Dispatch #006 – August 4, 2020

Location: Cornish, New Hampshire
Season: Late Summer, Hazy Sun
Weather: Warm, diffuse orange light from wildfire haze
Coordinates: The garden, surrounded by wood chips, lavender, and sky-filtered firelight

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Notes from the field:
I spent the morning weeding, pulling long white cables of grass-root from beneath the soil—bright and strong, like they’d been growing secretly in parallel to everything else. Ants stirred where I disturbed them, swarming the edges of overturned clumps.

Deep in the mulch, a stag beetle struggled awkwardly across the soil surface, half-armored, half-lost. As I weeded, I exposed several white beetle larvae, twisting in the light. I instinctively covered them again with soil. No need for them to be seen.

Curly vetch winds its way between the lavender, which is in full bloom now. Hummingbird moths hover and dart like tiny velvet drones, and fat bumblebees bounce from blossom to blossom.

The entire garden glows strangely today. Smoke from Canadian wildfires has changed the light—everything orange-tinted, as if we're inside a low-lit memory. The sun is veiled. Time feels paused, soft-edged.

Stephen and I talk about simple things. The crows call from the mulberry trees, dropping fruit, discussing something among themselves.

We harvested peppermint, spearmint, cilantro, sage, chard, carrots, thyme, lemon balm, and napa cabbage. The scent of it all—cool, bright, vegetal—stayed on our hands long after.

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Noticings:

• Grass roots grow like intention—quietly and interconnected.

• Smoke shifts the palette of a day in ways words can’t fully account for.

• Some creatures need to stay hidden. Not everything unearthed should remain exposed.

• Lavender draws beings from multiple dimensions: bees, moths, memory.

• A garden harvest is not a list—it’s a moment of temporary abundance, full of scent and soil and repetition.

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Filed under:
#HazyHarvest #UndergroundNetworks #LavenderVisitors #StagBeetleWatch #WildfireLight #DispatchesFromTheField

Location: White River Junction, VT
Time: Early afternoon, high heat
Coordinates: Duck Pond, Lily Pond Road
Weather: Bright sun, still air, the heavy pause of midsummer

Notes from the field:
I walked to the duck pond. The cattails were so vividly green they blurred into each other, like a living wall of chlorophyll. Red-winged blackbirds swayed at their tips—light but definite, their calls like flicks of sound in the density.

Bumblebees flirted with the last of the purple vetch. Tiger lilies are almost finished—some curling, some collapsing inward. The tiny catfish in the shallow end of the pond gathered in my shadow, flickering, unafraid.

Yellow lily pads hold tight to their buds, not yet opening in the thick heat. A dragonfly crossed in front of me once, twice. This pond is a mirror ecology—a slow reflection of season, time, movement. Everything is both exactly where it should be and slightly changed.

Noticings:

• Green can become so saturated it loses its edges.

• Shadows attract life.

• The tiger lilies go quietly.

• Even in stillness, the season moves forward.

• Filed under:
  #CattailSeason #MidsummerNotes #EcologyAsMirror #DispatchesFromTheField

Location: Cornish, New Hampshire
Season: Midsummer Drought
Weather: Hot, dry, electric stillness
Coordinates: Edge of the garden, bordered by oak

Notes from the field:
The crows have claimed the mulberry trees—loud, insistent, unapologetic. Every wild strawberry is gone. We never saw them arrive or ripen—only the vanished trace of sweetness that belonged to someone else.

The raspberries persist, small but improbably sweet. There’s drought, but the fruit remembers something deeper. Fire ant bites no longer startle—they sting, but the body has adjusted.

Oak trees remain. Watching. They never turn away.

Chipmunks move with more confidence now. One came close while I weeded—so close I could hear its breath. It entered the fresh soil, returned again, as if testing the ground I had disturbed. The space between us didn’t feel like caution—it felt like curiosity.

Sometimes it feels like the forest is lonely. When I’m in the garden, everyone gathers just beyond the edge. Leaning in. Peering. Not intruding, just...watching. As if I’m the only event.

Noticings:

• Drought doesn’t always mean bitterness.

• Some harvests aren’t meant for humans.

• Animals remember how to wait.

• Oak trees are never passive.

• Being observed can feel like belonging.

Filed under:
#MidsummerDrought #MulberryCrows #ChipmunkApproach #OakWitness #InvisibleGatherings #DispatchesFromTheField

Location: Cornish, New Hampshire
Season: Late Spring
Weather: Soft warmth, full leaf, quiet air
Coordinates: Beneath the willow

Notes from the field:
We buried Gorda beneath the willow.
She was my kitten’s kitten—a long, unbroken line of black-furred companions, each one female, each one circling my life like quiet moons. Gorda was the last in that line, and I laid her in the soil with my hands, near the roots that drink from rain and grief alike.

The willow’s leaves were fully out—plain, green, veined with breath. Pineapple chamomile was just emerging nearby, low and unruly, its scent still tucked in its future flowers.

There was no ceremony, and yet everything was ceremony.

Noticings:

• Grief makes the soil feel deeper.

• Willow leaves move even when there’s no wind.

• Plants emerging beside burial sites feel like response.

• The line of cats holds. Even when it ends.

• Nothing needs to be said to be marked.

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Filed under:
#BurialNotes #WillowWitness #PineappleChamomile #GriefInTheGarden #BlackCatLineage #DispatchesFromTheField

Location: Cornish, New Hampshire
Season: Early Spring, snowmelt edge
Conditions: Patches of thawed earth, cold wind in the shade

Notes from the field:
The first plants to push through are the garlic shoots—slender, determined, green against the blanket of snow and straw. Lily stalks follow, blunt-nosed and waxy. A robin hops across the half-thawed yard, rust-red breast flashing as it pauses between melt and grass.

Chipmunks have returned—darting, bold, reckless with their spring energy. The garden has been opened. We broke the surface today. The soil is cold, dark, and full of signs: earthworms curled in sleep, pale June bug larvae unearthed like old coins.

Garlic mustard is already staking its place under tree lines—aggressive, confident, immune to frost hesitation.

Noticings:

• The garden speaks in temperature before texture.

• Soil holds memory even while asleep.

• Chipmunks emerge before daffodils.

• Robin = permission to begin.

• Garlic always knows when to come back.

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Filed under:

#SpringEmergence #SnowmeltFieldwork #GarlicMemory #EarlyGardenNotes #DispatchesFromTheField

Location: Cornish, New Hampshire
Season: High Summer
Weather: Warm, breezy, scented
Coordinates: Garden, full bloom, pre-sunflower

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Notes from the field:
The garden is overgrown, but not with weeds—with glory.
Everything is bursting. Poppies still float like tissue paper ghosts, calendula glows like small suns, and zinnias stand unapologetically bright in their collars of color. Thai basil has begun to bloom—purple-lipped and fragrant. Its scent moves through the air like memory.

The sunflowers haven’t opened yet. They’re standing tall, green crowns turned slightly downward, gathering power.

The marigolds. The marigolds. Their color is almost too much to look at. Not aggressive—just certain.

No one is pruning. No one is taming. And still, it all makes sense.

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Noticings:

• Thai basil carries its own weather.

• Some blooms hold back just to arrive with precision.

• Abundance can feel like calm, not overwhelm.

• The garden blooms in waves. It doesn’t compete.

• Color is a language the body understands before the mind does.

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Filed under:
#HighSummer #ThaiBasilBloom #ZinniaLogic #SunflowerWatch #CalendulaGlow #DispatchesFromTheField