Farewell, Bok the Chicken.

Pretty Bok
Image by Modern Scribe Photography

My sweet love had to put down our last chicken today; the poor biddy was sick and dying and he wanted to shorten her pain.

He spoke her a sweet eulogy:

"Rest in peace, Bok. All life is made new. All life is forever. Now feed the grandchildren of the worms you ate. Feed the blackberries whose fruit you loved. Restore the damaged soil. Return to us within the sweet black juice and we will remember you in the summer sun."

Our next step is a revamping of the chicken coop and run area, and so it may be a while before we have chickens sharing space with us again.  

The spring snows are still moving in, but we are looking at our yard with eyes towards growing season - planning to feed ourselves with raised beds and a potted garden this year.

Keep warm, think of spring, and have a good time!

March is Green and Misty

The early misty Marchy morning and me.

Oh March!  The past few days have found me feeling very sensitive and heart-achey for no apparent reason, other than the early spring... when I think of how my heart feels, I have the image of dark, damp earth being pushed aside for a fresh bright green shoot reaching for the yellow warmth of the sun.

Early as it seems this year, I welcome Spring. I welcome the open and raw feeling in my heart, as if someone has removed an armor breastplate after a long and exhausting battle.  My ally has been motherwort so far this year.  I need her loving support since just the beauty of the wind on my face can make me tear up with the sheer beauty and enormity of the experience.

I had some spare hours on Saturday morning before the 10am opening of the Woodfin YMCA Winter Market.  Being on the sleepy side of town, the shops were still closed and the roads nearly empty, barring the threads of misty clouds weaving around the trees, snaking up from the creekbeds.

A living rock, soft and green.

My car went past the road for the market and past the town limits just a moment later.  I kept going, until I noticed a fork in the road, pointing out the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance a few miles down the way...so I pointed myself in that direction and onward I went.

The sun was not quite above the mountain range, and so the diffused light through the clouds was pale and wan.  The mist was backlit as it curled around the top branches of the pines and oaks, or spun itself into circles in the little valleys and nooks.  I made my eyes stay to the road until I finally reached the Parkway entrance road and found a small pull-off.

I am a cautious person, and do not often go off on adventures alone.  I fret and worry and fill my time with stress instead of the sought-after peace...but not today.  The pull of the forest was so strong that I could not resist and with cameras in hand, went down the trail that began at the end of the pull off.

Wild Violets and
Mouse-Ear Chickweed

Beauty greeted me..then the symphony of the woods.  There were crackling leaves, dew dripping from the trees, and as the sun began to climb ever higher, a growing chorus of birds.

Everywhere I looked was gray and green.  Grey rocks covered in green mosses and lichens.  Dark earth giving rise to tender, baby leaves of many, many plants.  Grey bark with mossy stripes, and the grey branches tipped with a green haze. the promise of future leaves.

I found a verdant patch of violets breaking the soil around the base of an oak.  Just a few days ago, I ate my first violet of the year...ah...so sweet and fresh!  Perfect heart-shaped leaves for a heart-achey me.  What a delight, and a gift...

I found mouse ear chickweed (growing between the violet leaves) and some other familiar spring friends like wild onions, henbit and uncurling ferns.  While exploring, I came across a mystery plant...the leaves were beautifully spotted with white.  When I touched the leaves I found that they had a slight thickness to them, and they were soft and peach-fuzzy.

With the help of a Plant Identification group on Flickr, I now know it to be Hydrophyllum macrophyllum, large leaf waterleaf.  It will grow lovely, long stemmed flowers in the warmer days to come, and the leaves will be more solidly green.

Hydrophyllum macrophyllum, large leaf waterleaf,
Early Spring Growth (March 2012)

I finished these pictures just as the batteries in my camera died, so made my way back to the car and wound down the curly mountain road.  With the sun rising over my left shoulder, warming my face and head, my heart felt lighter in my chest as the mist lifted from the treetops into the sky.

Circle and Circle and Circles again...

Candler in Spring, by Modern Scribe Photography

What a month it has been...camping, festivals, dear friends visiting my home and looking to put down roots in these sweet mountains.  There's been patterns woven, and circles coming 'round to completion. It makes me feel grounded, centered, and in tune with the world around me.

