Happy Solstice, Christmas, and Between-Time from November Hill

 

We’re warm, dry, and although there is much in the world to worry about, work on, and stand up for, life is pretty good in my space on the farm. Good wishes to all. 

November Hill farm journal, 240

 

We’re fully into autumn now. The possumhaw berries hang in bunches awaiting the birds, the fig tree’s leaves are mostly gone, but there are still deep purple figs, skin leathery but protecting the fruity inside, and we’re all enjoying the gorgeous weather we’ve had. Not too warm, not too cold. 

The oakleaf hydrangea is stunning in its color this week. These leaves have fallen now but I enjoyed them for the past month as they changed to this perfect autumn red. 

It’s hard to believe we’re days from Thanksgiving, then on to the solstice and Christmas and the end of this year. 

I’m painting the bedroom walls, one wall at a time, one coat at a time. Alternating this task with clearing the bedroom closet, one section at a time. Doing the same with writing. With many things. Allowing the process of moving through a thing one step at a time to remind me every day that that’s how we get through things: tasks, oppression, authoritarianism, hard things. 

The way to do anything is one step at a time. 

November Hill farm journal, 239

 Well, autumn is here, though it feels like the color is a bit late to come. Though I have to remind myself that the reason November Hill is named that is because November is when things get spectacular here, so I’m a little ahead of myself wishing for color!

Here’s where we are:

Up at the mountain house, however, things are much more fall-like:

Thanks to my dear husband for this aerial image of our beloved mountain spot. 

This month we have had the house power-washed, windows cleaned inside and out, gutters cleaned, front porch and deck cleaned, and the same at the barn. It was a long day keeping cats and dogs out of the way and safe, but it’s beautiful and now I can move on with my other projects. 

I’m halfway through painting our bedroom walls. We’ve planted a new native bed with coneflower, Joe Pye, marsh rattlesnake master, put in a new buttonbush, and yesterday planted three yaupon hollies in a few empty spots outside the front fence, adding to our native hedgerow. 

A hackberry has volunteered itself where the old monster buddleia was, perfect place for it, and a willow oak has quickly escaped my notice to grow to 4 feet in the bluebird bed, which happens to be a pretty perfect place for it, so I’m happy to have some volunteers coming in. 

All the animals are good, the fish are good, though my aquarium snail passed away and it was sad. He (not sure but it felt like he was a he!) was very active and seemed healthy up until the last couple of days of his life with us. He was buried and at some point I’ll get another snail to help with algae maintenance. 

I’m doing my favorite writing workshop in 6-week bursts this month, in November, and again in January. I’m thrilled to have three new flash pieces in hand now and still working on more. Am thinking a lot about novels and screenplays in progress too. 

Life is busy these days and there is so much to do: responding to and resisting the atrocities being carried out around our country, noticing and soaking in the daily joys on the farm and up at the mountain house, spending time with family, including the four-legged and finned and winged ones. 

May we all join together in resisting, relishing, and recuperating as we move through these precious days. I believe there is hope. I believe we can, as Maggie Smith says in her amazing poem, make this place beautiful. 

November Hill farm journal, 238

 

Up at Stillwater the Monarchs are enjoying the yellow crownbeard. It was a wonderful time up there with family and I was grateful to be there, for the land itself, and for all the wildlife the land supports. 

Also grateful for the swamp sunflowers here on November Hill that had bloomed when I got home. 

Life is good, but busy. My aquarium needed a large water change when I got home so that was the first thing I took care of. Then on to some tidying and ongoing cleaning tasks, back to my client schedule, and moving forward with the punch list:

Subaru for maintenance - check + ouch as it needed a repair we didn’t expect.

Clem to vet for annual wellness exam - yay, we got urine sample before she and I headed to the vet! But alas, the golden girl cried and howled and became so distressed, even on Tramadol, that we turned back home and rescheduled when there are two of us humans to take her. 

Equine vet here for annual check-ups - check. And amazing behavior by Little Man, who has always disliked shots and blood draws, but does so even more after his stay at the vet school last year. However, he stood like a champ and carefully shook his head a few times to release his tension during his exam and blood draw and rabies shot. I was super proud of him. Rafer did very well as usual, and Redford excelled, even with his shy demeanor and sometimes skittish response to all things not the norm for him. He too stood like a champ. Cody was great, and then we were done. 

