gardens and waterfalls

 

This month we have had a lot of rain, to the point my garden was flooded. For a time the garden rows were little islands of plant and weed, surrounded by deep standing water and clay bog like material. Finally the rain stopped, and my husband and son created drainage canals.  I still had to wait for the clay to harden enough to stand on. Two days ago I was able to get in and weed and check on the plants. It was a mess, but I have a handful of little green tomatoes and two pretty tomatillos. I haven’t walked as much as I would like, with the rain and then the garden work, but I got in a couple of really good wa

lks. On Saturday my husband and I explored the Bankhead Forest. We walked in heavily grown up woods, with poison ivy growing up the trees and climbing hills like kudzu. We found a beautiful swimming hole, but didn’t want to scramble down the muddy track to reach the water. We also found a walk that led to a lovely Middle Earth feeling landscape with a waterfall that my dog and I enjoyed standing in. The water felt good, and the air was cooler.  It was hard to find the hikes, nothing was well labeled and the maps were difficult to read. We had stopped at a parking area labeled Sipsey Picnic area. We walked down to the water, again more poison ivy and mud, and watched some folks fish. We followed a trail but it seemed to be more of a fishing path, and it ended in mud. We returned to the parking area filled with cars. Where were all these people?  Finally I asked a woman standing beside her truck, and she pointed the opposite direction than we had explored. This turned out to be a nice trail, and the location of the waterfall. I hope to go back when we can walk further.  

More than walking I have been reading a batch of great books. I love it when that happens, when book after book is worth reading. First I read Art, Birds, Life. This book was written just for me. A woman writer and artist facing pending grief decides to take up and learn about bird watching. She follows another guy who sort of teaches her, and her biggest surprise is the discovery that some of the best places to find birds are in industrial areas, not deep in wilderness. The birds find the places most likely to feed and protect them, and they don’t care if the landscape is lovely. She learned to find beauty in the simple, in ordinary birds, and to listen carefully because a bird is often heard before it is seen. Her writing was beautiful, and I felt like she was writing to me. She reminded us the importance to “just be with nature.” I read a couple of memoirs, one by a woman who gave up a traditional life to work in the Tetons, and another who grew up very untraditional to become a food critic.  I also read The Darkness Outside Us, which was one of those sneaky books that looks like a simple fun story but is so much more. What is life, what is the point, how do we chose to live and find value in life? It was marketed as kind of a YA LGTBQ+ romance, but that is such a limiting description. It is a mystery, a sci fi book, and a thought experiment on how to face challenges on the meaning of life. Some deep reading. After these books I’m going back to some soft murder mysteries.

Since my last blog I have walked 36 miles. Some of the miles were here in the community I live in but some were on trails along the TN river. My dog loves river walks since she likes to jump in and drink the water.  On the AT I would be at mile 239, or near Davenport Gap. This means I have covered all the sections I actually remember walking on, such as Tri-Corner Knob and Ice Water Springs.  Next blog will have a story about a bear encounter, but today I have run out of space.  Enjoy, get out there and walk, and read a good book!

36 miles to a total of 239 this year.