A big discovery we made at Spirit Tree Farms was this:
When you remove non-native, invasive species from your land, you’ll discover that beneficial plants will take their place.
This is a “how-to” on how to find and remove non-native / invasive species. (It will work earlier in the fall for you folks “Up North”).
Thinking about holding a class at SpiritTreeFarms.com on “I.D.ing and removing non-native plants”.
It’s strange
how the shackles and chains
of monetary worry
scurry
when they’re taken care of.
I always thought, if I just had faith, my life, our lives, our purpose, would be able to happen, would be taken care of. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t really trust that it would, but I knew I kept getting the same answer that it would.
And now it has.
And now that it has, I feel even more empowered to go out and do what I know that I should do. It’s interesting how, when I didn’t see how it COULD happen, I was afraid and hesitant to work like it would happen. Yet now that it is happening, I feel more and more motivated and empowered to work as though it has happened.
Part of me still fears. Part of me still worries about the “what if?”, about the “This could fall apart.” And yet I don’t see that it will, because I think there is something vital that I and we are supposed to do. And it goes beyond painting the pawpaw trunks white, and winter sowing the wildflower seeds. It goes beyond marketing Marnie’s books, speeches and work. It goes beyond everything that I’ve dreamed of in the past three years, and believes and works for everything we believed in seven years ago or more.
It has hope in all of it, and resolve and responsibility to do it all.
Because it’s not my legacy that makes it possible. It’s someone elses, a good man, and a God and Savior who saw the end from the beginning. So to honopr him, and Him, and Them, I have to, I get to, get to work.
So what if that means working hard? I can do it! I’ve already felt the infusion of energy and commitment. I may struggle with the physical part — car wrecks will do that to you — but the spirit is willing and confident.
Each night I go to sleep wishing it was morning already so I could get to work.
It’s amazing what you feel you can and should do when you don’t worry about money.
December 17th 2024 3:30 p.m. Banks of the West Chickamauga, Spirit Tree Farms, NW Georgia
How much did Thoreau write? Did he take his pencil and paper out with him when he sat by the pond? Did he draw? Scratch a few notes and then expand them later on by the fireplace?
It had been my objective to keep a copious record ever since I came here in 2017 (or was it 18?) To take daily notes, to see what I’ve observed and write about them. But those objectives now seem to have floated past like the dead leaves swirling in the high-rising water of the creek after rain.
I can sit here and drone on and on, as I watched the currents bubbling and surging, as I hear the water splashing against the fallen tree downstream and wonder if negative ions are more powerful upstream or downstream? Or does it matter? I can look at the singular white sapling’s reflection in the creek, steady and constant as everything else flows by. I can wonder why this creek, now at least 15 ft deep and 50 ft wide, is called a creek when so many rivers out west are so much smaller?
I listen to the gurgle of my stomach and wonder what I ate that made me so gassy and bloated and if I have diarrhea, then why isn’t my condition diuretic?
I don’t realize how still it is here until a jet from an airport 20 miles away flies overhead on its way to Dallas or Birmingham or Orlando or Atlanta. But soon the roar of its engines fade and then I’m left to listen to the squawking of the woodpeckers and the chirping of the wrens and the cardinals.
A beer can catches my attention. Three-fourths submerged, it flows slower than the rest of the flotsam and jetsam and spins in Long slow circles as if captured in its own dance, its own rhythm. For a moment, I forget that it’s trash, and it becomes some sort of found art object. Then, as it fades downstream into the distance, I notice that it’s slowly sinking and soon will be out of sight not only to me, but to everybody else, until the next drought and covers it embedded on the creek bank somewhere farther down.
I have to go to the bathroom. Did Thoreau or Longfellow or Whitman or Muir ever write about such problems or concerns? Or did they simply drop trou in the woods and let fly. I wonder if they ever worried about getting any on their pants, or were they so adept at positioning themselves that it always went where it should and never where it shouldn’t (or is that shitant?
I wish I could relieve myself, but the corn husks and corn cobs and oak leaves are all wet and brittle. S***. Literally. This is uncomfortable.
I make it about 50 yards. The red Harbor Freight bucket beckons, and although I discover too late it is perilously close to a wild blackberry stick, and its edges will probably put permanent creases in my buttocks and thighs, the cool plastic provides unexpected yet welcome relief.