A part of being in tune with your world means walking in a balance between life and death.  There is never one without the other; life feeds on life feeds on life, and all life feeds on death to continue...you cannot have one without the other, and it is not something to be feared, in my book.

Life is beautiful:  I will be putting seeds into the earth tomorrow.  Peas and carrots, an onion that sprouted in my cabinets, some potatoes that decided to grow in my pantry.  I will watch these sprout, but will bring a difficult part for me...

Death is certain:  Of those seedlings that grow, some will die by my own hands as I thin the eventual green haze of fresh sprouts. I will be squashing bugs whose crime is only that they live, and want to consume the same leafy goodness that I wish to consume, and my only right is that I am larger. 

Life is astounding: My yard is bringing up it's own bounty: Yarrow, Violets, Dandelions, Sorrels, Heal-all, Clover, Plantain...last year's green friends are coming back: Chamomile, Comfrey, Marigolds, Lavender, and my Shehan Family Iris!

Death is sustaining: Our neighbor's yard is full of chickens, and a trio of goats who love to visit us at the fence to beg for scratch corn or tender honeysuckle vines.  The chickens there will soon have a coop, but until then, are relatively at the mercy of local foxes, and we often find a mostly fox-consumed chicken carcass being pecked at by the other chickens. Never forget, these egg-givers are tiny, feathered dinosaurs! 

Life is sweet:  And so is a yard full of clover and sweet green grass for our own two chickens to nibble on.  As of late, we've been letting them out of the pen to wander the yard for a bit while we clean out the coop and tend to our plants on the lower lot.  They have been having delicious dust baths and scratching through our compost, turning it and eating bugs and clucking merrily!

Death is merciful:  But the other day, as I stumbled down the hill to feed the chickens, feverish and barely awake, I noticed only one chicken freaking out as usual over her pending dinner.  I let her out, and peered into the coop to find the other biddie standing, puffed up and panting.  She wouldn't come out, but let me lift her out.  I could tell she wasn't in a good way, but wasn't sure what was wrong until I looked at her behind...without going into details, I can say that I knew quickly that the only cure I could give my poor egg-providing friend was a quick death.

Now, I've fished, and I've hunted squirrel. I've insisted upon knowing what it is to kill in order to consume - again, that balance of life and death.  But never before had I caused a creature to die by my own hands that I did not intend to consume, or for the sake of mercy.  It is far more difficult than one might imagine. 

Angel the Goat by MSP

Life is Changing:  More and more people are turning to the earth to provide for them, tilling their yards for garden space, picketing their city to allow urban chickens, and lacking that, supporting local farm markets.  I applaud the effort, and want to remind people about rain barrels, and compost bins, and container gardening, and encourage folks to jump in and TRY new things...it's the only way to learn.

Death is Change:  Next time you throw something into your compost bin, think about HOW it breaks down...your useless, discarded food bits and lawn clippings feed the happy little bacteria that consume, defecate, and thereby create fertilizer for the food that you will eat.  I will watch the plot of earth that covers the buried body of my chicken friend and see how bright the grass grows, and watch her death feed the earth.  I will throw squished bugs to the other chicken as I tend my plants, and watch her grow strong from their death.

We are all part of life, and all part of death. 

The greater circle encompasses us all, man, woman, fish, fowl, hooved, winged, whatever...

find your place and your center and grow from there. 

Dandelion and Violets, oh, JOY!

Taraxacum Officinale by anemoneprojectors

I am sipping a lovely cup of Spring.

When I nipped meself outside yesterday to feed the chickens (and spoil the neighbor's goats because I'm a sucker for a pitiful bleat), I found my yard sprinkled with golden coins, sparkling in the pooling sunlight.

They are Dandelions, people! Dent-de-leon, Tooth of the Lion, golden disks of beauty and health and wonderment. 

You know, that horrible weed that people poison their yards to get rid of? Yeah. That one. I don't hate on "weeds" and I welcome their presence in my native landscape...in other words, I did a dance of joy.

I went through the yard with scissors, snipping the golden flowers from their leafy crown pedestals and managed to gather up a large handful.  I also snipped a small handful of violet leaves and flowers from the quickly-strengthening patch I planted a couple of weeks ago.

