Ellwood Passages

by Trendle Ellwood



All of a sudden the rug has been pulled out from under me. I have slipped into action as winter disappeared. It has not been cold in ever so long, and I am barefoot and it feeeeels wonderful! The season has slipped earnestly into spring, everything is turning green! Even I am turning green I think, but perhaps that is just my nettle tea.

We are getting some dark misty days now.

I can plant my little seeds into the soil and they are nourished by the gentle falling showers, who caress them into awakening. I sense them stirring beneath the soil, swelling with water and life, opening to a new day beyond the dark embracing capsule of the seed. Do they wonder where they are going, these little sprouts, as they reach to the sun? Or do they only know that towards the sun is where they need to go? Already the Larkspur that I planted back in February (Larkspur to sprout, likes a touch of frost) arises from the hollow tree trunk pots that I planted them in. I vision how they will look in May with their delicate white, purple, blue tops waving.

Hubby gave me a present. He gave me a piece of land that he has worked up, it is so lush! You see where we live, Once Upon a Time somebody built a big clay pot, and that is what we are sitting on, this big clay pot that is melting when it rains. And when it is dry the soil is pure compacted clay. It takes a shovel and a foot to dig into this ground. But to this piece of land that Hubby gave me he has added leaves and compost and tilled it, then he let it rest in for a year, then tilled it again. I can now reach my hands down into it, just poke right in with my finger and slide my whole arm into loamy welcoming soil. Ah! It is like coming home again! Hah!

All my other duties seem to call too loud, and I get cranky. All I want to do is go outside into the rain, and tuck my seeds into their nests. It is these misty wet delicious days that I love best. It seems the mist seeps deep inside of me,
Gives me buoyancy and sets me free.
All is green and fresh and new and growing,
My heart goes with the dewdrops, the raindrops, swirling.
Then like misty vapors
Soaring.
Exploring.
Knowing ever more blue-sky faces.
Settling in with mossy, ferny, secret places.
Where my heart always longs to be.
Green and wild
And free.

The new bed is going to be my annual flowerbed. We will till it every year for a fresh start, which will be so much easier then digging out perennial weeds. Why hadn’t we thought of this before, a bed of annual flowers?

I could not wait to get outside to my new garden spot. Finally I did and I scooped out the paths with my shovel, piling the dirt into raised beds. Then I went to the leaf pile and with the wheelbarrow carted the old leaves back to line the paths. After a few hours I had it all done! I went to the house to get my seeds. I came back to my waiting garden to find that the chickens had gotten out and had headed for their chocolate cake mix, my garden! They had mixed the paths and the beds together, stirred up just like the baking powder and flour in the cake mix bowl. There was nothing to do but round up the chickens and go back for a few more barrowful of leaves.

Night came on and other duties called and my seeds did not get planted that evening. I was not used to all of this physical work, it had been a lazy winter. I drug myself to the house my body aching. For the next two days I would have to focus my attention towards the opening day of the farm market.

It was very misty on the way to the market. I don’t think you could see three feet in front of the car. It was 6:30 when we went into town to set up. The mist enveloped the rest of the farmers and us, as we all, like dreamers, set up our tables and helped each other with the awnings. The first early rising patrons came leisurely through, while the mist slowly lifted and a beautiful clear day was unveiled.

Markets, gardens and spirals, I have slipped into action with the sprouts and the presence of spring.

Copyright © 2004 by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

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Little One and I decided that we had best get ahead of the bitter dock, which was spreading, in our Lemurian Garden. So with crow -bars and the force of our backs we probed, deep down, into the soil around the bitter dock’s roots, trying to find the ends of the long white taproots. I have not heard of, nor read of any good use for this plant. If anybody has knowledge of any will you please let me know? It is a mighty strong plant, very healthy, I don't understand why a tea of it would not be good for strength. But perhaps it is a plant that likes to jest with us humans and it only increases our strength by making us work so hard getting rid of it.

Finally Lemuria’s face was almost free of the troublesome weeds and our backs were complaining from too much bending. Even our hearts could not stand another moment of digging bitter dock and thistle, so we drug our compost to the brush pile to burn later. I left one big bitter dock still standing. It has its strong arms wrapped around a blooming daffodil. I will have to lift the daffy to release the burdock, so I will come back after Daffy is done blooming.



We raised our plastic water bottle bottoms up to gurgle in the sun where they offered some wet relief for our tongues. Now it was time to have some fun and instead of playing like, Kali the Destroyer, we would become, The Kali of New Life. Little One is fond of Pansies so I helped her plant a flat of them while I worked on the Celosia and Elderberry transplants in the greenhouse. She watered the newly moved plants, and then we went about discovering where she was going to put her garden. She had some lilies, irises and a rose that she wanted to put in a special place .So we found a spot that suited her, not too sunny or too shady and she planned it all out while I stirred us up a little lunch of rice, celery and left over chicken.

