On a thin wire, a small gray bird flits her tail. Flings her wings to balance. Hops sideways and flies off. A phoebe bird - a fly catcher - she keeps her nest under the eaves of the shed by Bloodroot's shop. Her cry is crackly, and her nest is a mess of moss and twigs perched precariously under a roof. I watch the phoebes flit around the garden, flying back and forth from the fence to the eaves and back, while I work here every day.
I'm the very mobile part of Bloodroot Blades. Luke and David have to be behind the anvil, in front of the forge, at the grinder. They have stations. My laptop and I can sit anywhere, and most often, I am outside. Because we're in Georgia, and spring is waning, that won't last long. Soon it will be much too hot to sit outside on this bench and write emails to all of you. But now, it's 70 degrees, and I can sit in the dappled shade, write to you, and watch the phoebes.
The phoebe's nest under the eaves
Behind the garden and the birds is a rising roof. Right now, David and I live fifteen minutes away from the Bloodroot shop, and we drive here each morning. But, when Luke and Helen and David and I bought this land together, the plan was always that we would build a house here and move to the land. That process has begun, and every day, the time gets closer that we will get up in the morning and walk through wet grass to work rather than drive along busy roads.
So, we are becoming more and more rooted to this land in Oglethorpe County. Luke and Helen have long been growing roots here, and now David and I are, too. We tend the garden like we already live here, dealing with its mysteries. Like why the garlic doesn't seem to be doing so well but the leeks are doing fabulously. If I figure that out, I'll let you know. I'll probably figure it out from that back porch, pictured above. But that will be a gardening post for another time. Until then, I'll leave you with some Mary Oliver, oft quoted, but never old:
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver