AT PLAY AMONG THE FLOWERS

native rhododendron

It is the time of year for the second run of flower openings. First, daffodil, forsythia, crocus. Rhododendron are popping open now,the cucumber trees in  full flower, the bluets in full flower, the heart-shaped leaves of the wild violets pull their stems tight reaching for the sun. The rhododendron are covered in clusters of a pink found only in flowers. Mountain laurel will bloom next month. Irises are beginning to bloom. Yellow Dutch iris are opening, the purple ones yet to open. I've transplanted a dozen small clusters of purple Dutch iris from a place where they were spreading out into a tire track where a pickup goes to drive through the gate to the suburban donkey meadow. The irises needed trimming back. I'm taking them to Carpenter's summer cabin where I plant them strategically to inhibit erosion. Somebody you find in the yellow pages under landscaping was hired to direct rainwater away from the house's foundation. He fixed it so the rainwater could only flow directly to the foundation. I've been doing damage control ever since. After a few years of being knocked off my track by what he did, I'm seeing what can be done for damage control. He put treated 6x6s around the parking area to make it into a pond during a big rain. He put a drain in the parking area that doesn't work like new after a few years. Water runs over the 6x6 rail creating ruts from water flow in the same place every time. I planted the Dutch iris clusters to slow down the flow of water downhill from the parking space runoff at the lowest point in the rail. 

new dutch iris bed and rhododendron

Already, I've put in a large area of purple Dutch iris that spreads wildly and some yellow Dutch iris that spreads just as fast. Irises, daylilies and at least a dozen Joe Pyes, more come up every year. I've found a couple of small mountain laurel for digging up to transplant. Thought I'd do it later in the day to give them the night to adjust to their new spaces before a day drenched in sun with torn roots in new soil, though the same soil, moved no more than thirty feet. I'll look after them with water daily to keep what they have left for roots supplying water to the leaves above. I get their core roots, but the root tips with the root hairs feeling their ways through the soil are largely lopped off. I keep them watered good, without drowning them, to give new root tips a chance to develop and begin their explorations through the topsoil. The ground is what I call glorified beach sand. My feeling is that corn was grown there for so many years, plus DDT, year after year, the soil was depleted. I remember plowing old man Tom Pruitt's garden. The soil was gray. The garden was in the same place since the house was built, around 1908. It would only grow things that grow in poor soil. He would hoe a trench for the seeds and sprinkle fertilizer along the rows with the seeds. This land the Carpenter's house is on has been let grow up into woods for eighty or more years. The spot the house was built on was naturally bare with a grove of mountain laurel beside it, telling me the laurel will take the transplant well. Mountain laurel blooms profusely in the sun. The big flower bed will keep them happy with light. I've planted only flowers that return every year and like full sun. Our winters are not cold enough anymore to keep tulips without digging up the bulbs, wintering them in the freezer and replanting them. Other people do tulips. 

flowering cucumber tree

Initially, I was thinking the vertical leaves of the Dutch irises would hold the autumn leaves in place, accumulate them, a leaf trap. It worked out. Rain and winter dissolved the leaves into the ground, topsoil, nutrients for the roots, a new layer every fall. Seeds are caught too. Small saplings rise up throughout the bed. They're beautiful too. I let them grow among the flowers until they grow three or four feet above the others, still easy to eliminate with long-handled loppers. I'm not growing just pretty flowers. I like to let the flora that grows naturally here mix in with the mostly irises. The irises will have their way. I like to keep it green. The Joe Pyes grow up to ten and twelve feet, saplings the next level in height, then a bed of dutch iris spikes sticking straight up, the flowers a purple only seen in flowers. I placed the iris clusters in a sort of diagonal line to deflect water away from the house, to slow it down and  hold some of it. I made a long berm of leaves and dirt to deflect the river of water flowing down the tire trails from the higher level with the old cemetery. Alas, my berm deflecting the water away from the house can only lead the water to the pond that collects in the parking area. It flows over the barrier during rains, and now has begun to make trenches. I planted the irises to slow the water flow, spread it out, collect and hold some of it. Another slope, the other side of some downhill steps, I planted with fifteen fern clusters last fall. They're all coming up but one. They will spend this year adjusting to the new soil and next year will flourish and start spreading.  

