Posts Tagged ‘labyrinth garden’
Comes Around
Last year, when I was home full-time, I often looked forward to the moment when Cyndie would arrive home from work and cruise up the driveway where she could see the results of my day’s effort on some project or another. Of course, this only worked if she made it home before dark, which is a tough thing to do during the period when the sun sets before 5:00 in the afternoon.
Sadly, more often than not, I would need to prompt for some feedback, and the response tended to reveal that she hadn’t noticed a thing. After the long commute, just reaching the driveway safely becomes the primary milestone of note, which tends to swamp the senses and blur specific details that may have been noteworthy.
Yesterday, after I pulled up the driveway, I did see the horses grazing in the hay-field nearby, but after that, pretty much a blur. I found Delilah waiting on the other side of the door, as I walked into the house, but no Cyndie. After a wonderfully happy greeting from our dog, I watched her move to the doors beside the fireplace which provide a view beyond our deck to the back yard hill that slopes down to the labyrinth garden.
With no leaves on the trees, it was easy to spot Cyndie pushing the reel mower on the path of the labyrinth. Delilah anxiously followed her master’s every move in the distance. That dog really bonds with the person who is home with her all day.
When Cyndie eventually made her way back up to the house, she promptly asked me how the place looked when I pulled in.
Busted.
I hadn’t noticed all the work she had labored to accomplish on her own while I was away. I felt awful to have missed it, and I gained a new appreciation for what it was like for her last year, before our roles became reversed.
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Precious Peace
This morning the temperature was September-chilly when we woke up. We built the first fire of the season in our living room fireplace. It is my favorite time of year. Cyndie collected some of our wild American plums that are falling off the branches (they’re about the size of a cherry), with a plan to make jam. The sunlight is painting the trees at a noticeably different angle. The constant transition of seasons is entering one of those phases of being more obvious.
I was working in the labyrinth garden yesterday afternoon under a cool cloud cover and once again the herd made their way over to graze in close proximity. Delilah was mostly well-behaved and as I raked up grass cuttings from the previous day, I found myself in the midst of a most precious and peaceful working environment.
(Speaking of peaceful, as I write this, Pequenita has arisen from her warm curled sleep at the opposite corner of our bed to come lay on my chest and purr. She must have sensed what I was writing about.)
The power of that herd to settle Delilah and swaddle me in a blissful calm is precious. I get the impression that they recognize what Cyndie and I endeavor to create with this labyrinth garden. It seems as though they are letting us know we have their full support.
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Impermanence Is
On Saturday, Cyndie and I enjoyed some blissful moments tending to our labyrinth garden. The horses noticed our activity and wandered over to graze beside us while we toiled. Cyndie pulled weeds and I did some rock-work to add robustness to the entrance of the center circle.
It has become apparent that one of the two boulders in the center is leaning away from where we originally placed it. I’m hoping to pull it back upright with some manner of rigging and then see if there will be a way to prop it up with a small rock beneath.
The almost imperceptible movement of that huge rock is a gentle reminder to us that things we tend to assume are static —permanent, even— are nothing of the sort. I need to keep that in mind and endeavor to incorporate that reality into my designs for enhancements to our property.
I guess the trail I recently worked to reclaim is another classic example. It will not remain a trail without regular maintenance. Another obvious example that comes to mind is how much erosion is occurring in our paddocks after the summer rains. Before the horses were in those spaces, there was grass growing everywhere, which worked to hold the soil in place. That is no longer the case.
Beyond all the intentional infrastructure improvements we have done —clearing brush, adding fences, creating new drive paths— there are natural changes happening all the time. There will never be an absence of change. Everything and everyone is in constant transition, and at a continually varying rate of change.
Impermanence is.
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Will They?
One of our current spring dramas is whether our pine trees will recover from the stress they have endured from our dry fall that was followed by the most extreme winter we’ve had in 35 years. I’ve not consulted with an arborist yet, but our trees are definitely browning from the bottom up and the inside out. This doesn’t match the descriptions I find of how winter injury or pine wilt symptoms appear. Whatever it is that is causing the problem, it’s not affecting every single pine, but it is widespread throughout our property and not confined to one spot. We are hoping for the best, but I’m inclined to believe the prognosis is not good. The die-back on many of them is over half the tree.
That isn’t our only drama this spring. We are also anxious to learn whether the maple tree we transplanted to the labyrinth last fall survived the obvious shock it endured from its being uprooted and relocated. If we witness signs of life from that tree in the days ahead, my spirit will soar and we will have much cause for celebration.
