A Walk, a talk, a hope

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Ended up making the walk up the hill the next day instead, and found that the cemetery people had picked up most of the larger pieces of trash. I had to pause near the beginning of my walk because there was a discontented spirit in the cemetery, by Louise R and her son's stone. She was distressed over what was happening in the world, with people not using resources wisely. That's not exactly how she put it, of course... more like, why aren't people saving their money properly, why are they wasting food? Why do they leave things laying around, letting the world look terrible and letting things get neglected and falling apart? Why aren't they taking care of things so that my grandchildren and the children in the future have a good place to live? I agreed that this was so, and that there were many bad things happening right now, but some of it was unavoidable since change is unavoidable, and that we the living would just have to do the best we could to do right things. Her agitation subsided and I didn't feel anything from her on a later walk up the hill with L.

I did do a fair amount of picking up of not only the gate area, but also back down to our house... cigarette butts, a smashed bic pen, a broken balloon, various small pieces of paper and broken glass, some pieces of plastic.

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Was corresponding with flidaisairmid on her LJ about planting trees as part of being in AODA and fulfilling the curriculum reqs, and told her a bit about our trees here. I can't say I've planted one specifically for AODA yet, although we have plans for trees up at the farm -- details to be worked out still, of course. But in the meantime I can continue to work with the trees here. The sugar maple was here when we bought the house, and is a fine and handsome tree. Very large and for the most part doesn't need our assistance, but we have watered it on occasion during very dry summers, and this past spring I was taking what snow I could and putting some against the roots around the base to try to increase the heat/cold contrast for it (what gets the sap going), and putting other snow in a curved pile on the drip line. The dwarf apple trees we planted about 5 years ago; the liberty is doing well, and even started giving us apples a few years earlier than the garden place said she would. I have a little thinning out to do this week, so that she isn't overburdened and also the apples will be a bit larger as a result. She and the other apple get extra water from time to time, as they're still on the young side. The other apple is a Granny Smith, and has a different growing habit and also has had more trouble adjusting to living here. I've changed the type of plants growing around her and she seems happier this year. Still suffering from some rust, but this year is the longest she's managed to retain her apples!

When I first was talking about trees with flidaisairmid, I'd forgotten to mention the Japanese Maple; I think because she was never a project kind of tree -- not a fruit or nut tree. Our next door neighbors in Northampton had planted one many years ago, and I'd grown up with it, thinking it was one of the most beautiful trees. After many years it finally had a few babies, a couple of which were growing on my parents' property in the side bed of pacchysandra. When L and I moved from there, I gathered up as many of my personal plants as I could, plus samplings of some of my favorites of my folks plants, and potted up one of the baby Japanese Maples as well -- it was feeling adventurous :) It had to stay in a pot for a year, because first we ended up living in Sunderland in an apartment, before we found the house in Holyoke, where we are now. I found the best spot I could in the backyard. I knew it could tolerate a fair amount of shade, but wanted some sun for it. I worried a little about it getting enough, but the nearest maple (backyard neighbor's yard) was doing very poorly and would likely be coming down in a few years. Then I worried when the backyard neighbor decided to plant shade bushes against the fence. And this year she could use a tiny bit of trimming of a few dead minor branchings. Overall though, I believe she's thriving, and has a graceful form. I shall definitely miss her when we move again. She started putting out seeds a year or so ago, but of course none of them have taken yet, either through lack of complete maturity or lack of numbers to survive being eaten by squirrels. Japanese Maple aren't native to New England, and they are such slow growers and of a curving nature so they don't make good lumber either, so it's a good thing they aren't overly productive here, because then they would become a 'pest' tree. It's my hope though to save a few of the seeds and maybe try to grow one after we've moved. I'd like to bring a friend from home. They make excellent understory trees, and you can grow ground covers and shade plants under/near them; sometimes an exotic can belong in a strange land.

That's certainly my hope and intention when we move to Ashfield. Being half English and half Chinese (with distant smatterings of Scottish and I think Isle of Guernsey), I've never belonged to any one group in a racial sense. Caucasians tend to treat Eurasians as Asian, and Asians treat them as Caucasian. You can either resent this sort of thing or learn to ignore it. Fortunately Ashfield isn't your usual stereotypical small town. Interesting people have come to live there, or are from there and went out to do interesting things in the world before coming back. They have a thriving arts community too. So, I'll sort of belong to the local people by marriage, and belong to the arts community. Most people have a need to figure out what 'category' you're in -- makes them feel more comfortable and more accepting. This is both good for me personally, and will hopefully be good for the community, when we start doing different things like trying out different crops, different ways of doing things around the house/farm -- they may even like some of these things and try them for themselves :) They and we have all sorts of knowledge and experience worth sharing.