Juneberry Pie of My Dreams

There are a great many things wrong with the City of Asheville, NC, but one of the things they managed to get right was establishing a Food Action Plan that supports access to healthy food in a limited sense of those words. There are multiple places in the city where fruit and nut trees provide harvest for anyone to enjoy, and there is an online map to help folks find those locations. (Link at the end of this post.)

Six years ago I learned about Asheville's Juneberries (a/k/a Serviceberries) through an on-line group, and decided I had to see what all the fuss was about. I located some of the trees, periodically checked to see if the fruit was ripe, and when it was I sampled that sweet juicy goodness. The berries are small, taste like a mixture of blueberry and cherry, and instantly became my favorite berry EVAH. 

I requested assistance from my favorite co-adventurer and together we picked a couple of berry buckets full in less than half an hour. The trees we were picking from then were probably five or six years old and produced an incredible crop; what we put in our buckets and our mouths was less than a third of the ripe berries on each tree. We took our treasure home, and with our combined harvest I made a Juneberry pie and canned some pie filling. Two jars of that filling went to friends who also had never had Juneberries, and I put two jars into the pantry with the mindful intention of using them to call up summer when the weight of winter became too heavy. One particularly cold winter day I opened those jars of pie filling and baked a pie and a cobbler that each held the bright, warm taste of Summer's promises. 

That was the day I knew that if we were ever able to buy our own home we were going to plant Juneberry trees. And we did, and so we did. In about two weeks we will mark the one year anniversary of our move in date, and the day after that we will mark the one year anniversary of the Juneberry trees (Amelanchier x grandiflora, Autumn Brilliance) that were planted in our front yard the day after we officially moved in. Appalachian Creek Nursery helped get our dream of a critter and pollinator friendly yard off to a fine start. 

At that time I noted that when the Wheel of the Year began to turn back to summer again we should be harvesting berries from our own trees if we could manage to save any of them from the bears and the birds. I hoped there would be a pie or two made and maybe even a few jars set up.

It was a special sort of delight this year to watch as the leaves started to grow, and then the flowers came, and finally the first berries started to show. I've never had fruit trees before, and I thought I would have to race the birds once the berries were actually ripe. Wrong! One day I watched for an hour as a mockingbird came and went repeatedly, taking red, unripened berries from one of the trees. As with everything here at the Cottage, it was our intention to share the harvest with the critters, but I thought at that rate there would never be any harvest to share. I made the decision to net the trees to keep the birds away, and I will just say that is something I will never do again. The trees were miserable, the birds were confused, and I had to rescue several butterflies who became trapped inside the netting. 

Traumatic netting aside, the berries survived and within a week were ripe enough to start picking. The first taste of the first berries from the trees grown by Cottage land and Cottage energy was divine. I'm not saying that lightly, or tritely. I made a pact with this land, and this harvest was part of the reward for keeping my end of the bargain. Be mindful if ever you do something similar to do what you said you would do. The rewards can be grand in many different ways, but the opposite could be unthinkable.

I took my time picking those berries. I talked to the trees and thanked them, I looked at the branch structure, and the leaves, and even the saplings coming out of the ground. I also took notice of the cluster patterns of berries at the end of new growth, already beginning to get some idea on how each tree will need to be pruned back. And of course I was tasting berries as I was picking, standing in the sun in the front yard. I had waited a long time for this harvest and I wanted to enjoy every moment. 

This first harvest season for these trees I took about 8 cups of fruit, and the birds took that much as well. I believe that is pretty good for two year old trees, and look forward to the harvest increasing every year. I have been a bit surprised that the neighborhood bears haven't taken their share...yet.

Does it surprise you to know I baked a pie the night I picked those berries? I savored the taste of it at the very end of the day, and the flavor melted into my mouth and my spirit, a combination of the sweetest summer memories and the best summer promises ever made. These are the things that keep me grounded in the here and now, living every moment of every day. 

https://avl.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StoryMapCrowdsource/index.html?appid=4200139df5a245d5a1983b81798c97d8

Finding Grace

Today I wrote to a friend that I have been trying to find some grace in every day.

I am tired. Somedays I am exhausted, even beyond the normal fatigue I deal with because of some health issues, or the physical fatigue that comes from working outside as much as I am able, and I think that this is normal during this difficult time. The pandemic and the political climate in this country, on top of everything else going wrong in this world, can be overwhelming. So I make myself slow down, I make myself see, I make myself hear, I make myself feel, and by doing that, I find grace, which in turn gives me hope and some sense of peace in this Upside Down.

