November Hill farm journal, 230

This past weekend, without a lot of forethought, I marched down to Poplar Folly with my electric weedeater, hedge trimmer, hand clippers, and hand saw, and started making a path. My husband brought the cardboard down for me, as a way to mark it, and I got busy cutting out wild blackberry and much Japanese honeysuckle. Anything not native was soon gone. 

I went along the path first, then branched out to random groupings of invasive vines. 

I moved fallen branches to the berms I created in the past couple of years, helping slow the flow of rainwater down the slope. There are a couple of fallen trees in the other side from where I’m facing in the photo, and that is phase two - cutting those into lengths suitable to continue marking the path I’m building.  I want a path that I can keep clear as I let natives volunteer in the rest of the Folly. I’ll keep the path clear and I’ll continue removing invasives.

I’ve planted a number of things down in Poplar Folly: elderberry, Virginia sweetspire, persimmon, chickasaw plum, inkberry holly, redbud. Even more have volunteered: black gum, many hollies, hickory, buckeye, red mulberry, Christmas ferns, golden crownbeard, little brown jug. 

It’s a beautiful wooded slope with a winding path that will soon make it easier to navigate, and easier to maintain. It occurs to me that building a path is what I’m doing with my hands, but it’s also a metaphor for what we’re all doing in this country right now. Building a path of resistance and in my opinion, toward a better country. I believe we will get there.

The farm is waking up to spring right now. The redbud finally bloomed, now the dogwood is starting up. The poplars are leafing out. The daffodils are almost done. 

Cody and Little Man and the two handsome donka boys are shedding and rolling and galloping about.

It’s time to plant the potager, but first we have to clear the beds out and get them ready. I went to the feed store last weekend for the first time in many, many months. My husband has been doing the feed trips and when I walked in I remembered why I used to love going. I may have to take that chore back. 

The honey bee girls are busy and we’ve already gone from two hives coming out of winter to a third (empty) hive being moved into. That is another chore that needs to be done - getting the two empty hives cleared out and readied to take runaway splits. We’ll see how it goes. 

We’re entering the birthday sweep this week: grandson, then Little Man, husband, daughter. May is our quiet birthday month, then we have Bear, Rafer Johnson, and granddaughter during summertime. Summer! It’s hard to imagine the year has turned so far, so quickly.