Paris!

Happy birthday to David!

Native

We can work until out backs give out, digging and pulling out rocks and planting new things and meanwhile these two native species quietly reappear each spring no matter what we do.

The lady slipper (aka moccasin flower) is a treasure in our woods.

I learned this while reading Home Bird by Laura Wainwright

Most plants develop seeds that contain their own food supply, but the seeds of the lady's slipper do not. They rely on the presence of a fungus in the soil whose threads break open the seeds and provide the food. It's a symbiotic relationship ...over time, the lady slipper provides the fungus with nutrients it needs. This is why this "wild orchid" cannot be transplanted.

Once the lady slipper is mature it needs the help a bee to spread the pollen from one to another.
It is a complex system.

Have I written about this before? Every year it is as if I am finding this elusive flower for the first time. Our woods are full of them, but you have to look carefully to find them.

Thank you, Woodrow! At last!

I wish I could find the pictures I took on the day each of my daughters went to the local school gym to vote for the first time in a national election. We all felt the importance of it. It amazes me to realize that American women didn't get the right to vote until 1920- that was during MY MOTHER'S lifetime.  Ninety three years ago.

Carrie and Eliza's great grandmother, Barbara Blackman O'Neil, was a leader in the Suffragette Movement in St. Louis.  Below a short review of the history.

On this date, June 4 in 1919, the 19th Amendment passed the Senate. Fifteen months later, it was ratified by the necessary 36 state legislatures, giving American women the right to vote.

Susan B. Anthony drafted the original amendment, with the help of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and it was first formally introduced in 1878. It sat in committee for nine years before it went before the Senate in 1887 and was voted down. Over the next decades, several individual states approved women's voting rights, but a Constitutional amendment wasn't considered again until 1914. It was repeatedly defeated, and an anti-suffrage movement campaigned against it, claiming that it was unfeminine for women to venture outside their natural domestic sphere.

But in 1918, Woodrow Wilson threw his support behind the suffrage movement. Women had entered the workforce in large numbers during World War I, and in a speech that President Wilson gave in September 1918, he said: "We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of right?" The amendment passed both houses of Congress the following May.

Back to the garden!

Two Acres

For six months of the year, I forget that we have land. I hurry down the front walk, sometimes trying to avoid ice patches, sometimes shuffling though oak leaves making a bee line for my car.

Everything changes in May. We are outside all day moving plants, shoveling composted manure, weeding and forever digging holes for planting on this glacial moraine where we live. Every time you put a shovel in the ground you hit a rock. Without fail. Or you find a treasure or simply a memory. I have lived here for thirty-three years, David for five more. These two acres hold stories. Every inch.

Yesterday we were digging a new bed by the edge of the courtyard in front of the barn. It is the very place we had a pig roast and party one year ago this weekend on the eve of Carrie and Tim's wedding.  This is where we celebrated the publication of John's book,  Loon.

Digging away in a glow of memory, the shovel hit what we thought was a rock but looking closer we realized was a large piece of concrete. We puzzled over that. Was this the old shed foundation, the original garage that we moved twice and finally a third time down our driveway to give to a neighbor?  No, not in the right place. Why would there be concrete here? Then David's face lit up with the answer. THE BASKETBALL HOOP!  When the girls were on teams and wanting to shoot hoops, David poured a foundation and erected a wooden pole with a red basketball hoop and net at the top. Did we actually use that thing he wondered. The deflated basketball in the barn is proof that we did. At least for awhile. Then one day when basketball teams in middle school were a thing of the past, we took it down, leaving the memories lodged in a piece of concrete just under the soil.

Yesterday I went on a rampage in the woods along Weston Road pulling up vines of poison ivy and buckthorn. Once you start pulling,  the underground root can take you a long way exposing the earth under the layers of oak leaves and weeds. Looking down something yellow appeared under layers of rotting leaves. It was the circular disk that was propelled by one of our favorite toys (see above photo). I loved the whirl a gig, no batteries needed, pull the string on the handle and the discs went flying into the air and into trees and out of sight. Many a birthday party was saved by the arrival of this wonderful toy. Many flying discs were lost or stayed high in trees until hurricane force winds brought them down. Here under the mulch lay the memory of this toy and all the children who shrieked with joy as the disc took flight and ran after it, reaching up to grab it out of the air.

A deep memory is lodged under a solid rock behind the Hemlock tree behind the house. Here lies our beloved dog, Niki, buried there on a cold January day six years ago. She knew this land better than we do, she ran around these two acres for fourteen years, catching balls, burying bones, leaping to lap water out of a garden hose and forever trying to steal the ball when we played "monkey in the middle." David and I greet her every time we pass the rock marker of her grave, often bending down to pat it. "What a good dog..."

 Who knew that a shovel in the ground could unleash so many memories. I am just beginning to understand the joy of tending a place, working hard and getting up early the next day just to see how the transplanted andromeda are doing. The past becomes present, it's a big world out there on this small place.

Insight Meditation Society Barre, Mass.

The Thai buddha is flanked by roses in celebration of the ten year anniversary of The Forest Refuge, the meditation retreat which is part of IMS designed by David and his office ten years ago.

Buddhist monks ("the Venerable") blessed those who were gathered and the building by chanting, anointing all with water. We circled the building, chanting.  How many architects have had this kind of celebration of their work?  Many who have sat meditation here say it is unlike any place they have been. Very serene. Monks and teachers from all over the world come to stay for up to a year. It was very moving to be there and see how warmly everyone greeted David, the architect. They are so grateful for his work. This project was the brain child of Joseph Goldstein who is a leader in the field of Insight Meditation in this country. He and David worked very closely on this project. Seeing them together was like seeing old friends. The project had been very collaborative, with all the ups and downs that go with that! 

Below is the final part of the project. It is a dorm for the Insight Meditation Society where retreats last a few days or a few weeks but are separate from the Forest Refuge above. David had a chance to see the design he had done years ago taking shape. The challenge of this project was joining a new building with an existing building. 

Above, David with the builder (who does great work!)  I must admit I miss crawling around construction sites. This is the last project that has worked its way through David's former office that he had a hand in designing.

Check out this wonderful place. The Forest Refuge.