Yesterday morning I was busy moving wagon loads of plant debris from the raised bed in the front yard to the compost pile out back. Its a bit of a walk and on my second trip back I sat down on Blueberry Hill to rest. The sun was warm on my face and there was a light breeze blowing. I closed my eyes for a while and did a quiet meditation, then I opened my arms and let that wind move through me, carrying away all that was negative.

When I opened my eyes again the day seemed a little brighter. I heard the low cooing of a Mourning Dove in the loblolly pine branches above me, and I turned my eyes to see if I could find the bird. A pair of them had been nesting in another tree in our front garden, but had abandoned that nest after a wind storm. I was hoping to find their new home space, but they both moved in and out of the high-up branches and then flew away.

Movement on the ground caught my eye and I saw a female American Robin doing a funny little walk/run across the driveway, moving towards where I was sitting. She would stop and look at me, then run a little more. She eventually went up the hill past me and I watched until she caught a worm then flew up into the tree over my head. And lo, there it was. This year's nest in the loblolly pine. The minute she stepped close to it two little heads on two scrawny necks popped up out of the nest, and those little mouths were wide open, ready for their elevenses.

The Sun was lined up so perfectly behind that nest, behind that branch, that in that moment the babies were completely backlit. The light actually shone through their beaks, illuminating them and making them appear transluscent. It reminded me of last Autumn when the rising Sun shone through the sunflowers blooming in our front garden; the whole scene was so magical that I held my breath, not wanting it to end.

Then their mom moved to feed them, and in the next instant she was fluffing her wings and settling down over her babies in the nest. Take whatever message you want to take from that moment, from that image, but I was just so overwhelmed by love that I cried.

I sat there under the tree for a while longer, musing about that moment of grace and about the way the Wheel turns. Moments pass, days go by, the year moves on, but I am often gifted with reminders of how everything is connected. Sunflowers and baby birds kissed by the same Sun. Friends who share music that makes them dance, or laugh, or cry, or worship. Art that makes people smile or sigh. Garden talk and critter pictures; despair and hope; loss and love.

There is grace in every bit of it, and I am blessed.

One Mississippi...Two Mississippi...

I am awake in the wee hours of the morning, summoned by the noise and power of the first real thunderstorm of the season rolling through the river valley in which I live. Without even thinking about it, I find myself counting the intervals between each flash of lightning and burst of thunder, and my mind is flooded with memories of comforting and empowering my children in the dark and stormy nights of their tender years. 

The helper is a simple meditation and sleep ritual that I never realized was either one of those things until now. The children would call to me or come to me in the dark, frightened by the storm, and we would wind up snuggled together, sometimes just one of them and me, sometimes all of us snuggled together on the couch. In the lull after a boomer I would ask "Are you ready? Let's watch now," and they would very nearly hold their breath, waiting for the night sky to light up. When it did, we would count outloud together: One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. 

BOOM! The thunder would come, and they would jump, but their eager minds were already busy watching for the next flash to cross the sky. As they grew older those lulls between flash and boom were often filled with questions about different kinds of lightning, how storms move, or what animals do during storms. They each went through a phase when they just had to spell out the word, Mississippi, in the sing-song rhyming chants so many of us know from childhood, and I remember a night one of the girls dissolved into giggles because she was missing her top front teeth and couldn't say the word. 

I would gently encourage them to hush, to watch, to listen, to quiet their breathing so they could hear. They learned that they could tell when the storm was drawing closer and when it was moving away. The lull between boom and flash would lengthen, their fear would settle, their breathing would slow, and eventually they would not so much fall back to sleep as to be carried there by the peace of the lull and the sound of the rain. 

Sometimes when it storms now, I wonder if they remember. 

The boomers have passed through now, and the sound of the rain is hypnotic and sweet. My gardens are being watered, and I am going to wrap myself in gratitude and allow the rain to lullaby me back to sleep. 

The Autumn Equinox - Balance in All Things

I am an intuitive person, and as a writer and a spiritual practitioner I have long embraced that aspect of myself. Intuition carries me to the deepest, most magical, brightest, darkest places of thought and emotion and connection in my life. It connects me to my muses, to my Divines, to the people and places I most love. It is my strongest protection, the internal compass that guides me along paths both troubled and happy.

Somehow, in the past year, I have been living Harry Dresden moments. Somehow, in the past year, some Thing dropped a rock wall between my Spirit/Mind and my Intuition. Somehow, despite the hours of therapy and hours of consult and hours of conversation with friends, I could not see that rock wall. It has been crumbling for a while, and occasionally the light breaks through, but I just didn’t realize that it was there. (Side note to catch you up if you need it: No Dresden spoilers here, if you haven’t read the books yet, but the rock wall dropping Thing in my life was simply the ultimate realization of Grief.)

