Tag Archives: West Chickamauga Creek

Expand My Coasts By Seeing What’s There Already: IMprov Meditation

What does “Expand my coasts” mean, and can it be something we already have? In the Bible’s Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 4:10, there is a short prayer by Jabez:
“Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my coasts (enlarge my territory)! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”

As I looked at this prayer, I wondered what “expand my coasts” meant. I immediately thought “Yeah, I want to expand my coasts! I want more waterfront!” But then I thought about what happened yesterday, when I felt like I should go down and look at what waterfront I do have (on my property along the banks of the #WestChickamaugaCreek in Northwest Georgia.)

As I was wandering along my “coast”, I pondered where I might put a pawpaw sapling that will increase the pollination of the existing pawpaw trees that I have there. And as I walked down to the waterfront property that we now call the beach, I found a place where I could put this pawpaw sapling. As I turned around I noticed, for the first time, a five-foot-tall pawpaw sapling that I had never seen before. And then, I as I looked a little bit farther into the woods, for the first time I noticed a 30-foot-tall pawpaw tree that I had never seen before, a tree that had been covered by Chinese privet and vines and other invasive species.

As I was thinking about that experience tonight, as I read and pondered the Prayer of Jabez, I thought maybe when we ask the Lord to enlarge our coasts, He’s not always going to give us more of anything. Often, He’ll simply going to allow us to discover what we already have.

That “expand my coast” doesn’t happen unless we work and we start looking and we start trying to see what we already have.

How To Bring Birds Back From Silent Spring: Prose

I have a solution on how to bring birds back. In today’s “Native Pollinators and Wildflowers” Facebook page, someone said: “The bird population is declining rapidly. What you grow in your yard can make all the difference. You can hear the difference.”

I agree. There is a way to bring birds back. I’ve experienced it! So I wrote this response:

Four years ago I purchased six acres of property next to the Chickamauga National Military Park in Northwest Georgia. As I stood out on my porch that autumn, I immediately noticed — amidst a lawn and the grasses and the hickory and oak and black walnut trees and massive overgrowth of Chinese privet — the amazing and frightening lack of birds.

I had been raised by my father, my grandmother, and dozens of friends, neighbors and relatives in Wisconsin to do everything I could to attract birds. Not having birds around in a city or suburb is not surprising. Not hearing any birdsongs, nor seeing any birds in flight, in the middle of woodlands and pastures was shocking.

So I started ripping up the privet, ripping up the lawn, planting wildflowers, putting up bird feeders, putting up bird houses. Unlike previous owners, I didn’t spray for bugs or mosquitoes. I suffered through chiggers and ticks. I planted, planted, ripped out invasives and non-natives, and planted some more.

Bring Birds Back

These days, when I go out on my front porch in the morning, often a dozen or more goldfinch will explode from where they have been eating the wildflower seedheads in our front yard. The other day, my 89 year old father-in-law and I sat on the porch, rocking at sunset. There was a cacophony of sound; I asked him how many bird songs he could hear. As we listened, we heard over a dozen different varieties. Those songs weren’t from several birds of the same species. They were from over a dozen different species! In fact, several of the songs had multiple singers, coming in from different directions.

Cardinal on the back deck bird feeder, March 2020

*Or they could have been one massive Mockingbird I suppose. But I don’t think that’s true :-).

I tell this story because it shows how Nature will bounce back, if given the opportunity and a little help. My property is proof: The land not only has different birds, but now there are frogs, crickets, bees, bugs, fireflies galore, all joining in a joyful chorus.

Nature has returned to my Hickory Hill House and leaves me smiling every day!

My advice? Just Start Now, Where You Are, Today.

Reset In The Forest, Back To Your Roots: IMprov Prose

On our property, the Old Woman of the Woods is the Matriarch. A mighty oak tree, she was in her late teens when the Civil War’s Battle of Chickamauga raged less than a mile away. She often imparts wisdom, especially as I’m working in the undergrowth, clearing out things that don’t belong near her. This is a message I got recently as I was pulling up invasive Chinese Privet from around her roots and base.
Up the trunk into the branches of the Old Woman of the Woods oak tree
Any time there is a shock to your system, any time something changes radically, you go back to your roots. You go back to you, for you. Withdraw. Reset at your base.

Some of the ancillary branches, things in your life that aren’t at your core, at your roots, may whither, shed, drop off and die.

That is okay. Once you get back to your core, back to your roots, you will reset. Your upper part, the upper branches, will come back fuller, stronger, and more in line with what you should be, what you are at your core.

—Message from the Old Woman as I cleared around her base.