Tag: Butterfly

part 1 was posted last week, you can read it here.

How much I like clipping by hand. Surprised by this realization I feel satisfaction rising. I was bored by this task as a child. I am delighted to meet a bevy of fat nubbly toads who appear out of the overgrown ground covers and in between sun warmed stones. Both child and ‘old woman’ feel happy that none will get mowed down by a polluting gas guzzling machine. The Peace of this Land that we belong to steals over us. Less is more. I’ll tackle the patch of bracken later, or maybe not until tomorrow. In this weather   accomplishing one simple chore a day is enough.

Well not quite. I am creating a serpentine path of fieldstone that stretches from my front door to meet the path that climbs the hill. My original intention was to have someone ‘more professional’ do the work, but they were too busy so here I am, an almost eighty-one-year-old woman, creating a mosaic out of cracked stone! ‘I am the artist’ I say, as I carry a few more irregular rocks down from the huge pile sitting in front of the garage eyeing the mosaic for the perfect fit. Illumination strikes when wind hits the stones. Blowing seeds, withered crabapple bits, pine needles and leaves into the cracks I see what is happening. Small plants like violets, creeping charlie, ground ivy, and catmint will find niches in the soil that is being created before my eyes.  Mosses will follow in the shade. Ah, Nature is going to help me craft a unique and imaginative fieldstone floor. Each time it rains the stones flatten out becoming more stable. That same feeling of satisfaction steals over me again. Vaguely I think that I may be doing something else besides laying stones in an artistic way and trusting that Nature will fill in the cracks, but I am not clear just what this might be. All I know is that it doesn’t matter how long this project takes. Process has taken precedence. This much feels just right.