She was content to work on her paths while I pulled the euonymus weeds from the daylily patch. That wild climbing euonymus escapes from Farmer Shaw’s woods, where it covers the ground and climbs up the trees, to our yard. It carouses the neighborhood because of one exotic start that his wife mail- ordered, and planted a long time ago, from a magazine. It is a prolific invader!
I don’t even dare throw it on the compost. I put it in the trash to be taken to the landfill. Just get it out of here! The sun felt so warm on my head all day. Pershia Kitty would softly rub up against my leg then scamper up a tree in mischief as I moved my Garden Phlox about.

This is one plant that self sows here quite abundantly. I would say that its blue~ pink~ purple sprays are the backbone of my summer gardens. I love it! Garden phlox is a rather independent sort and sometimes argues with me about where the paths will stay.
Because you see Phlox doesn’t really believe in paths at all and just likes to plop down any ole place, in the middle of the path or wherever! But that is ok, because I like to transplant this phlox to places that I think need cheered up. Rowdy independent sorts like them always liven up parties, have you noticed? This old garden heirloom that I love can get up to waist high and seems to dance in the summer. Pink, blue and purple, sashaying in the breeze of June, that is Garden Phlox.


I took my second cutting of Nettle today and laid it on screens to dry in the shade with the puffs of wind. Before night I will bring in the screens and place them by the fire where the heat will continue working where the wind took off.
Little One is looking up the magical purposes of the quince, which is blooming such a charming peach-red. The red flower buds of the rhubarb we searched for today beneath its large dark green elephant shaped leaves. We popped off these flower buds so that the rhubarbs energy will stay in its stalks so we can take nice looking long spears to market in a couple of weeks.

We took a pause from our work to gather at the apple and peach trees, Hubby, Little One and I. They are so beautiful! The peach dresses up in such jaunty happy pink attire. The apple buds appear shy with blushing ruby red lips just barely peeking out of their white finery.

The larder in the kitchen is empty of honey and apple-sause, so it is reassuring to know that already the bees are storing nectar within the supers in the apiaries. Soon they will be busy pollinating the apple trees.

The chickens are reaching a peak in their egg production and a broody hen now sits on her eggs. The time of the in-gathering has begun, for already the morning looks to afternoon! When I look out our back door I see the deep purple toned buds of the shrub magnolia highlighted against the white clustered sprays of the cheery blooms behind it. And then those white blossoms are silhouetted against the dark green of the pine. I don’t know how nature can be so naturally beautiful.


The yellow Dandelions are blooming bright and we plan to gather them to make Dandelion Aide, which is so refreshing with ice after a good work out under the sun.

Little One reads me a poem that she wrote about flying horses as Hubby props his feet up and so do I. The sun goes lower into the western sky; it skirts across our northern porch and highlights the primroses, which I left laying in a basket.

There is a woodpecker that is trilling his springtime mating call, in the pines down the hill. The red winged blackbirds make waves together in their swishes through the sky, like bars of musical notes, between the green green meadow and the azure blue sky. And I think as I rest, my body weary, my soul renewed, that I may have never known happier moments then those ones spent right here, at home with my darlings on our homestead in the spring. Today.



Dandelion Aide

Send out the children to gather as many clean bright cheerful new Dandelion faces, (blooms), that they can gather in their skirts or baskets.

Meanwhile get a large big pot of water to boiling.

Have a large ceramic bowl ready.

After gathering Dandelion faces, pick through them for grass, straw or any stray bugs.

Then have the children put the Dandelion faces into a ceramic bowl and have them stand back as you pour the boiling water over them.

Cover, let sit 15 minutes.

Remove cover and let dandelion faces remain infused while you let mixture cool.

Then remove Dandy faces, and pour Dandy Face brew into pitcher.

Add honey or sugar and Lemon to taste.

Add Ice, Enjoy.



Copyright©2004,Text and Photos by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

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by Trendle Elwood


Mix up the biscuits, then out to the brambles.

Streams spilling swirls of orange, red and purple,

Coal mine drainage,

Fires burning beneath towns where the snow never sticks.

Blackberries grow best around old coal dumps.

Where your bare feet turn black on the rocks.

And the black snakes go by undetected.


There are still dreams that gather on limbs and never flow on with the current.

Like old dead cows in the creek.

Fires burn beneath towns where the snow never sticks.

Streams spill strange colors like orange, red and purple.

Still, spring displays rejuvenation every May.

When the rains wash out the blockages in streams.

Mix up the biscuits then out to the brambles.



What goes around will come around again.

Simple men sometimes know more then,

Those with more cluttered brains.

The country bumpkin has what the city clock watcher, can only hope for.

Because he knows that Heaven is in June when,

Up in the morning, grab your pail from the shed.

Mix up the biscuits , then out to the brambles.

Blackberries grow best around old coal dumps.

Where your bare feet turn black on the rocks.

And the black snakes go by undetected.

Copyright © 2004, Trendle Elwood. All Rights Reserved.

Photo Copyright © 2004. Trendle Ellwood.