We’ve had some help again to do some of the farm/land chores we haven’t gotten to, and that has been wonderful. Branches stacked, one dead tree cut and stacked, mowing, some weed-eating. Next is the arena, which needs tidying. 

October and November and December are my favorite months and here we are. I’m writing and editing and reading and soaking in all the joys of home and family. The world is not well and I’m doing what I can to help in small ways with that whole mess. 

I had many wild muscadines this year, most of them from the vines closest to Salina and Keil Bay’s graves, and I ate them with love, and felt the love of those two horses who have been major influences on my life over the years. They remain with me in spirit. The wild grapes reminded me of my favorite poem of autumn.

The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze 
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

-Wendell Berry

November Hill farm journal, 237

 

Walking along the wood’s edge recently I noticed these three pinecones in this exact position. Did they fall that way? Did a squirrel position them? I don’t know, but the symmetry caught my eye and made me smile. I view three as a sacred number and I loved this moment of noticing. 

A few more moments since I last posted:

Grandchildren harvesting figs and the last of the blueberries with their grandpa.

A painted pony trotting like a show pony up the grass paddock hill for breakfast.

Two little donkeys lining up for grooming. 

Wild muscadines ripening right over Keil Bay’s gravesite. 

Tidying up the farm some with mowing and trimming. 

Honeybees coming up the hill from Arcadia to drink from the base of the water hydrant, for the minerals in the earth, I think, since they have fresh water available in their apiary.

The dream I had of galloping on Keil Bay, all over the world, just the two of us checking things out at high speed. 

Clean sheets after a long day. 

The farm is doing its late summer thing right now. I put up the firefly habitat sign with my husband’s help yesterday, we switched the gate wreaths from summer to fall, and though it still feels like we’re living in a jungle, there are signs that autumn is very close. Some cool nights, less warm days, dogwoods changing color. 

May we all find joy in this turning of the season. 

Oh my gosh, this is my dream come true…

 

Say something, do something

“My philosophy is very simple,” Representative Lewis once told an audience. “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, say something! Do something! Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.”

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Beautiful butterfly on a beautiful rattlesnake master on a beautiful Sunday. 

Sundays are family days with all of us here on the farm. How amazing is it to have all my loved ones close, including the animal family members? 

We’re living in difficult times. I believe that people acting without integrity will eventually realize the consequences of their actions, and I believe this goes for all of us. 

Find the beauty and let it speak. 

An anniversary of trauma + an aquarium

 

I’m sure it is no accident that in this one year anniversary week of the most traumatic event thus far in my life I ended up being given an aquarium via my local buy nothing group. A pathway back to something from my childhood, my dad’s love of aquariums, his caretaking and teaching about the fish I watched endlessly in our living room. We didn’t have a TV at that time and the aquarium and the stereo with my parents’ vinyl albums were both exciting and soothing. 

In my life I’ve experienced trauma: the loss of beloved animals, losing a friend to suicide, rape, so many moments during my work in child and family services, including being singly responsible for yelling loudly enough and long enough to make sure children at risk of violence were moved to safety. I’ve sat with children and teens still wearing blood from suicide attempts, gone to homes and been met at the door by gang members pointing guns at me, I have worked on cases so disturbing I would go home at the end of the day and just sit, exhausted, letting the awfulness leave my body before sleep. I’m leaving a few things out here that are deeply personal. 

And yet none of these things are the most traumatic. Last year on this day and the three weeks that followed became the worst experience I’ve lived through. I won’t go into it here because it involves people I love dearly. What I want to say is that I feel it in my body. Thankfully it’s manageable because of my understanding of trauma and anniversary events. And because I resumed therapy to do EMDR and other somatic work to address this experience. 

We hold things that happen to us in our muscles and our brain and our sensory awareness. There’s a sensation that I can still feel as I type this that came out of what I lived through last year. It’s hard to describe but it’s grainy and there’s a smell and an internal, visceral sensation that I can remember distinctly. As I type this I also hear the bubbling of the aquarium filter and that too carries muscle memory: safety, peace, loving parents, joy. 

That the aquarium, with two tetras and colors that I might have chosen myself came to me last week is pure serendipity and synchronicity. It’s also both of those things that when I pulled my daily Woodland Wardens card, it was this:

Keil Bay is still with me. So is my dad. It won’t surprise me at all when my mom shows up in her comforting way. 