ferns at home

The landscaper who knows nothing about water dug a big trench and put boulders in it to catch water from the roof. The trench is perfectly placed for water dripping off the roof during a sprinkle. But when it rains, the water runs two and three feet beyond the boulder trench and has made its own trench. I wanted to put dutch iris along the new trench to slow the water and redirect some of it. It concerns me about the water beating the leaves to the ground during a rain. Thought I'd pick up some of the smaller rocks from the boulder trench and place them along the parallel trench to slow and redirect the flow of water from the parking zone and roof, thinking in time the Dutch iris will seed the new trench and grow some iris from seed strong enough to withstand the water flow from above. The boulder trench collects leaves and silt. I'm thinking the best thing for it is to let it fill up with silt and leaves and make a flower bed of it, more Dutch irises. Or a fern bed. Ferns and the iris are hardy and love this soil. The boulder trench is nothing but ugly. It's completely in the wrong place. It is in a good place to water a flower bed gently and have runoff below. Making lemonade of lemons. I had two banks covered in daffodils. The landscaper buried them all. I never think of him by name. To me, he's the one who knows nothing about water. I'm over the shock of his travesty by now. This spring I'm there every day doing something. I've seen by now the damage his landscaping has done, a good time to start damage control. Change a place from a lawn canyon to a flower bed that will send seeds downhill every year, ultimately to make a big flowerbed along the edge of the woods. I'm looking to make the place lush with flowering greenery that needs no mowing or any kind of care but trimming saplings and snipping a few things that take up from time to time. 

oak leaves opening

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THE RHODODENDRON WALKING STICK

two views of today's finished stick

new rhododendron walking stick

Another walking stick is leaning against the wall to dry after first coat of tung oil. Two days of carving I only whacked my fingers half a dozen times. None of them were blood-letters, just nicks. I've thought about putting a bandaid around the thumb I hit 4 times. It's like wearing gloves putting up barbed wire. In the early years on the farm I'd wear leather gloves to stretch barbed wire. Put on the gloves, stretch the wire, hold it in place, take off the gloves take hammer and staple, hammer it into place. Put gloves back on to handle the barbed wire, then take them off again. There comes a time I stuff the gloves into my back pockets and do the best I could to keep from the scratches being too bad. Old man Tom Pruitt's hands dripped blood after he'd put up a barbed wire fence. He never wore gloves. It wasn't long before I didn't either. A few years ago I ran into hillbilly country singer Raymond Oakes. We talked a little and I noticed the backs of his hands had a webbing of scars that looked made by a spider on acid. Exactly like the back of old man Tom's hands. I said to Raymond, "Stretched much barbed wire?" He said, "Yeah, stretched some helping my daddy." Had I continued with the farm work, the backs of my hands would look like that. I have a pretty fair beginning. They're my tattoos. Now I'm in process of putting new scars on the hands, this time the fingers. Putting protection on the fingers doesn't feel right. It takes away from the raw interaction of the knife and the wood. It feels elemental to me. A tool of only one moving part and a piece of wood. Sharpen knife and carve. I have to call it carving instead of whittling or shaving the wood. It is carving from first swipe of the knife to last. Yesterday I carved the bark off this rhododendron branch that has been dead a few years Today I cleaned it up with the knife, an even more painstaking process than stripping the bark. It's detailed carving and smoothing tiny places. It's an excellent meditation. Focus of attention is close. My fingers are at stake. I have to be aware of every move consciously. 