After the chickens were fed and the stinky goats fed and petted, I made my way back into the house and put the kettle on.  I rinsed the dandelion heads and violets in clean, cold water and tossed them into a jar. When the water was just about to a boil, I poured it over the flowers in the jar and sealed it up tight. I left it there on the counter all day, and all of the night, shaking it occasionally when I walked by. 

This morning, I put a bit of honey in my travel mug, added a splash of hot water, stirred it together, and then topped it off with the strained contents of the jar.  FRESH dandelion and violet infusion, what a gift!

This drink is high in vitamins, specifically vitamin A.  It doesn't taste like much, to be honest, but there is a definite green flavor, a freshness that cannot be denied.  I expected there to be more bitterness, as I left the green bits on the bottoms of the flowers, but no. It is a delightful, refreshing drink that I have before me now.


Things I want to do with Dandelions this season, and what I know about them:

• Harvest roots and pickle, dry, and otherwise experiment and learn about them. The roots are great for anemia (high in iron!), and are a liver tonic. They also increases hydrochloric acid in the stomach, which aids digestion and allows more of the nutrients of your food to be absorbed into your system.

• Use the greens to make pestos, salads, and more. I'm learning to appreciate bitter flavors, and can feel the gastrointestinal benefit. They are also really high in calcium, vitamin A (½ cup of greens has around 14,000 IU of vitamin A).  They are also loaded with caretones which are known cancer-fighting agents, and help move radiation through your body and OUT.

• Dandelion flower cordial, fritters, cookies, and more! You can do anything with these little guys, and there will be more infusions and teas in my life.  I made a dandelion mead last year - I should post that recipe and share the experience in another post here soon.

• Dandelion flower oil and salves.  Dandelion oil is very nutritive to the skin, and is an excellent oil to use topically for cysts, particularly breast cysts.  Add some aloe to it for an amazing sunburn relief.

Do you have dandelions yet? Do you nibble on your yard like a crazed rabbit?  If you know there are not chemicals sprayed, you should go get your nibble on and learn about this versatile healer that is so despised by those with solid green, boring yards!

What's Coming Up in my Garden?

Spring is close...everyone that I see is big-footed and falling over themselves in a state of twitterpation. We had a lovely, loud rolling thunderstorm last week that must have woke up the snakes, and the goats who live next door reek of rut.  There was snow and rain all at the same time yesterday, and the roosters are losing their ever-loving minds...Spring must be near with all of those signs...

Last week was warm and lovely, a tease to make me cringe these ice-coated mornings of late. I woke on Wednesday and was go, go, going all day!  My housemate and I went down to our lower lot to do some maintenance to the area ignored during winter weather nastiness.

Biddy, June 2010, Modern Scribe Photography

The lower lot is where the chickens live, and since their pen and coop needed a serious raking and cleaning, we let the biddies run around the yard on their own for the first time since we've had them.  I get nervous because there are foxes and hawks, but I am glad that we let them free for a while. They were overjoyed, just a-scratching merrily, trimming grass and bug-hunting. We added new straw to their coop after dumping the old litter into the compost and turning it over for the first time this year - oh lovely, tumbling black dirt! It does my heart good to see such simple beauty.

While the hens kept themselves entertained, Sarah and I raked out the planting bed from last year.  The old dead grass gave way without a struggle in the damp earth, and the baby plants there were easily removed to give room to the clumps of yarrow bursting forth like vivid, ferny fireworks.  I transplanted some wild yarrow from elsewhere in the yard last spring, and now that it's had a year to settle, she sure has taken happy root in that well-draining spot!  I look forward to the smoke blends, the tea, and the tinctures that sweet and potent yarrow will be sharing with me this next season's turn.

There's also a new friend who will be sharing space with the yarrow this year.  Since I've left the swamp, I've missed the giant violets that filled my yard near the creek (read: drainage ditch).  On the local FreeCycle, someone posted about free violet rhizomes, and I jumped at the chance!  I picked up the plastic potato bag full of rhizomes and root clumps and skeedaddled back home like a kid with candy...so when we cleared the garden bed and turned over the soil, we planted the violet rhizomes under the sweet-smelling earth and after only a couple of days, I see heart shaped little leaves lifting up towards the sun, and there is one bud just waiting for a bit of warmth to bust!