Again the question comes up: What am I eating that is so stomach sickening? Or was it the drink I took out of the puddled rainwater when maybe a deer or raccoon or Beaver or possum had previously stuck their head? Or the chunk of rainwater ice I sucked on? Or was it the cheese? Certainly not… the salmon mousse.
The other question arises: How long can I sit here with this hard plastic pressing into my flesh? And is it possible, because there was already 6 in of rainwater in the bottom of the bucket, to fill up the pail? It certainly feels like it could.
While I’m sitting here and doing something that rhymes with sitting, I look around at the pawpaw saplings that I have carefully placed six to eight feet apart in a row next to the shadows edge where, in three to five years they could be six to eight feet tall and producing wild pawpaw. Or will this just be another failed attempt of mine to force a man’s ideas nature instead of just letting it go? But I want more pawpaw, and more blueberries, and more beauty berries and more wildflowers. And when things to grow and flourish. I want to heal the land.
I think my neighbors are coming out to their hunting blind. I will soon see them if they are.
Crap.
After a long, hot,
dry spell in Georgia, it’s nice
to sit in the rain.
As if on cue, the
bright colors and hues of fall
Start to show and glow.
It’s a new joy when
you can sit in the woods and
enjoy bugs on you.
Today, I posted a prose piece about wildflowers, grounding/earthing, negative ions,
and their impact on our bodies, minds, souls. Yes, these can all improve our health. But what if Nature adds on to the impact of everything God gives us? What if there is a multiplier effect?
I think it’s an interesting hypothesis. Anyone want to prove it?
I’d never seen such*/
shimmering on bee’s wings, but /
I’d never looked close.
OR
*gold
Video taken at Spirit Tree Farms 23 June, 2024, Catoosa County, NW Georgia. Native bee in the sunset on a native sunflower. Look at the sunset’s reflection on the bee’s wings. Original music by Marnie Kuhns, Creation Girl.
Backstory: We take care of (earth partnership, earth stewardship) six acres of land, including woods, wildflowers, fields, and gardens, at Spirit Tree Farms in Northwest Georgia.
The other day I was out working in the field, planting chard, lettuce, and raking in wildflower seeds into a large area we’d burned a few days before. Sweating, I looked up at the sky and caught myself resenting the work I HAD to do. I noticed that I was feeling down in my soul.
Just then, several birds flew overhead. As they called out in a Springtime serenade, I felt my heart lift, and my soul rejoice. I continued what I was doing, but it was no longer with sadness or resentment, but with a glad and joyful heart.
Why is it that we can do the exact same thing, especially working out on the land, and it can either be a task or chore of druudgery, or something we do with joy and gladness? What is it that leaves us feeling uplifted and strengthened? What is it that makes the change?
As I thought about it, out in the field, I realized that the mere act of THINKING about what I was doing, and changing my mind about how I felt about my field work, helped me feel better about the tasks I was doing out in Nature.
Even more importantly, as I pondered about it, I had to ask myself: “Why am I doing this?” When I decided that I was doing what Heavenly Father — often — has asked me to do (partner with the land, heal the Earth), they my soul was uplifted. In fact, it was the birds flying overhead that reminded me that I was in partnership with them, and with all of Natiure. And whjen you feel like you’re part of something bigger and more significant, that you’re helping and serving the Earth and everything on it, that you’re working to heal the Land, then it is easier to feel joy in what you are doing.
Of course, that means you do have to ASK Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ — the Creator — WHAT they want you to do. What part are you to play in Earth partnership? They are the great biologists, the perfect gardeners. In The Book of Mormon, the prophet Amulek said: “Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.” (Alma 34:24). But I think it’s even more than your crops prospering. It’s YOU prospering in the crops of your fields, learning, growing with them, connecting. Even if what the Creator tells you to do doesn’t work out the way you think it should, you will learn from it and grow and change.
Most of all, you’ll feel connected with the Earth. You’ll feel part of a greater whole. And that connection lets you #FindNatureJoy in ways that will keep you doing what you need to do, what you should be doing, in ways that will support you and bring you joy.
As the birds soared and circled and called out to me as I begrugingly worked in the field that Spring day, I felt connected to them, and to what I was husbanding, planting, and tending in the field. I felt connected to the sun, the clouds, the breeze, the dirt. Smiling, I turned my face upward and waved at the birds. Then, weeping, I waved at them, thanked them out loud “THANK YOU!” for their song and their visit, and plunged my hands deep into the ground.
ANd felt connected to the Creator, to the Earth, to Nature, to all of Creation. Because I was a part of it.