the stick and the knife

I love carving rhododendron wood. Enjoyed the poplar and dogwood too. I've messed with wood all my life, but it feels like carving these walking sticks I'm discovering wood for the first time. I want to carve different kinds of wood now. I've sawed wood, sanded it, run a planer over it, painted it, but never carved it. Never had purpose. I've never kept the pocketknife sharp for not wanting to cut self using it. Now, for the first time in my life, I am keeping the pocketknife as near razor sharp as I'm able. Cutting wood doesn't seem to dull the blade. It keeps a good edge. It feels sometimes like wood's purpose is to be carved. Again, the giving tree. Suddenly I understand that African masks were carved by people who carved wood, good at it unto masters in later years. I am learning subtleties of using a knife carving wood. There are many approaches to the wood. I kept three prongs at the end that touch the ground for novelty. The idea is to be walking on the ground. It would be excellent footing on the ground. Maybe. I did it because I liked the idea and believe they won't break. I like using the knot where branches leave the main branch for the tip that touches the ground. It won't split. It was fun digging with the front part of the blade between the three prongs pictured above. Every place along the stick where a branch came out, I carved down to a smooth round bump that flows with the shape of the stick. Rhododendron limbs make a crooked line between the handle and tip that is a straight line in the stick's balance. Functionally, it is a straight line, same as a straight stick. But it goes this way and that, which doesn't mess its balance up at all. I hypothesize the bends give it spring a straight stick could not. As I pick these limbs to carve, spring is foremost in my mind. The spring is, essentially, negligible. One thing I see it does is vibrate like a bass string and a straight stick vibrates like a high string. Maybe it is a consideration of resonance, whatever resonates with a given individual. 

the handle after carving off the bark

  

Incorporating the scar in the limb into the stick's design was fun. The hand fits nicely between the knot above and the crook below. It is made for the hand the way a pistol grip is made to fit the hand. The stick hangs straight down from the handle held lightly. I sit here at the desk, the pocket knife lies open to my right. I've learned to admire it for what it can do. I've begun to have a feel for its physicality. It is tool of exquisite design. Folds up, goes in the pocket. Open, it is locked open the same as if it did not have a hinge. It is a Case Sodbuster made  in 1977. I've known of Case knives from displays in hardware stores, heard about them, thought it was one of a few makers of knives. I looked online and found a very long list of knife makers. I'm partial to my Sodbuster. Of all the pocket knives I've carried, this is the one. I like the feel of holding it. It has a good balance. The blade holds a sharp edge, it's practical. One of my friends said one day years ago, "I've never carried a pocket knife." I spoke automatically, "Carry one once and you always will." Don't need it much, but when I do, I need it. It's like carrying a pen. I always carry a pen in my pocket when I go to town. And always regret it when I forget. Don't always need one, but when I forget one, that's the day I need it. All pocket knives I'd ever seen had three blades. It's not like I'm an aficionado of pocket knives. This was the first single blade knife I'd seen. First thought: how practical. I've never used more than one blade on knives I used in the past. Talking with my friend Carole, she has her dad's pocket knife. It was the only thing of his she wanted. After he died, she snitched the knife knowing no one would miss it. It is a Schmidt & Ziegler made in Solingen, Germany. It is the common pocket knife. She said he only used the small blade. Again, I thought: how practical.