It's the strange clock dance of Daylight Savings Time this weekend coming up...all I care about is playing in the widening expanse of sunlight in these warming days. Blessings and warm rain to you all!

Scenes from my yard, or Why I Haven't Been Blogging!

Our new yard friends! Photo by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Our yard friends give us eggs, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Lavender, soon to be in bloom, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Akasha surveys her domain, by Sarah Thomas, Modern Scribe Photography

Chickens, Eggs, Compost heap, Cats, Gardens, Craft Fairs, Farm Markets, Honey Jars, 

Wildcrafting, Bumble Bees, Midnight Car Accidents on our Road, Entertaining Guests, 

Gem Mining, White Water Rafting...and I know there's more!

This sure is a busy spring! 

I hope to be chatting with y'all later, but for right now, I'm just going along with the tide! 

Much love to you and yours and...

May the Best Manifest!

Learning about Native Appalachian Plants and Herbs

Amber by Modern Scribe Photography

Howdy, everyone...I hope Spring's been keeping you as joyfully busy as it's been keeping me! Between building the chicken coop, filling honey orders, and jumping on the trampoline, I've been keeping the growing things tended.

Oh, yes...I've been exploring and cultivating my yard like a thing possessed... since I last checked in:

~We've succeeded in moving decorative boxwoods from the only flat, sunny, well-draining spot in the front yard up to the top of a ridge to help combat the erosion there. Sarah and I got all scratched up and dirty and sweaty and happy while accomplishing that task.

~We broke up the soil in the newly cleared spot (about 4x5) and added some composted cow manure and sand, and worked it into the clay. While pulling out weeds and roots and rock, we saw more worms than I could count! They are certainly welcome guests. May they continue to grow and prosper here!

~We transplanted our tomato starts into that new place - a Cherokee Purple, a Jeune Flame, and two Oregon Spring tomato plants. We made cages for the bushy plants and stakes for the climbers. They all seem to be doing well, but the Oregon Spring tomatoes are a little slower than the Cherokee Purple and the Jeune Flame, who are flowering to beat the band.

In the House of Herbs Greenhouse by Modern Scribe Photo.

~We got a Crookneck Squash, an Old Timey Kentucky Pumpkin, and a Pickling Cucumber vine from House of Herbs here in Candler, North Carolina. They are thriving and we already have a squash starting to swell! I did the happy dance when I saw it, and ran inside to tell the whole household. They know I'm a dork and love me anyways!

~The other side of our front porch also has good drainage, and gets mostly dappled sunlight and shade due to the ornamental cherry trees that shield that side of the house.  This is where I've decided to relocate our pallet-bed...the spot where I put it initially was too sunny and wind-blown. One quadrant of the bed has some struggling spinach coming up, and one little lettuce sprout. I think they've been too warm and dry, but they may do better in their new home.

~In the second quadrant of the pallet-bed, we have some freshly transplanted Basil seedlings, and a healthy and happy Oregano plant. I've also planted a Comfrey plant that I got from House of Herbs.

~Also on the herbal front, there are some happily growing peppermint plants and soapwort plants in pots on the porch, as they are both rather invasive. I've planted a native Elderberry bush and it is thriving on the hill under the Oak tree's dappled shade, and we have a German Chamomile and White Lavender plants in full sun alongside the Chrysanthemum that I thought had died last fall, but is now starting to make quite a show.

Pisgah Waterfall by Modern Scribe Photography

~Wildcrafting: So far this spring, I've learned quite a bit about native plants of the Appalachians. I've correctly identified Trillium, Mayapple, Wild Ginger, and Umbrella tree while slipping and sliding and busting my butt climbing around the wild slopes and waterfalls of the Pisgah National Forest. I think that I also saw Solomon's Seal and Bloodroot, but I'm not 100% and will bring a book next time!