May we all find our healing with things that hurt us. 

Reprised post from 2010: an appeal for connected and humane horsemanship

 

On behalf of my herd, including the goddess mare Salina and my first beloved horse Bo-Jinx, who are with me in spirit, and now joined by the amazing Keil Bay, I’m offering the link to a post I wrote in 2010. 

It’s getting a lot of hits this week in the archives and everything I wrote then I still believe to be true today. 

There are so many ways this expands to current affairs too. We must do better in all our relationships with our animal family, our communities, our regard for one another as human beings, and our mother Earth. 

READ HERE

November Hill farm journal, 235

 

The pollinator beds are very busy right now, with coneflower in full bloom, milkweed awaiting its very hungry caterpillars, and passiflora stretching through the bed and climbing to the sky. I have managed to get some of the smartweed and stilt grass out the past few days and that will continue on through the season, but it’s so good to see things busy right now. 

In this same bed the narrow leaf mountain mint is blooming, Stokes asters still going, the aromatic asters are budding, and the prickly horse nettle is coming to its close. Once the blooms are done I will pull it out, with gloves, and clear that space for other plants coming in. 

Last week as I removed the smartweed and stilt grass in one section of this bed, I came upon an Eastern box turtle who is undoubtedly awaiting maypop fruit from the passiflora. I’m so happy this turtle has found passiflora’s gift. 

Across the driveway the two-level bed is happy in deep pink right now, with the bergamot and the New England asters going strong. The short leaf mountain mint on the upper level is just popping, and while it’s flowers are not as visible here, they are a hotbed of activity, beloved by pollinators. The button bush is nearing bloom time and I’m using my electric weedeater to keep the strip up along the fence clear, as I have plans for that in the fall. I’ve cut the Canadian goldenrod, which is my biggest planting mistake in this bed, three times already, to keep it from completely overpowering the early summer stars. Still to come in this bed are more asters, swamp sunflower, beautyberry, and yes, the goldenrod, which while very aggressive, are also extremely good for pollinators in the fall. 

In the potager and back yard we have tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, various greens, peppers, yellow squash, eggplant, blueberries, blackberries, and figs growing. My husband has taken on the potager this year and we’re enjoying the harvest. 

Tomorrow is the summer solstice and this year it appears to be the opening to a string of very hot days when horse and pony will be hosed, donkeys will roll in their dust circles, fans will blow, and humans will take a lot of showers. This is summer in NC, and we’ll get through to fall as we always do. I will keep pushing forward with chores and words and hugs from grandkids, with books and a few amazing TV series (if you haven’t watched Pernille on Netflix I highly recommend it), a few good films, maybe some painting inside the house if I can muster myself, and the little signs that let me know, yes, it’s hot right now, but just wait, autumn is coming. 

November Hill farm journal, 234

 

My husband took this photo of the very long black snake in the barnyard this week. Wow! Hopefully this snake is working for us with mouse patrol around the barn and keeping venomous snakes away. Though I wouldn’t mind if he (or she) broadens the territory some, as I encountered what I am almost certain was a copperhead in my upper pollinator bed beside the house on Saturday. 

We had many days of rain last week and gray skies, and I finally got out on Saturday with some energy to continue garden bed tasks. I didn’t take any photos but the milkweed is attracting so many bees right now, and also butterflies. A few things in bloom other than the milkweed: butterfly weed, Stokes aster, horse nettle (prickly and frankly annoying but the bees love it so I let them have their pollen), coneflowers, narrow-leafed mountain mint, and New England asters. 

What’s coming soon: bee balm, short-leafed mountain mint, and probably some things I missed. 

The figwort is coming up really nicely and many other things are thriving and will be in bloom later in the season. 

It is a jungle and although I said a few weeks ago that I have officially lost control, I might temper that just a bit to say I am hanging on by a thread, but not ready to give up yet!

The main thing is the smartweed, which is just driving me mad in the pollinator beds. I need to fix my long-handled 4-prong fork, which will make it a lot easier to pull out without disturbing the natives and the insects. And also will allow me to keep some distance from snakes and poison ivy, which, yes, has come into the upper two beds. Ugh. 

