I used to watch my mother take spade and knife to Iris bulbs and roots. She would hack, slice, untangle and either put them in paper bags for next year, return them to their plot or donate them to the church sale. And when crawly things invaded her potted plants, she would dump the pot and shake the soil out of their roots onto a baking sheet. The house would fill with the smell of hot dirt and anything else that was unfortunate enough to make a home in it. Her red Geraniums were shown little mercy come Autumn, as stems and flowers were cut down to a few inches above the dirt and tossed aside. Mom rarely bought new Geraniums, instead she lined them up along the basement stairs and forgot about them until the next spring. Mom always grows the most beautiful flowers.
In some folklore the Praying Mantis represents Spirituality
I began my October Saturday doing a bit of angry gardening and debating whether or not I should share with my readers this near and dear to my heart mental health strategy. It seems that there are plants that are determined to live or die in spite of all of the productive and counter productive practices that we apply to them and every so often I take advantage of that fact. I have blueberry bushes that have been transplanted no fewer than four times in order to make room for some other shrub that dies within the season.
The French once thought that the Praying Mantis would point a lost child home *
I chose loppers, hedge clippers, bypass clippers, and a bow saw from the shed; for after a difficult week it suddenly occurred to me that the hedge on the east side of the yard was in desperate need of my attention. When Wayne came out, he found me with under a bush with sticks tangled in my hair as I battled the roots of an invasive vine. He asked what my plans were for the day. Upon noting my curt response, Wayne returned to the house to change his clothes. By the time I began to feel better, every other shrub had been removed from the line and tossed into the trailer along with miles of ropelike vines. Being in nature is good for the soul.
Last week in Hunting for Autumn I mentioned that Wayne and I had once again gone in search of an easier access from the north to Vast Trail "1" which is located in the Roaring Brook Wildlife Management Area. We had previously searched for access off of Franklin Rd but with no parking available, we ended up parking at the town hall and hiking up 1-A / Millers Crossing to 1. Don's mention last weekend that he had opened the gate for trail maintenance on West Rd nudged Wayne and I to once again strike out to find another more direct access to the trail. After all, how hard is it to find an open gate with parking on West Rd?
After slowly driving up and down the road, I urged Wayne to pull over so that I could walk a few feet past a gate. I asked two men there if they knew of a gate that lead to the power lines. They directed me to one gate up, but that lead to the old gravel pit which is now a solar field. We continued once again up West Rd only to find a large group of lost dirt bikers exiting from (what I think is) Thunder Bird Rd. They said that they had come from Bernardston, were looking for Basin Rd and were unable to help us with finding our trail. In this area there are signs that state "no thru traffic" and "Road ends in private driveway" but there aren't any "no trespassing" signs. Even so, we headed back down West rd until we ran into Gordon. Gordon said that it would be okay to continue on past those signs and we would find an open gate there.
It was after we drove past the third open gate and found a fourth that we decided to park and start hiking on the trail to the left.
Not far up the trail we ran into a yellow VT state lands sign.
No comments:
Post a Comment