Bee, Closeup - by Modern Scribe Photography

~Even just while wandering our yard, I've identified:
Cinquefoil (Rough-fruited or Sulfur Cinquefoil, another "noxious weed" with medicinal uses. Stay Tuned for more.)
Red Clover (stay tuned for more)
Ox-eye Daisy
Dock, both Curly Leafed and otherwise
Wild Yarrow (Milfoil)
Bittersweet Nightshade
Plantain (stay tuned for more)
Japanese Honeysuckle (Invasive! I've trimmed it back quite a bit, and plan to use the flowers to flavor a wine) 
Dandelion (which is now a mead brewing)
Wild Blackberries (smells so sweet!)

So if I'm too muddy, tired, and sunbaked to blog about it as often as I did before, bear with me...I'll keep you posted as often I can!

Busy Bees Use Flower Petals For Nest Wallpaper : NPR

Busy Bees Use Flower Petals For Nest Wallpaper : NPR

This is gorgeous! I wish my house was as lovely as this bee's nest is.

This inspires me...flower petal honey...I have hibiscus, chamomile, and a couple of others I can play with.

Pardon my recent lack of updates, folks, there's much to do about this home and beyond and sitting at the computer has been a luxury unused. Bee well, and enjoy this spring!

SPRING MADNESS! It's in mah brain...

Hello! I'm going to go drum at the Asheville downtown drum circle tonight.

BOOM! Bada tapa booma dooma BLAM!

Drumming is my favorite stress release, along with dancing to drums. :)

AND NOW, a poem:

The Music We Are

Did you hear that winter’s over? The basil
and the carnations cannot control their

laughter. The nightingale, back from his
wandering, has been made singing master

over the birds. The trees reach out their
congratulations. The soul goes dancing

through the king’s doorway. Anemones blush
because they have seen the rose naked.

Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the
courtroom, and several December thieves steal

away, Last year’s miracles will soon be
forgotten. New creatures whirl in from non-

existence, galaxies scattered around their
feet. Have you met them? Do you hear the

bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle? A single
narcissus flower has been appointed Inspector

of Kingdoms. A feast is set. Listen: the
wind is pouring wine! Love used to hide

inside images: no more! The orchard hangs
out its lanterns. The dead come stumbling by

in shrouds. Nothing can stay bound or be
imprisoned. You say, “End this poem here,

and wait for what’s next.” I will. Poems
are rough notations for the music we are.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (1207-1273)

I Love Spring!! An April To-Do List

Photo by Modern Scribe Photography

April is here, and the Pisgah Forest is verdant and buzzing with life. The grass is growing, the earth is warming, and the mockingbirds and cardinals are waging war with one another in the berry brambles and honeysuckle! I'm just plain 'et up with loving the green haze of life everywhere and the droning hum of the bees on the breeze. We've been watching the ants, birds, frogs...all building, nesting, mating...GO TIME is here!!

We've been busy, too! Besides putting in volunteer and intern hours at the Western North Carolina Nature Center, Eric has been doing a great job of building us a cute little chicken coop out of pallets and spare lumber and bits of fencing that we reclaimed while driving around town. This picture is from about a week or so ago; the coop now has a wall for the front of it with a wee door cut in, and we have just acquired hinges for the back of the coop. It will swing open so we can have easy access to collect eggs and clean up the chicken poo.  We can't wait to get our hens!

Here's reprise of my To-Do list for March, updated now that we are moving into April!

• Build Chicken Coop (scrounged lumber, fence panels, pallets)  - MOSTLY DONE, just the hinges, a gangplank, and set it in the yard securely...there's birds of prey that live here so we have to get good bird netting as well.

• Set up rain barrel - We need a new barrel...our freebie-find barrel has small holes in it, on closer inspection. It may; however, turn into a compost barrel. 

• Modify pallets into Raised Beds - One down, three to go! Since we are gardening in the front yard now rather than the back lot, I might do more containers than planted beds. Got to stay flexible; plans always change. 

• Feed and work the compost pile - happy earthworms, scraps turning to dirt, all is well there. I fed it with some moo-nure and mushroom compost to help kick it up a notch.

• Herbal First Aid Class (March 15, 6-9pm @ AB Tech, Madison campus, Free!) 
• Healing From the Hive, Apitherapy Class (March 22, 6-9pm @ AB Tech, Madison campus, Free!)  I missed these two classes because of SNOW, and then SICK. BUT they are running again in May.

