Slidability

This video was created during a workshop held by the Center for Digital Storytelling (out of Berkeley, CA but in Durham, NC) that my husband and I attended (thanks, Barbara). I wrote the story and Jeremy edited. Pictures are largely mine with additions from Kathy Kegley. For the workshop, we had to create a story and this one just needed to come out...

A cornucopia of mulberries, politicians and blue wolves

I found that weeping mulberry outside Long Hall pretty early on. Mulberries, when perfectly ripe, are really one of my favorite fruits. I frequently robbed that tree, but in general, have never found a tree with enough fruit with which to do anything-other than quick but delightful snacking. Taking a nod from the campus landscape (might I add, one of the few times I would-why do people insist on so much symmetry and so little diversity in built environments!), I bought a weeping mulberry for my yard. Who knew they were dioecious-so THAT explains why I've never gotten fruit! :-) Oh well, still good for papermaking (another story)!

A couple of weeks ago I dropped off some Cherokee flour corn seeds for a friend who lives in Pendleton. Stay with me now-you'll see the connections, soon. She has a pretty big collection of Richard Burnside paintings. I've known about his work for awhile since they're in a lot of shops in the area and then my love of (certain) folkart. I was asking her about him as she'd bought her paintings directly from the artist. Well, that's the preferred way anyway, isn't it? I mean, otherwise, you infuse it with too much of your own juju and not enough of the artist's (in my humble opinion).

This past Friday, I met the indigo girls (another story to come) for lunch in downtown Pendleton. We met earlier to talk about our project and meet with Senator Graham who was opening an office in small town Pendleton. We had intended to talk with the Senator and maybe even give him a piece of our minds-given the state of state here (no thanks to inept Governor). Well, we never did make it that far-really, too much else to catch up on! But thanks to the crowd that gathered, I never would have found that mulberry. The crowd forced me to park away from the town square-and there it was. The most magnificently covered with fruit mulberry tree I'd ever seen. Chalk it up to our amazing spring rains this year-quite a good respite given the droughts of previous years. Soooo, I plotted to harvest.

In the meantime, we finished up our talk, visited with the local textile shop (who knew in this small town-a senator's office and a shop with international textiles?!) and made our way over to the bakery for lunch. And there, sitting outside was Richard Burnside, drawing my blue wolf. I chatted with him briefly, dropped some $ and then went on to finish up conversation with my friends.

After I got back to my car, I popped in to ask permission to gather the fruit. "Normally, they just all spoil-nobody uses them"- according to the store owner, so I was free to collect (birds aside-doubt they would have approved). Couldn't contain my excitement and so I called Bradshaw and we mutually plotted a harvest.

Saturday came and I managed to talk Jeremy into helping. As I was walking off toward the tree, I noticed Burnside sitting on a bench across from the mulberry. Since I had sheet (for collecting) in hand, I started talking to him and told him what I was doing. He urged me to be careful, cause the devil might be hiding in the tree and scratch my face. I told him I wasn't worried because I had a blue wolf to protect me.

Bradshaw joined us shortly and we collectively gathered a few gallons of berries, leaving off with promises to share the spoils of our labor. I came home and it took a day or so to have the time to deal with the berries, but I managed to boil down a gallon or more of juice. I looked at a few recipes and then when I ran out of sugar decided to ditch the recipes and go by gut. The flavor of the mulberries wasn't as strong as some years-and maybe that decision to leave stems on didn't help-so I mixed it with grape concentrate. I had 12 1/2 pints to fill and did so with maybe a tablespoon left over-gut must have been on track that night.

1:5 cup ratio grape to mulberry, 7 to 8 c. sugar, pectin-2 packages (add it first, add sugar after a boil, then boil the whole thing for a minute-good rolling boil. Skim off the foam and divi-up. Look for directions on hot water baths for jelly-good way to preserve. Fantastic flavor, even if a little over grapey.

Hope you can use the recipe. In the meantime, I'll ponder the blue purple color of the mulberry on my hands, blue wolves, the indigo girls and my mood about the politics of this indigo state that too often bleeds red...

Chaotic Gardening and more

Blogging on a life connected....

The term chaotic gardening grew out of the connectedness of a few close gardening/nature friends as we designed and delivered a conference on native plants in the landscape. But its roots are go back a little further with me.

As 'chief weeder' at a native plants garden in Highlands, I saw myself not as the creator of landscapes, but instead as the curator of an exhibit of plants-responsible for proper placement and lighting. While I certainly did transplant new plants to new places, most of my work was uncovering what was already there and giving it the space it needed to grow, thrive and become a major subject of the painting that is a garden bed. This was, perhaps, easier in a place where diversity is such an obvious mainstay and where the moisture is forever encouraging growth of all kinds (including my own).

For me, thinking about the bed as a finished painting helped me get from a lovely chaotic tangle of species, to a slightly more orderly tangle that allowed impatient human eyes to visualize the splendor that was already there. This meant removing select plants-and so knowing species in juvenile (Thanks, Bill) and mature stages is imperative. The removal of select plants, if chosen properly, allowed for another species to take over the space-even if that takes time. Knowing which plants to bring forward or outward in this way requires an eye into the future bloom and growth patterns. Somedays, it was a stop and a look-bending down to remove one representative of a certain species. Other times, as the summer grew its hair out, it was simply an adjustment of the way in which the bed was visualized. Critical reflection was always part of the path. The reveal was, in large part, up to the natural components of the system. I simply provided the light to help human eyes see.

As a young scientist, the concept of chaos resonated with me. From these gardens that were part of my life (I still visit) to the everyday changes of my family, life and house-I am always shuffling between order and disorder. Though the term has largely fallen out of use, it still makes my heart sing. On the other hand, nested non-linear complex systems describes it for those with impatient human brains.