Essays From Giving Ground

A Sense of Wonder

May I propose that children aren't born with a sense of wonder? And if they are very lucky, they may acquire one by their middle 30's?

I think we are born bored. … Read More

The Garden in Winter

Every time we have a below zero night now, gardening catalogs bloom in the mailbox, gently insulated by IRS tax forms. It is an ignominious beginning.

I leaf through all that blooming clay paper, the luscious clusters of fruits and berries growing in zones always immediately south of us. … Read More

Calling the Circle

In mid-winter here, a nurse at the University of Minnesota at Duluth's Student Health Services asked me if I would consider packaging up 50 small pots of my winter-made, wild-herb Boreal Forest Triple Antibiotic Ointment (see my herbal store, this website), for her medical team to take on a volunteer medical mission to Kenya, to isolated, outlying communities there. The University's health clinic has had great good luck with my Boreal Forest Triple Antibiotic salve, for …. Read More

Fall

The pin cherry leaves are turning: a scarlet plume here, an apricot banner over beyond the garden shed. Maples, too: Read More

Popple!

This is the time of year when I know again that I've badly misjudged aspen. The tree species, "populus tremuloides," is tolerantly referred to around here as "popple."

For most of the year, I wish there were more Norway pines, soft and stately with the wind soughing through their needles. Heaven knows I've planted plenty of them, many for the Forest Service and some for the homestead here. The rabbits and deer sneak in and prune the young seedlings to death. Read More

The Conifers Step Forward

The deciduous leaves are all down now, making a much needed mulch for the tender perennials in the herb garden, and for even the hardy northern plants, shrubs, and trees. Small creatures rustle among those leaves; Read More

Spring Comes to the North Woods

The air has that watery spring smell to it. Pussy willows are fluffing out all along the creek. But mainly I know spring is here because the blue-jays - always sassy for corn - are doing their spring song-and-dance when I fill the bird feeders. They do what looks like deep knee-bends and then they stretch up tall (I know there is a French ballet phrase for it) and call their musical spring "ker-glibbit", half low, half high. It always sounds like a rusty water pump handle, just as the water begins to gush up.
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Homebodies

A friend of 20 years, who isn't far away himself, sent me an article on homebodies. In this country, we all seem to be able to hold onto distinctly opposing views of mobility at the same time. My Dad, for instance, moved only one county over from his birthplace, to marry and raise his family. Read More

The First Real Snow Has Fallen

The first real snow has fallen - just enough to leave footprints in. What exhilaration she felt at seeing those first flakes come tumbling down. And what panic she felt, for a moment, at seeing them stay and stick. So this was it, then; what was done was done, and the rest would wait for spring. That instinctive dread in the face of such authority as a snowstorm: it must be born of generations, of lineage through epochs, each one of us caught in a still life, holding a rake or harvest basket or some other tool, and looking up at the sky, bemused, wary, resigned, frightened. Read More

Winter Solstice

Does every living thing understand, in some way, that the winter solstice has passed happily again? That, without any of us - people, beavers, trees - having done much toward that end, the earth is tilted at just the right angle? Is spinning at just the right velocity? Circling the sun at just the right speed? And, thank heavens, at just the right distance from the sun? Read More

Recycling an Orange

A friend of many years sent us a surprise box of citrus fruits from Florida over the holidays, and we packaged up the rinds and sent them back! Of course, there is more to this story, but I like to start with that. This is really a recycling story. When we were finished, there was nothing left of the original gift at all. Read More