• Spring Garden School (March 20, 8:30-3:30 @ AB Tech, Ferguson Center, $10)  This class was awesome! I kept writing notes, paying attention, and waiting to get bored, but it didn't happen. I loved the presentation on the basics of growing in this zone, details on how to grow tomatoes effectively, container gardening, pest management, and edible landscaping. I also finally met Ashley English of "Design Sponge" and "Small Measures" fame! Yay!

• Continue to invest time in building and promoting my Etsy shop - sales are steady, and I'm progressing with making this REAL. Pixie's Pocket™ is in the process of becoming a legitimate legal business within North Carolina. I'm now advertising with Project Wonderful on awesome sites like Octopus Pie, and gaining followers on Twitter. I'm also proud to be a sponsor of the 2010 Think Green Fair in Rochester, MN!

• Invest time in my local community by joining farm markets and supplying local shops with my products - this is still in progress, and ever will be. Markets start soon and I am pretty sure I'll be helping Shannon Houn at House of Herbs with the Earthfare vendor market. 

• Gopher/Vole/Groundhog proof the garden beds & varmint-proof the Coop

• GET CHICKENS! 

• Buy local, heirloom veggies that will thrive here (zone 7b) - So far, I have hybrid bush cherry tomato and an heirloom "Mortgage Lifter" tomato seeds starting to sprout! Also, I will have basil coming out of my EARS...it's taking off like crazy! We will be waiting until May to put out summer veggies. I'll be direct-sowing lettuces and spinach tomorrow.

• Take other classes that come up that can help me with chickens, bees, gardens!! This list includes joining the WNC Beekeepers Association and the Asheville City Chickens Group. Also more free classes at AB Tech and other local presenters...more TBA!

So that's about it. Back to work scrubbing the kitchen floor and vacuuming up a winter's worth of slack...it sure does feel good to MOVE and STRETCH and wake up with the earth!

What is Spring encouraging you to do?  Or for you on the opposite end of the globe - what fall projects are keeping you busy?

Notes, Updates, and Other Blather!

A couple of Notes!

Just so you know, my blog background, banner, and most of the photography on my blog are created by Sarah Thomas, from Modern Scribe Photography.  She now has an Etsy shop with adorable Pre-made banners, Etsy avatars, and other OOAK graphic design creations. She even does photo editing on demand...she can give you pointed ears or adjust lighting and background.

How can you resist the chance to have Inky as your shop banner and avatar? I mean LOOK at HIM! *squee*

Sarah is also the designer for the brand new Asheville Etsy Street Team logo, as seen on Etsy and on their new Facebook page. Yay!

The Asheville Etsy Street Team is on the preliminary planning stages of a local Street Team show, probably in late summer, early fall of this year. As more details are set into stone, I will share them here. :)

Also, the Pagans of Etsy Street Team is having a SPRING SALE! Click HERE to see the many wonderful handmade goods on sale for you to purchase! This sale ends on April 19, so check it out now! Over 400 items are on sale in honor of this lovely season.

Threads of Magique was sweet enough to give me a blog award: the Sunshine Blog. I don't continue chain posts or awards, but I DO hope you go check out Threads of Magique and see the awesome things made and shared there!

I'll be updating soon with my April To-do list, some pics of our chicken coop-in-progress, and more. It's just so hard to write when there are ever-long-growing days full of gorgeous sun to wallow in and dirt to play in!

Earth in her Self-cleaning Cycle

The moon is waxing, closer now to full...

There are daffodils swaying on the hillside, and lilies of some sort poking their green lances up through the clay...

I woke to a birdcaphony earlier this week, and made a mockingbird mock my whistle three times!

Therefore; tomorrow morning, bright and early, I am going to put dirt into some freecycled plastic pots (Yay!) and start some of the chilly weather plants for our first garden! The seeds were also free, which is wonderful. Free food just waiting for the ideal conditions to manifest, right from the very ground!

Well....maybe from the ground. I'm not sure. You see, I've been trying to figure out why it feels like my yard does not want a garden in it.

I just can't sort it out. There's a couple of very good spots for a garden, full of sun and with light windbreak...but it doesn't feel right. The groundhogs, birds, and rabbits certainly WANT me to have a garden in the yard, but I keep balking at something.