Not long after I woke this morning, I went out on the porch to greet the rising Sun on this holy day of Mabon, the Autumn Equinox. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the warm touch of sunlight, relaxing into a soft meditation. When I opened my eyes again the first thing I noticed was the shining little rows of dewdrops lining the porch railing. My eyes moved from there to the row of sunflowers in front of me, and I noticed how brilliant their color is with the morning sun shining through them. I saw the dew glistening on their leaves, and then I noticed the same with the tall standing corn. Those long green leaves were covered with dew, and as my eyes moved up the stalks, I saw dew drops on the tips of the silks, and even on the tassels.

I was simply enjoying this visual nature show at face value, which would have been a marvelous start to my day. Then the bird chorus started their song, singing the Sun into the sky with their rising chorus. My ears woke up then, and I heard the oddest background rhythm; it was the steady plink, plink, plink sound of dripping water. I wondered if the hose was leaking, and as I stood to look over the edge of railing into the South yard, the rain chain caught my attention.

The dew this morning was so heavy that it was pooling in the flower-shaped cups of the rain chain. I sat back down and watched with delight as fat, round droplets of water ran down the copper lines of the chain, catching diamond points of light from the Sun.

It was magical. It was magical and it woke something inside me; it pushed another section of that rock wall over and next thing I knew I was inside getting a bottle to harvest the Equinox dew. I tried catching it out of the copper cups but just couldn’t get it. My eyes wandered back to the broad, smooth surface of the corn stalk leaves, and then the rest of me wandered that way as well, down the steps and around the corner until I was standing in front of the corn. I did manage to get a few drops of dew into the bottle, but I knew in that moment that was not really what I was supposed to be doing and I put the bottle into my pocket.

My feet were on the Earth on this Holy Day. I closed my eyes and grounded myself deeply, until I felt the roots of my being mingling with the roots of the corn, and the roots of the sunflowers, and the roots of the Loblolly Pine standing tall in the yard. I used my hands to gather the dew from the leaves of the corn plant, and as I did that a soft breeze went by. A favorite ritual song played through my mind in that moment, and I smiled. Earth my body…Water my blood…Air my breath and Fire my spirit. The corn tassels are tall above me, so I was looking at the Sun through those waving tresses as I raised my eyes to the light once more. I washed my face in the Mabon dew; not seeking beauty as one does with the May but washing myself with Balance as I move into the introspective time that lies ahead.

Autumn has been my favorite season for as long as I can remember, but in the last years of my daughter’s life every Autumn came with a sense of foreboding. This year the ghost of that dread is finally gone; those shadows laid to rest. This year every leaf that I watch fall will represent a healthy letting go; the normal cycle of life and death, beginnings and endings. I am ready to immerse myself in the work of these darkling days, holding a sense of peace rather than uncertainty.

The harvest continues in earnest; gathering in that which is ripe and full, and storing aspects for the future. The days ahead are a time for introspection and preparation for growth. Take with you what you need and leave behind that which no longer sustains you. It is a fine balance point, methinks, to learn that once we let go of something it still serves a purpose. Food for the fish. Mulch for own personal growth. Leaves on the ground; stalks in the field - it all serves to nourish the body eventually.

Do something you love. Spend time in a favorite place. Try something new. Learn something new. Adventure under the sun. Adventure by the light of the stars. Howl at the moon. Let the Autumn sunlight kiss your face. Create something. Let go of something. Shatter something that no longer adds value to your life. Spend time with people who make you happy. Deepen your relationship with your Divine. Take time to share a meal with others. Share kindness with strangers. Share kindness with yourself.

Be fully present in your life.

I can hear the busy chirping calls of the Golden Finches as they enjoy the harvest of sunflower seeds in the front gardens. Another smile in my day. Time for me to step away from my desk and continue to be present in other areas of my life.

Blessed Mabon, my friends. May you find your blessings equally in the light and darkness on this Autumn Equinox.

Living with Black Bears (Ursus americanus)

Living with Black Bears (Ursus americanus)

Perhaps you didn't realize it was missing, but I have found early morning again. In the post-move haze and fatigue it became too easy to plop down on the couch at 10 pm to "watch a show," and then binge watch into the wee hours. But life moves on. Boxes are emptied. The brain is starting to work a little better. The television is staying off, and the phone is not used in the bedroom. Ta-da! Once again I am waking up with the rising Sun. Of course it helps that I can take a nap during the day if I need one, which only happens once or twice every day. :-) 

I love to watch the birds moving around the back yard in the early morning light. They flit around the pine tree and the yet-unidentified-by-me deciduous trees, and hop along the fence rail and along the ground, always singing and calling out to each other. There is a bunny who makes an appearance every morning now. I think he likes the shelter provided by Beth's altar just as much as the birds and butterflies like the flowers in her garden. 