There is also concern for the number of plants Cyndie worked so hard to get established in the rest of the labyrinth. This winter was hard on everything, so even if the plants survived the onslaught of snow and long periods of extreme cold, they will now face risks from animals that are trying to eat anything and everything available to recover from their own season-long deprivation. I don’t intend to erect a 10-foot-high fence around the garden to keep deer away, but I fear that is about what it would take to dissuade them from bellying up to our conveniently situated buffet down there.
We could ask Delilah to patrol the area for us, as she would be thrilled at an invitation to chase deer, but she would likely wreak her own havoc on plants, as she demonstrates amazing reckless disregard for all living things in her excitement to chase and dig.
One last drama we came face to face with yesterday is the question of whether we will be able to continue allowing Delilah to be both an indoor and an outdoor pet. This is the first spring that she has lived with us, so we haven’t previously needed to deal with managing both spring mud and a dog before.
When we step in the door, we can simply remove our muddy boots. I wish it were that simple for her. Yesterday, a day when the temperature was below freezing, but the sunshine was still melting exposed ground, she got legs and belly covered with mud and manure-cicles. When we came inside, Delilah was rubbed down with a towel in a cursory attempt to dry her off. Later, when we had time, she would get bathed to remove the residual grime.
So much for waiting. Soon we were seeing dark spots all over the floor. The mud and manure frozen to her underside, and which toweling did not remove, was now melting at a rapid pace. Everywhere she walked in our house was becoming a bio-hazard site. Poor dog was unceremoniously evicted and sent to her kennel outside do be dealt with later.
If I thought it stood a chance of working, I’d look into mud boots for her. I wonder if she’d let me wrap her torso with stretch-wrap to keep her belly fur dry.
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Tree Transplant
We took a break yesterday from focusing totally on the barn and paddocks, and put our energies toward furthering the creation of the labyrinth garden. The big milestone that we finally achieved is the planting of a tree in the center. This is something that I have been visualizing for a long time. Originally, we talked about choosing a young tree from somewhere on our property, but then Cyndie brought home a couple of trees from a nursery and we considered using one of those.
At the last minute –in fact, just as we were setting one of the purchased trees in the hole we had dug– we both decided we’d rather try one from our property. I’m very happy we had the same thought about this, because it would have been a challenge to navigate a difference of opinion on the subject. Selecting and digging up our own tree did mean a fair amount of additional work, but with both of us equally invested in the decision, it became a joint labor of love.
Hoping we wouldn’t end up with a “Charlie Brown-style” tree after we extricated it from the woods, we set about trying to find and save as many roots as possible, navigating around some much bigger roots of surrounding trees, and one huge rock that was buried directly beneath the specimen we picked. About two-thirds into a project like this, I start wondering if we bit off more than we could chew, but that adds good drama to the adventure which brings greater euphoria when success is achieved.
Together we triumphed over the extrication, getting ourselves covered with dirt, and rushed the patient to the waiting hole just behind center of the labyrinth. In about a hundred years, I hope this little tree looks as gnarly and noble as the giant maple tree that towers over the spot from which he was moved.
With the new tree in place, we had fresh incentive to finish off creating definition of the center space and placing rocks to clearly mark the rest of the pathway. We changed some things around the perimeter, found a new location for the purchased trees, and mowed the entire length of the path.
We spent almost the entire day down there, and I got the impression that we could do the same, every single day, adding the touches we have in mind, and never get around to doing anything else around here. Like most art projects, it is hard to decide when it is done. Happily, this project will always be an ongoing one, growing and changing, so I won’t worry myself with the decision of whether it’s done or not.
It will always be growing.
Garden Tending
We have spent the last two afternoon/evenings down at the labyrinth garden, trying to finish off marking a rough outline of the path, and get things planted. The creation of this labyrinth has been an important priority for Cyndie, and she has forged progress against all manner of weather delays, lack of time, and conflicting demands.
I think she has been buying plants for that garden all summer long, and I haven’t been able to help her to see where they should go. She has needed to get some in the ground just to give them a chance to survive until we know where they will ultimately fit. Now we need to get everything planted before the growing season is over for the year.
A couple of weekends ago, Elysa helped accomplish the greatest amount of progress, defining the basic path borders for 3-quarters of the labyrinth, using paving stones that Cyndie purchased. Last night, I came close to completing the marking of the last quarter section which remained to be defined, and was then able to adjust the width and shape of the borders previously laid out. That finally brought enough definition for Cyndie to recognize the route, and allowed her to commence with relocation of wayward plants.
There is still a lot of work to do, before it becomes a true realization of the idea we jointly developed, but for now, the route is walkable, and I think that is amazing progress, given all the other things we are doing around here, simultaneously.
Relative Something 