So I've been thinking and walking and looking and listening.  Secret Agent Amber has been put on the task to investigate the local flora and learn the names of new weeds and strange flowers...counting mockingbirds and marking the difference between crows here and crows in the swamp. I've been breathing the air and feeling the vibrations that go down through the clay and bounce from rock to rock. I listened to the space on which I live and hope to grow sustenance, and it said gently, kindly, "No."

So I've looked even closer and I keep finding a problem...as I've mentioned before, our yard is chock full of trash from the previous tenants.  Eric's found a truck bed shell, a chain link fence, a doghouse, and three bicycles in the long dead grass on the edge of our yard, and that's just the BIG stuff.

The worst kind of trash is the bits of rusted metal, broken glass, chips of plastic and even strips of tarps left to rot under just an inch or two of clay. Overall, the yard feels like a beaten creature, cowering and hoping it will be ignored and passed over. This land isn't ready to nurture.

I gaze around at what IS growing, at the weeds: poke that grows with a force to be reckoned with, bittercress making a white haze over the earth from her flowers, clover patches cracking the clay and the biggest dandelions I've ever seen swaying in the March winds.  "Ditch weeds," I think to myself.

All I know about ditch weeds is that they grow where there is cleaning that needs to be done. Filtration systems for the ecosystem, and for our bodies.  For example, Dandelions are liver cleansers, blood strengtheners...what is it finding in this soil that is making them grow to Audrey-like proportions? What is the astringent, nutrient rich bitter Pokeweed pulling from the ground and offering up so that the birds won't eat it's berries? They always ate the poke berries in Virginia...

I think my yard is in the middle of a cleanse.  Let me give you an example of WHY I think and feel this way...

This is the result of my digging around in the picture above. In less than a square foot of clay soil, all of this was at the surface, completely visible to the naked eye. In less than one minute, I had two handfuls of sharp, rusty metal to throw away.

So it's been decided. This yard deserves a break, and while we are still going to keep the poke trimmed back a bit, we are going to allow the earth here to do what it must to clean itself. I'll keep picking and throwing away the mess left by others.

We will use raised beds for our garden this spring, summer, and fall to produce the food that will help to sustain us, and the local ecosystem.  We will know what is in the soil it grows up from, and have more control over growing conditions and predator control.

I'll try to get Sarah to take more pictures tomorrow of the first raised bed and the seedlings that will soon be reaching up towards this lovely Spring sun!

Appalachian Spring: Plant Identification 1?

Alright, so I am currently habitating in and about Enka-Candler, NC on the edges of the Pisgah Forest. It's a beautiful place, and I am really enjoying watching it wake from this long and very cold winter!

We arrived on this ridge in early August, just in time to watch the mountains around us begin their change from green to gold to red to brown, to covered in snow and ice...snow is still visible on the ridges of the mountains on the horizon, even with these warm days of the past week.  And I have noticed that plants are generally much hardier here in the Appalachians than in the fertile wet earth of the Dismal Swamp...roses and honeysuckle and primrose were in my yard, blooming as late as October!

Akasha by Modern Scribe

So now I'm watching my yard with keen eyes to see what pops up as the earth thaws under my feet. I've been pulling up the bull nettles and thistle from the spots that we care to tread regularly and tossing their rootballs into the wild field next to us where they can grow with no harm. Eric chopped the hell out of the dead poke last fall, but keeping the poke under a semblance of control is a full time job! I don't mind it sharing space with us, we just have to make it share more of the yard. Our steady traffic in the yard should help with that somewhat.

Yesterday afternoon and Eric and I were finishing up in the back yard, Sarah decided come outside and photograph some of the wild flowers that are coming up in patches all over the red clay yard so that I could work on identifying them. So she lay on the ground, lost her cigarettes, and suffered many travails to capture the flowers exquisitely! Flowers, and also my kitty, when she SAT on a patch of wildflowers we were trying to capture in the fading light.

Veronica persica by Modern Scribe Photography

So, first off, there's this dark green patchwork all over my yard, with lacy leaves and delicate flowers that range from purple to light violet to a rich blue. These guys are shallow-rooting, and their rose-like clusters of leaves remind me of succulent plants. I know just from seeing how prolific and hardy they are that they are probably a hated weed! And you know how I just love to harbor hated weeds.