Our big chainsaw is finally out of the shop, so hopefully one morning this week my husband can bring it into Poplar Folly and cut some fallen branches and one actual dead tree into suitable lengths to line my woodland path. I have made a good start on it and will keep the path clear even as the jungle encroaches down there. A lot of what is coming up back there are natives, so if I can keep the emerging pathway clear and keep the Japanese honeysuckle and stiltweed knocked down, that will be a big step forward. It’s a work in progress but having a clear path will make everything else easier. 

The herd is good, the pack is happy, and the curiosity of cats is sassy as usual. We’re all busy and managing the things life tosses in our paths. 

I’m managing the loss of my mom pretty well. I burst into tears yesterday because I suddenly really, really missed Keil Bay. I have his bridle in my garret now and when I hold it I can feel his jaws, his ears, his throat and muzzle in my hands. 

It’s June. Yesterday morning it was 50 degrees F when I woke up. I wish that were the new normal, but we’re looking at high 80s and low 90s this week, so the NC temperature pendulum is swinging back to summer temps. 

Goodbye, Mom, I have already dreamed a visit with you!

 

My mom passed away on Saturday. She was 91, in her own home, with amazing hospice care and the even more amazing care of my brother, who has managed the lion’s share of her care for the past few years with grace and good spirits. 

I was fortunate to have some good moments with her in the past month, when the cloud of dementia seemed to clear and she was able to have brief but lucid communication with me. 

She was an amazing woman and I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who knew her who didn’t wholeheartedly agree with that statement. She accepted people as they were, without judgment, and she spent most of her life standing up for those whose voices were not heard. She worked in NC government her entire career, closely supporting three NC Democratic governors who did good things and who valued her thoughtful compassion for all. The last chapter of her career was as the Executive Secretary of the NC Industrial Commission. She took on this complex role and learned it inside and out. The work she did there was highly regarded by the team of attorneys and the Board of Commissioners who worked with her. 

As a mom, she did anything and everything possible to ensure her three children were loved and supported. She told me from the time I was little that I could do anything I wanted to. She was beloved by my and my brothers’ friends, who experienced her warmth and support regularly. 

She was a terrific grandma too, the only person my children were allowed to stay with through their childhoods. I’m sure it was her modeling that fed the fierce “mama bear” mode that kicks in with my own children, my grandchildren, my animals, and through the years as I worked with children who very much needed my advocacy as clients. 

I have so many memories and stories. Last night I had a dream that was hard but in the end hopeful, and at the end of that dream my mom arrived, fully free from dementia, able in body, and we spent the rest of that very long meandering dream time by the sea somewhere in England, listening to the ocean and perusing an open air market for coffee and some food, looking at gift items, and talking the way we always did, about everything. I hope it’s the first of many of the dreamtime visits we will have. I don’t know what happens when we die, but I do know that the spirits of my dad, Keil Bay, and other beloved friends whether human or 4-legged are with me often. I’m grateful. 

I’m also grateful for being able to be with my brothers on Saturday as we said goodbye to her, remembered some of the many stories, cried, hugged, and talked a little about what this next stage of life will look like for us. 

Love you, mom. I hope you’re with dad dancing in the open air pavilion you told me about, when you were first married and he was stationed in Alabama. See you in the dreamtime! 

November Hill farm journal, 233

 Such a busy week, with work, good time with grandkids and my son, writing weekend, and some much-needed farm time to catch up with a few chores. There’s so much going on in the country, the world, and in my smaller piece of the world, and it seems true for everyone I talk with. May we all find ways to do good work, find our joy, and get time with loved ones. 

Some of my joy today was taking a little time to photograph some of the native plantings on the farm. 

This is the possumhaw viburnum I planted some years back, along the fence and barnyard gate. There are two but this one seems to be truly happy in its space and is huge and beautiful. 

This is the white baptisia, which always blooms later than the indigo one just beyond it. 

Here are the two possumhaws - the one on the right is much less full and gets maybe a smidge less sunlight through the day. 

Along the side strip these ferns come in every year and the green and golds have now volunteered for two years in front of them. They’re hard to spot here but I’m so happy to see them!

One of the 7 viburnums I planted in front of the fence a couples of years ago. This one is down by the bird haven area. This stretch of the fence gets more shade and nothing I’ve planted seems to be thriving there, but this little viburnum is hanging on for now. 

Its neighbor, also hanging on but not growing much. 

