With the coming of summer, I began a slow process of begining a garden outside the Cave. Having not done that in many years, it's pleasent to go back to the sensation of handling wet mud, earthworms and plants. All these inviting and welcoming a heightened awareness of the sense of place, the geographical locus of what are increasingly transitory lives, where one is always driving through dissatisfied with the already present abundance.

The Cave faces a thick stand of trees, a deep bowl of green in the summer and a soliloquy in winter.I once went crashing through the underbush of vine and wild plant for the Peavine Creek that was supposed to flow at the boundary of the property line. But I couldn't find it. Instead I stood still in that green envelope before I returned to the cleared land.

The other day walking around the neighbourhood I spied a usable graden table on the sidewalk. So we went back and rescued it. It now sits under the hemlock tree waiting for similarly scavenged chairs and a table top bird feeder. This is where I eventually plan to write sitting in the late summer light that seems to go on and on.

Another aspect of my natural history education, is learning to name things. While I always thought that being able to name a thing doesn't necessarily translate into knowing it, I discovered that names act as the anchors to weigh down on sensations in the memory. The other day while bent over the hillside at Villa,pulling out over grown masses of rye grass, making the land good where other things can grow, I heard a Carolina Wern trill in the mimosas. And I could yell out to my friend Tom to watch out for the little fellow. A couple of months ago, I couldn't have done the same, because I wouldn't the name of the bird or the trees.

Coming back to the garden at the Cave, I "borrowed" some philodendrons from Emory and we found some kind of fantastic lilies next to the Turner Chapel. So we will see how those go.