I looked around a bit and found the name of this plant all on my own!
Veronica Persica is indeed a hated weed and a loaf-about, good-for-nothing scoundrel. Of course, they aren't much trouble either, unless you want your yard to look like a putting green. *shudder*

I googled "NC blue wildflower" and managed to come across "Southern Appalacian Wildflowers," a photography gallery by Rich Stevenson. Luckily, Veronica here was the first picture on his page...but I went through them all. I'm also looking for another flower which isn't proving as easy as Veronica...

? by Modern Scribe Photography

These beautiful little flowers just reach up for the sun out of the long, grabby grasses and dried chaff of last years leavings.

The stems are green and reddish brown, with those lovely dark fingers cupping the white petals. They are no taller than 3 inches from the ground! Does anyone have any idea what this little lovely is called?

In this picture on the left, she is snuggled up with Veronica on the mud-slab steps leading down to our lower lot.

I'd love some help figuring out this little flower, and I'll keep you posted the more I find out! Soon to come: Chicken Coops and Raised Bed construction. Whoo hoo!

Oh, March...you are going to be busy!

Modern Scribe Photography

So far, March has been a damn sight better than February!

Now, mind you, we woke on Tuesday to snow that didn't stop falling until it was 6 inches! So we did the logical thing; played dress-up, went outside, and had Sarah direct a photo shoot of me mincing around in the tumbling snow! It was a great way to spend a cold, gray day - cause I can tell you, the fascination of just staring at the snowflakes gracefully falling went away about mid-December...

But this evening, as I gaze around, I see more green on the ground than the frosty white and muddy red clay. The birds are out thick everywhere, singing and fussing and picking the ground for the insects that are rousing. It has certainly been warm enough to imagine their reemergence - we were just at 60 degrees on both Saturday and this fine Sunday afternoon.

I left myself sleep in until 11am on Saturday...it's been a long week, after all! Post-coffee, I  set myself busy to making some Chai Honey. I have to fill the abundance of Etsy orders that poured in last week! Then I get the call that I have empty shelves at the local shop, the Candler, NC "House of Herbs."  I put three jars of honey in just about a week ago, and two of them have already sold!

Feeling motivated and accomplished, I put on jeans and boots and ambled down to the lower lot to poke around the future garden plot.  I turned the compost and found a couple fat and wriggling earthworms living in there. I welcomed them, thanked them for their hard work, and set off to work with Eric.  He has been checking our scrounged lumber, pulling apart pallets, and measuring out designs for the chicken coop.  As he worked away at our free lumber supply, I got busy picking up trash out of the dirt. It's something I do every time I visit the lower lot, yet I've only barely made a dent.

You see, whoever lived here before us wasn't as conscientious as we are with the disposal of trash...there's was a burn barrel that got dumped regularly. We are forever picking up bits of plastic and glass, metal cans, aluminum foil remnants - it seems like an inexhaustible supply of tiny trash bits that have malevolent intent and really want to stick in your finger when you pick it up!


Until we get the yard clean, raised beds are one of the garden projects that we'll be using the pallets for.  As we develop our plans, I'll be sure to post the progress...for now, here's our To-Do list for March:

• Build Chicken Coop (scrounged lumber, fence panels, pallets)
• Set up rain barrell
• Modify pallets into Raised Beds
• Gopher/Vole/Groundhog proof the garden beds
• Varmint-proof the Coop
• Feed and work the compost pile
• GET CHICKENS! 
• Buy local, heirloom veggies that will thrive here (zone 7b)
• Herbal First Aid Class (March 15, 6-9pm @ AB Tech, Madison campus, Free!)
• Spring Garden School (March 20, 8:30-3:30 @ AB Tech, Ferguson Center, $10)
• Healing From the Hive, Apitherapy Class (March 22, 6-9pm @ AB Tech, Madison campus, Free!)
• Continue to invest time in building and promoting my Etsy shop 
• Invest time in my local community by joining farm markets and supplying local shops with my products
• Take other classes that come up that can help me with chickens, bees, gardens!!

Phew! All that, and it isn't even technically SPRING yet...what do you all have planned for your March?

Visit "The Pixie's Pocket" on Etsy!

Photo and Design by Modern Scribe Designs