29 April 2025

Hell’s Hollow, PM

I couldn’t believe how many were flowering. I’ve never seen so many blooming in one location. All the more impressive considering they can take seven to ten years before producing a flower. A gift to witness.

25 April 2025

Sawmill Creek, PM

Rainy but warm all day. I spent the first part of the week in North Carolina and it felt good to be back in my own time and place. Traveling south 500 miles moved the wheel of the seasons forward two moons and turned the calendar back over 15 years at the same time. We left a few hours before sunrise and the world didn’t start to lighten until we were well into West Virginia. The majority of the hardwood trees were just starting to leaf out, bright green highlights on the mountains. Most striking were the smaller redbud trees lining the highway. I hadn’t driven this route since I lived in West Virginia in 2008-09 but I remember the redbuds and the ramps and the spring ephemerals, the wet snow that fell in huge flakes but never lasted longer than a day or two, the cold snap that nearly froze the Cherry River, the way the mountains hid the sun even in the summer and made me claustrophobic—I commented once to a local that I needed to see the horizon, to find a place where I could stretch without feeling I was being confined, to let myself expand into the ether. They said living in the mountains felt safe to them, like they were being held.