Every once in a while I see the shambling movement of a Black Bear (Ursus americanus) as it makes its way along the greenway that runs beyond our tree line, about 30 feet from the bedroom window. There is a gap between the ground and the lowest hanging branches that allows me to see just the bottom of Bear legs and feet moving. Describing that visual makes me chuckle, but every time I know there is a Bear out there it makes me catch my breath. 

I have lived in Bear Country for years and have had several encounters with them. I have never ceased to be awed by their power, their beauty, and their intelligence, and when we decided to purchase this home I was thrilled to know that we would still have Bears for neighbors. Not only did our human neighbors confirm this, but the Bears let us know by leaving their, ummm, calling cards in the yard. One friend said to me "Only YOU would be happy to see bear poop!"

I don't feel threatened by the proximity of Bears; what makes me uncomfortable is the habits and behaviors of humans that change Bear behavior or cause Bears to become habituated to humans and human homes as sources of food. Rhodes and I work hard to educate ourselves (and anyone who will listen) about safe and peaceful co-existence in Bear country.

Life at the Cottage means we have gardening and lots of yard maintenance. We decided early on to place a compost pile at the back corner of our property, and I'm surprised at how quickly that pile has grown. Because we know we are living, literally, on a Bear Path, I decided to do some research about whether or not it would be safe to compost food waste.

I found this great piece published by the District of Squamish, and ran it by my favorite Bear people in the universe, the staff at Appalachian Bear Rescue https://appalachianbearrescue.org/ to make sure the suggestions in the Canadian article work for our Bears here in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. They were kind enough to review the information, and confirmed it as excellent and accurate.

They further emphasize the need to make sure the compost doesn't contain bear attractants and that is must be secured. "A bear's nose is exceptionally sensitive and we must remember they will eat carrion if they come across it."

Check. No meat, fish, or grease in the compost! And our personal decision is to compost fresh vegetable waste, but not fruits, as the sugary smell is just too tempting.

If you live with Bears, please be mindful about how your behavior impacts their lives. Bears who become habituated to humans and human spaces as a source of food often end up being killed. Also, if you live with Bears or just love them as much as I do, you can learn a lot about Bear behavior by following the efforts of Appalachian Bear Rescue on their wesbite or Facebook page. I am willing to bet the escapades of the cubby and yearling residents, and even the curators, will make you smile or laugh at least one time.

http://www.bearsmart.com/docs/Composting-in-Bear-Country-Squamish.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0_QencrdgOLimm5DXLuQGSV8p_u2dIwDlJoF_Dzrr44qABzZBCL_HofoU

Dreams Coming True - Kitchen Renovations

Shortly after we made a purchase offer on the Cottage (but still had time to back out) we got a panicked call from our Realtor. He was so concerned for us he hadn’t been able to sleep. We took him to lunch to have a serious conversation, and over that meal we convinced him that we were certain about our commitment to this home. As we were leaving the restaurant, he told us in all his years of working as a Realtor, we were the first clients to sell him a house. Thanks for believing in us, Jose! 

The kitchen was so bad the cabinet doors wouldn’t open and/or were falling off, but we had a vision about what this home would become.

From vision to amazing reality. The kitchen at Bear Path Cottage is finally finished. We couldn’t be happier with how she looks. 

29 Days and Words in Boxes

It has been 29 days since I created a solid piece of writing. I have attempted to maintain my writing practice by journaling, but the last actual piece I completed was done the morning we moved into the Cottage. Leading up to that day there was a last minute flurry of packing things up in the old house and shuffling things around in the new. Because of renovation delays and several other reasons our transition to our new home did not go as smoothly as planned.

There was a carefully laid out Plan A, but as any fan of Leverage knows, you need multiple back-up plans if you want to succeed. Somewhere between Plan D and Plan K we wound up with the guest room filled with boxes and piles of things that don't fit in boxes, two closets and Larry's front room filled with boxes and more piles of things, and boxes stacked three deep along the west wall of the living room. Plans L through R involved shuffling all those boxes around, picking stuff up from temporary counters and niches and dropping it in boxes, then moving those boxes around too. I am habitually a meticulous labeler of moving boxes, but by the time boxes were being reused for the second and third time all the sharpies were misplaced (probably packed in a box!), multiple friends and family members were involved in the Great Box Shuffle of 2019, and accurate labeling became a thing of the past.

