Two-Wheeled Foraging

Estival adventures came to a close last Sunday in a crescendo of violent afternoon thunderstorms.  Rinsed and shaken, the collective olfactory symphony was deafening, so I snapped on a pannier and biked to school.  As a steam ring rose around the bus loop, the quart jar filled with sweet cherry tomatoes.

In a former life, the boring, vacant duplexes at the end of Boulevard were filled with children.  Once a neighborhood Headstart center covered with hand-painted kids, it sat derelict for years while rosemary enjoyed the absence of groundskeepers.  Before contractors arrived, I dreamed of turning the building into a small neighborhood school of the arts while picking sprigs for new red potatoes. Continue reading →

Gilmer County Mindfulness

The Zen practice of stone stacking brings mindful awareness to balance, weight, texture and shape.

Resident trail guides Buster and Dixie collect stones from the stream, often carrying them great distances.  Buster greeted the sculptures with growls and barks as the fur on his shoulders stood straight up.

Arboreal Revival

Winterville is a sleepy Georgia railroad town known for its spring Marigold Festival. The six miles between Winterville and Athens act as a buffer against ethnic diversity similar to Watkinsville, a host of Clarke County’s mass exodus during recent white flight.

As the housing bubble swelled, overzealous developers sharpened their aggregate blades, then sliced dendritic swaths throughout the forest dreaming of upper middle class homes adorned with large vehicles and requisite familial stick figures flaunting bloated carbon footprints.  Oops.

Today, abandoned homeless subdivisions kneel before an arboreal revival.  Sans traffic, the rolling hills are perfect for longboarding, stone stacking, or foraging.

While cruising down the hill, patches of red and black in the periphery become incredibly dense in some spots.  This lonely bush benefitting from an economic downturn grows through an old hay bale originally intended to stem runoff.  The land’s history reveals itself slowly.