the handle finished

Today, carving the stick the second time, I wondered why I am doing this. For enjoyment. I like carving right now. May not two weeks from now, but right now carving is what I'm doing. I may sell them if anybody will buy them and may give them away or both. It's a meditation, not a regimen. I've found sitting with a stick carving on it with a sharp knife requires immediate focus of attention. It clears the mind. I like the focus. The consequence of lifting focus for a second is a sliced finger. Focus keeps my fingers safe. Every touch of the knife requires sharp focus. Earlier today, I was feeling like I wanted to write, wanted to read, wanted to watch a movie, all at once. I picked up the knife and stick, went outside, turned over the five-gallon bucket and proceeded to carve. Turned the radio onto the interview program, Fresh Air, followed by Robin Young, then The World. Good interviewers, interesting people they talk with, and I find The World always interesting. I carve and hear in the air well-educated people talk about interesting subjects. I find that with focus on every movement with the knife I hear what they're saying better whether it's the emergence of ISIS in Iraq or the lives of Tibetan women in India. I like BBC radio at night. They tell a lot of Africa news. Africa has a mystique for me from the Pyramids to the Kalahari. Lawrence Durrell's novels, The Alexandria Quartet, were set in North Africa, Alexandria, Egypt. I think of Africa the world of our origin. I think of wood as one of humanity's great teachers. The other, rock. I could  have been a rock mason in this life happily. I have the same appreciation for rock as for wood. Basic, least moving parts, foundational. And I appreciate the life in the wood. The shape of the wood is its life. Carving away the bark I get down to the beautiful wood, caress it with sandpaper and rub the tung oil into it, changing it from something pretty to something beautiful instantly. Carving on the rhododendron branches I remind self from time to time, this is it, this is basic element.

the first rhododendron stick

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GRUMPY OLD BASTARD ROAD RUNNER

 

jack's nose

Calm, quiet day after a night of big thunder and rain. I went out with a couple of five gallon buckets to shovel up some donkey droppings to spread under the rhododendron around the house. They are huge, ready for some nourishment. I don't know how well it works, but I spread it on the ground out around the outside edge of the branches where the root tips crawl through the ground. I've been told donkey is high potency manure that burns the plants. I'm assuming leaving it on top of the ground and letting the nutrients soak in a little at a time during rains will be more gentle. I'm not tilling it into the ground. The pink rhododendron that get full sun are blooming now while the ones in the shade are just now popping the buds. In my early years in the mountains the pink rhododendron, the ones the people in the old way called purple, bloomed in late June every year. The  blooming has crept forward in time until they're blooming mid May now. I've watched their blooming season advance closer to the end of winter. These rhododendron have almost rounded tips on their leaves. They love sunlight. The other rhododendron has pointed leaves and white flowers the old people called pink. They also called rhododendron laurel and called mountain laurel ivy. It was a language overlap in changing times the old folks couldn't adjust to. Laurel was laurel and ivy was ivy. Somebody comes along saying that's not laurel and that's not ivy, the old folks would let it go by, somebody else trying to make something common into something high sounding. One of the many insights picked up in these mountains was seeing that the people of the old way before electricity and oil were not less intelligent than us because they didn't finish high school and their grammar was different. We from outside the mountains tend to look at the old hillbillies as none to brite, people who were poor because they were uneducated. I see it so the other way around now, I have to watch judging people who take mountain culture for a lesser version of their own, because I did it for too long a time to admit without embarrassment.

 

jack's topknot

 

When it comes to intelligence, they had it all over us. Their educational system taught them how to figure things out. Ours has us memorizing details. Ever tried to read a high school history text book? Detail after detail to be memorized. So boring you never want to read another book the rest of your life. Bring back the Bible, just because it's good reading. I'm not going to say anything about the twitter generation, because I know nothing at all about them. I see a few in the coffee shop and they act like they're not even there. That's the extent of my experience. Recalling a time recently I went into a local restaurant with friend Bill Nixon from Atlanta. I came face to face with the guy who was to seat us, looked to be about 18. I drew a blank. I don't know how to talk to an eighteen year old. So many generation gaps have gone between us I lost track of the young long ago. I'm looking at the guy and he's looking at me and I don't know what to say. Every experience I've had in recent years speaking to somebody that age, they say, What? I didn't want to go through any of it. I put two fingers up. Bill stepped up. He and the guy talked like peers. The kid talked to him like Bill could hear, and Bill was older than me. Bill has taught art in university much of his life. His students are people of that age and he knows how to talk to them. Knows so well, the guy lit up talking with Bill. The difference, Bill saw him person to person, I saw him the other side of a communication barrier. It was all in my attitude. Bill looks like old Walt Whitman and I look like a retired cop. Now, when I have occasion to address the young, I tell myself to receive them for who they are, like everybody else, and talk like the other can hear. In many ways, it's like being in a foreign country among the young in this time of the life. The ones I know, I connect with them easily. It's the ones I don't know that put me in a state of bewilderment. Perhaps I put too much emphasis on not understanding their culture. I admired that moment in Bill. A bit of urban sophistication was in the mix too, none of which I have.