What does any of this have to do with my writing? One day last week, when we were finally able to start putting things away where they belong in our new home, I found myself staring at the diminished number of boxes in the guest room. I could actually see the guest room walls and could even see that back corner that I thought had disappeared into the third room, which is a story for another day. Most importantly, I suddenly realized that somehow in all the kerfuffle of the GBS19, I must have dropped all of my words into a mislabeled box, and I had spent the better part of a month miserable without them.

In conversation with a friend I managed to find the pile the word box was buried in, and I've spent the past few days locating and then unpacking it. 

There is a lot going on in my head these days. Suffice it to say that grief, trauma, and therapy are not for the faint of heart. Once upon a time I would have written my way through this process, and I hope to get back to being able to do that. But it wasn't just the difficult words I accidentally boxed up, it was also the ones filled with joy and happiness. I am enjoying unwrapping them all, folding back the tissue paper to see what treasure it has kept safe, holding the words and turning them in my hands with delight the same way I turn the unwrapped ceramic pieces, framed photos, and treasured glassware.

Here are a few of the joyful bits that I've uncovered:

The Juneberry trees were planted in our front yard the day after we officially moved in. Appalachian Creek Nursery helped get our dream of a critter and pollinator friendly yard off to a fine start. When the Wheel of the Year turns back to summer next year we should be harvesting berries from our own trees, if we can manage to save any of them from the bears and the birds. Hopefully there will be a pie or two made with the sweet, juicy, goodness and flavor that is a cross between cherry and blueberry. I might even manage to can a few jars, to save some Summer for the coldest Winter days.

We had the day lilies moved from the rockwall garden down to the northeast corner of our property, where we have already started a Forsythia hedge, and plan to create a wildflower garden. Day lilies, Black Eyed Susans, and Milkweed are on the list, and we are happy to take suggestions for other plants!  

The sunflowers Katie started for us in the little greenhouse on the Mountain have bloomed and brightened many days for many people. Have you ever smelled a sunflower? I never had, until curiosity led me to stick my nose into one of the gorgeous flowers in my own garden and I inhaled a mixture of sunshine and spice, golden honey and citrus, and the scent of Summer already leaning into Autumn. 

I love the sunflowers so much and was so delighted by the success of our corn that I had most of the volunteer plants cleared out of the rockwall garden so I could start more of both. I also put in some zucchini and summer squash. It has been a little more than a week, and there are neat little rows of green plants reaching for the sun. I am thinking ahead with anticipation, sure that those crops will not only brighten our Autumn days but also feed our critter neighbors well. 

The land at Bearpath Cottage has let us know that it is fertile and it seems to want to grow things, and both land and house our thriving under our loving care.

We had a temporary visitor one morning! Oldest son Justin and his fiancee Emily found a baby possum on their deck. After careful observation it was apparent that Mom Possum was not returning, and Emily put a lot of effort into finding a wildlife rehabber to take the little guy who we called Jimmy. Rhodes and I took temporary custody of him until Em heard back from Edith Allen Wildlife Sanctuary in Canton, NC, then we gave him a ride out there. As you can see from the photo, he was certainly too small to drive himself. Things we learned: Sometimes Mom Possums have to leave a baby behind. No one seems to know why. But there are a lot of good people doing the work of helping wild critters that need help, and I am deeply grateful to see some of the best of our humanity showing in these environmentally challenged times.

Regarding the Jimmies in our lives: many moons ago Rhodes and I were having a conversation in which he was trying to recall the name of some financial giant. He was certain the name was Jimmy Diamond, or something like that, and he was close! But I was so tickled by that name - Jimmy Diamond - that I decided then and there that that next critter we adopted would have to be named Jimmy. Years down the road (and just a couple of months ago) we spent 18 hours falling in love with a little lost pup, and we called him Jimmy while he was with us. We knew he would be going back to his people, but we just couldn't help ourselves! When he went home the next day we knew the name was lost to us...until Jimmy Possum came along. We've decided that any critter who comes into our temporary care is going to be a Jimmy; a seemingly odd yet simple reminder that it is okay to love knowing that you will have to let go.

The lavender planted with our little bears continues to thrive, and I have already harvested a few bundles to dry. I am excited to make lavender tea and lemonade, and even to try a recipe for lavender cookies. I'll share those recipes and pictures later. But I will be even more excited when I figure out where to hang my drying rack in this house!

There is still much work to be done here, still so many boxes to unpack. I mean that literally and figuratively. But this place feels more like home than anyplace I have ever lived, and I find affirmations of HOME in so many ways. I'll leave you with one more image; one which conveys the timelessness of these processes, and the timelessness of home.

Peace out, peeps.

~sheri