I’ve lived with them for years. They’re part of the family here on Strawdog. I visualize each flower in the quadrant before we sow them. It’s intuitive at this point. I just know if it’ll be happy, because I know the plant and what each of these quadrants have and don’t have. It’ll take several years for the seeds to produce flowers, natives grow slowly, but look at these quadrants that produce beautiful flowers now. It used to be fescue here. Imagine that.” (uh oh, I asked her to use her imagination!)
She surprises me. “That is hard to believe. Only grass here? And it just changed that fast?” I told her it didn’t seem so fast to us. Neighbors told us we were going to bake up on this hilltop in summer and freeze in winter. They chided us for our funny house, out in the middle of nothing, with no trees close by. When they’d come inside during the summer, they’d feel amazed at how comfortable it was without air conditioning. The passive solar design worked with Mother Nature making it seem odd to the locals who put their houses facing the street.
The head gardener’s curiosity encouraged me. Sometimes it only takes one question to begin to open up another person. If I move slowly, she may respond with more questions and lead us into exciting adventures, even some poetic notions. And I’ll see more of what makes her tick. I hope she stays with me long enough to watch the seed we sowed this March turn into mature plants in a few years. Maybe she’ll even learn to admire the incredible variety of seeds and see them as works of art, as I do.
Today feels like March, brisk and chilly, even have a fire in the heating stove. Sun pours into the house. I need a sweatshirt when I go outside to admire the really red deer tongue lettuce seedlings, the daffodils and emerging plants, everywhere! I know not to become excited. We had busted pipes in our trailer down in town when we moved here and Johnny Mahaney had to crawl under our rental trailer to fix the break. I let the excitement simmer, starting tomato seeds, watching the peppers and eggplants grow, ready for another cycle on Strawdog as I watch the transformation of the earth.
How I Learned to Cook, an Artist's Life ─ Barbara Shark 