Further up this one is taller and I’m hoping these keep growing. 

This one is healthy but still on the short side. 

This one is spreading out, between two bayberries. My goal up here is a hedgerow for screening and for the birds and insects and other wildlife. 

This one is doing super well, in a much sunnier part of the fence line. 

The first bloom on this oakleaf hydrangea. It was eaten to the ground by deer and then I moved it forward to a sunnier position. It’s coming back and I’m thrilled to see the first bloom!

I have a lot of work to do with the gardens but I’m happy to see things are green and growing and in some cases, blooming. 

A good day. 

Beautiful morning on Sweet Bay Bald

 

November Hill farm journal, 232

 It’s been over a month since I last posted, partly because we have a lot of birthdays in April, which tends to make it a busier month, and partly because of some major family stuff going on that has taken a lot of all our energies. 

My mom had some kind of stroke event, was hospitalized, seemed to bounce back, then declined, and has been discharged home for over a week now with hospice care. We are grateful that she has been in and out of awareness, even with her dementia, so that we’ve been able to sit with her, hold her constantly moving hands, and have a few moments of her knowing who we are and that we love her. She’s 92, at home in her own room, has my brother taking amazing care of her along with his son, a seasoned ICU nurse, and she is not in any pain. This is how she wanted to go, and I’m so glad it’s the way it’s turned out. 

My daughter had a sudden and serious vision issue happen, which necessitated a quick visit to eye doctor, who referred to eye care center, where she was seen quickly and diagnosed, and received an injection into her eye. They’ll monitor this closely and I’m grateful for good and quick care with this. 

Our cat Pippin had a sudden bladder blockage and had to go to the ER hospital where he was admitted for a couple of nights and treated. He’s home and back to normal.

All three of us have been sick with some kind of cold/flu thing. I’m coughing as hard as I can ever remember doing, and have now gone onto antibiotics. I shudder to think what this would be like had I not gotten the flu shot and the Covid booster. 

All that said, November Hill is a glorious jungle and even the fact that every single inch of it needs either mowing or weeding or pruning doesn’t deter me from loving its lush beauty right now. All I can see out any window is greenery. I don’t like the hot summer months much, nor the biting annoying insects, but whenever I look at the richness of our foliage I rejoice. 

I’m also grateful for family, friends, my amazing grandchildren, and all my animal family. And, during this time with much stress around me, a new and very big season of Escape To The Country on Britbox. This show got me through the first administration, and its doing its best right now. Also, Jeni’s ice cream, the pineapple upside down cake flavor. Oh my gosh is it good. 

I’m doing the littlest bit of writing, slightly more reading, not enough gardening, and honestly, not enough barn time with the equines lately, but looking forward to the rest of May and getting back to these things that sustain me. 

Right now, I’m feeling hugged by November Hill. 

May the forest be with us all! (And the Force!)

November Hill farm journal, 231

 

Spring is here on November Hill. The dogwoods are gorgeous this year, the redbuds are still going, and things are coming up in the various beds and natural areas of the farm. 

A partial list:

Mayapple

Baptisia

Columbine

Goldenrod

Mountain mint

Bee balm

Stokes aster

Coneflower

I’m working some every day to get beds prepped for spring/onward, and will be working on the Poplar Folly path as well. As happens every spring here, the place is all abuzz with activity. I’ve seen swallowtails and all kinds of native bees plus of course our honeybee girls. 

Little Man has had a corneal scratch that has required some care and a vet visit, but he’s okay and all the equines are eager for the green that’s coming up in the pastures. This week we’ll likely switch to some version of night-time turn-out, though I’m hoping we might be able to do a 20/24 thing for awhile - ie in stalls for rest time during the warmest part of the day with fans on, then out the rest of the time. 

This week I’m thinking a lot about our country and the resistance movement that is happening. I’m also thinking about Maggie Smith’s amazing poem, Good Bones. I think it fits, and I do believe that the last line is something to keep all of us going. We can make this place beautiful. 

Good Bones

By Maggies Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

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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. 

What I Want My Taxes To Pay For

 

Refreshing Stillwater

 Wheeeeeee!

Doing some spring cleaning, smudging, and refreshing the energy at Stillwater this weekend. Out with the old, in with the new. 

So excited to be hosting writers and other creative artists in 2025. And to have plenty of family time as well.