 

jenny's whiskers

 

My friend Meredith I've known since she was a baby. Wasn't around her much, a time or two a year, but feel like I know her. First time I saw her after her PhD, I felt like she was closer and at once farther away. Farther away in that she has impressive knowledge in her head. A time I saw her when she was in high school, she had read on her own for fun, the Iliad and the Odyssey. She was then reading a two inch thick commentary on them. I daresay I was impressed. I might have wiggled my way through maybe one of them, but never the commentary at that age. She now has a baby as cute as she was. Her parents never hit her and she will never hit her baby. My friend Pat, who lives in NY state close to Massachusetts, raised two girls without hitting them. Oldest is now a surgeon. The other works with her in her landscaping business. They are brilliant, beautiful women, inside and out, contributions to the world around them. I'm comfortable in my age, comfortable in my culture, comfortable in my world of friends and neighbors. People come in from outside these parameters and I'm lost for what to say or do. I don't understand people outside my world anymore. I've given so much focus of energy to understanding the culture I live in, the people I know and the mountain of memories that go with advancing age, I don't pay attention to anything outside these fields, or meadows. Nobody tells me anymore I need to pay more attention to the world out there (television). Everyone in my world knows I never will. I've not paid attention to tv since 1961. Only have one now for watching films. Films are art forms. Tv is too, but about as much an art form as a child's coloring book. The art in television is mind manipulation. A century and a half of the study of psychology and what is the result? Mind control by way of television, addictive mind control that creates imaginary reality as directed by.... When you don't watch television and live in a world of people that do, just the frame of mind, ways of thinking make me an outsider. I hear Patti Smith again, Outside of society! That's where I wanna be! Followed by Lenny Kaye's guitar strings. Hail Yeah! Rebel yell.  

 

jack's nostril

 

Outside of society is where I'm comfortable. A thought of being comfortable in society gives me the shivers. There was a time in the life when I never imagined it possible to get out from under the constant assault of other people's expectations, like it would be impossible. The day I turned off caring, it became possible. I came to realize nobody has a right to expect of someone else. I quit allowing other people to expect of me. I quit caring before the move to the mountains. I'm in a place, have been here awhile, where I don't perform other people's expectations unless I agree to it or offer to. I found in these hills that the people outside society are the very most interesting people around. I'm remembering what friend Jr Maxwell told me his daddy, who was born months after the end of the War of Yankee Aggression, told him, Stay away from important people. I was inclined in that direction when he said it, but it was nice to have it so succinctly put. When somebody says, I didn't expect that of you, I think without saying it, that's your problem, not mine. I know I've pist an awful lot of people off with indifference to their expectations. It keeps them away. I don't want around me people who expect of others, especially the unspoken expectations, my favorite kind to trample. I have a maxim of my own on the subject, expect me to walk on your eggshells, they will be broken. It's been my attitude a very long time, so long I don't think about it anymore. It's become my nature. If I wanted to be a social butterfly, I would not choose here to do it. I came to Waterfall Road to perform that corny cliché, find myself. Oh, what a difference it made. A particular church here I liked, felt the spirit good there, went a few times, then the expectations start, "We expected to see you last week, brother." I'm gone. Once expectation raises its head and starts talking, I make tracks, high-speed tracks that barely touch the ground.

 

jenny's eye

 

 

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