Blackberry Winter

The brambling wild blackberries behind the house that I tried unsuccessfully over the winter to knock back to a reasonable distance of encroachment are in full, humbly majestic bloom. This morning's temperatures are just this side of frosty, and we all are finding ourselves re-lighting our wood stoves to temper the chilly blow of blackberry winter. I am kicking myself for prematurely setting out my peppers and squash. Yawn, yawn. Who cares?
Despite this cold snap, spring is well underway here at the big spring. The 2014 maypole was wrapped two weeks ago on a perfect spring evening, nestled in a lovely cove amidst banks of sunny Senecio blooms and elusive and blatant wild turkey courtship activity.

Jeff Ashton, modern Wild Man extraordinaire, helped us summon the Blue Man this year. He emerged from the woods, and from the depths of our collective psyches, and danced around the maypole dancers, offering us a reminder of our wild selves. Adorned with furs, feathers, moss and one surprising horn, he wielded garden tools made of wood, bone and leather, summoning visions of the special period of time of human ancestry when people first discovered cultivation. What a trip! Once the ribbons were wrapped and tied off, and it was time to feast, a certain young maypole regular pushed the Blue Man back into the woods, where he retreated into the shadows until we summon him again next year.

The Blue Man is pushed back into the woods

Some children cried, because the Blue Man is a little scary. But he's not too scary. He's the kind of awe-inspiring character who can be intimidating, but alluring all the same. Thanks Jeff, for helping us summon him this year!

Beautiful strawberry cake by Rachel Brownlee, decorated with ribbons by my sweet sister in law Angie for the occasion

Other spring news- The first 2014 reishi mushroom (Ganoderma tsugae) has been harvested here by me. There are more getting ready. Double extractions with alcohol and spring water will be made.

The indigo buntings and phoebes are noisily trying to raise families just near my house. This means early morning wake up calls daily, like it or not. Other close-by summer residents who I assume are nesting here too include hooded warblers, black throated green warblers, and blue grey gnatcatchers. The parulas must have just passed through this year. Pileated woodpeckers' population is healthy.

This place has been enjoying a gentle increase in human activity since winter melted. The maypole welcomed a large group of celebrators, and just this week Julie brought the twins and baby Daisy for a 3 day visit. We played with toads, bug hunted, went for a walk and found a black snake, cut some bamboo and made a trellis in the garden, and played with some other kids in Spring Creek in Hot Springs. It was a blast!

Forest and Lily getting silly at the bamboo trellis project

Chinese herbs are growing. Dang gui angelica  and bo he mint are thriving, peonies are looking good, even the licorice is chugging along in it's third year. I have a nursery of good looking bupleurum (chai hu) that is about to go in the ground. Wish me luck! I'm trying to germinate some Atractylodes (bai zhu). Red rooted sage, ballonflower and Chinese skullcap are doing good. I'm also doing ashwagandha again. 

This concludes the blackberry winter update. Thank you for your time. 

Prelude

I'm so glad I left last year's Maypole up. It turns out a wrapped Maypole is quite stunning in the snow. It still stands in the middle of the garden, erect, last years bright colors faded slightly but not much. Red, yellow, pink, green, white, brown, checkered- all woven tightly to mark human activity in this cove. Are the lovely old depression era country songs of the Twilight Broadcasters, who kept the cadence of the May Dance, also woven in there? How about the smile of Eleanor Gentry (aka "Shorty"), whose old fabric we used for the ribbons? She spent the 40 best years of her life down there in the holler in the now dilapidated house where those fabrics were salvaged and then brought up the hill to be put to work. And the awe and fear of 3-year-old Sylvia Sparrow upon witnessing the Blue Man with antlers emerge from the woods and, silently, encircle the outer perimeter of the ring of dancers with his staff and his kilt, pawing the ground and snorting like a territorial buck?

What does the piliated woodpecker, watching from one of its MASSIVE holes in a nearby poplar tree in the woods, make of me standing in the snow pondering the pole? Will it watch from that hole this spring, as the friends, families, children and lovers wind new ribbons around a new pole? Or perhaps will it lose all sense of self control and fly right over the whole ordeal, laughing and cackling in polyrhythm with its undulating flight pattern?

The snow does not fool me. Spring is upon us.

Angelo beholds the pole

The Greening

The sky opened and the rain poured out in buckets. It rained and rained. Later the clouds parted and the light of the afternoon sun shone down on friends and family, on the house, on the good green earth, on the straights and gays (Because the good green earth and the golden sunshine don't deem one man or one woman more worthy of the priviledge of their water or warmth than another man or woman based upon such things). The music began and the people gathered in the field around the Maypole, the straight solid poplar pole which was firmly planted in the fertile ground of the garden. Holding their ribbons and poised for the ancient dance round, they gasped in amazement at the emergence of the blue man from the woods, their recognition of him strangely cellular, visceral. He is a man of the ages. He has moved through our human dreams since we started dreaming, snorting and pawing the ground in his power, staking his claim in our psyches, just as the Green stakes its claim in the forest come Spring. He is attended by his daughter, a modern day artemis, blue rings adorning her wise young eyes and nimble fingertips. Together they encircle the dancers, the ribbons, the pole, the rite, simulataneously containing and freeing the dancers with their potent presence. The full moon rose from the mountain as the night fire was lit, fireflies twinkling in tandem with the silent breathing of the forest in the cove. Men drank and ate, marked each other's bodies with paint, sang and rhymed, guarded the fire. Women drank and ate, laughed in communion with each other and with the moon, recited poetry, guarded the young ones, some with strong hands and guiding words, some with the havens of their wombs. Hours of the night typcially safeguarded for dreaming were greeted with bold awakeness, the tedium of daily routine shed briefly for the marking of another winter survived, for the celebration of the Greening.

The dance has been danced. The ribbons have been woven, as have the lives and stories of friends and families. The ancient ancestors have been honored. The man from the woods has been seen and respected. This farm has been consecrated.