I am feeling much better. During the winter I kind of go into hibernation mode, plus with getting sick last fall, I'd been a little bit dark and under the weather for awhile. But I'm oh so much better, really I am!

And part of it is because I can feel the land waking up. Maybe a little early this year, with the crocus and plum blossoms and even daffodil and pussy willow and cherry almost... But still, it's oh so wonderful to start digging up the ground and putting my hands in there and letting my little tendrils WOOSH out my fingertips and feeling it all out underground. The ground warms up and it's just like my little electric fishes swimming out through the earth. It does recharge me so!

There is a new girl here, from Wales or New Zealand or Austria or something. Or least she looks like it. Something @Jade maybe. She seems very nice but I heard she has some kind of invasive, non-native, extra-dimensional plant that's already scaring people and now she has applied for some kind of special project? I DO so want to be welcoming to everyone but I have very strong beliefs about the Sidereal Biome and Psionicpermaculture and balance is oh so essential!

I also heard her asking around about @Garden Joe and when I did I couldn't help it but I almost BARFED. Something bad happened to me at his house, but it's not like something I could report to anyone, or anything. Ugh.

Sigh... but the earth! Can you feel the spring?!!

WOOSH!

So I have been a wee bit under the weather for the past week or so. Really not myself the girls in the hall tell me. It started a couple of weeks ago when I visited the big old garden of that kindly old man @Garden Joe.

It was a humongous old garden, with broken down angels and brambly brambles and weeds growing right up into the trees and obviously it is more than one kindly old man can handle, though there did seem to be fresh little plots here and there where he'd been doing some kind of digging, but he insisted on taking me to a super weedy corner of the place way off by itself and wanted to show me something and before I knew it WOOSH went my little feelers, out of the tips of my own little feelers and WOOSH into the dirt underneath Mr. Kindly Old Man's garden.

But that's when I got sick. Or something.

Can you get sick from old dirt? My little silver shoots have never had trouble before, but something in that old man's dirt was... sick. Or something. Usually I get a pretty good map of a place from my tendrils - like my daddy's little fishfinder sonar on his little boat. But in Mr. Kindly's garden I got all upside down and mixed up and SICK almost right away. And everything tasted like metal.

But I didn't want to worry him so I told him I had to go and when I got outside his gate I BARFED right there on the street and it was horrible. Luckily there's this girl @Singleton671 whose boyfriend has a car and they were driving by and saw me and took me back to school but really I have not been feeling real great till the past day or two.

I do so hope Mr. Kindly isn't worried. But.... I think I will need to avoid that particular garden shop for... ever? Oh but they have such nice things!!!

Hmmph.

I DO so love this school, and its beautiful setting in these woods, and the rambling gardens that do seem to go on forever, and they've really got a super great Psychic Permaculture program which is totally why I'm here. But I love everything about gardening and digging in the earth, and even though the school has great resources, sometimes a girl just needs a little more! ;)

Which is why sometimes I take the bus into town and visit the garden stores they have there. And they do have one which is heavenly! I've been there like 5 times already. And the thing about gardening is that it really brings people together.

Case in point! I met this really kindly older gentleman there who I think I've seen before, browsing in the greenhouses and the long rows of hanging plants, and he was just so sweet and he could tell how into gardening I was and he says he's got his own very special garden and he'd love to show me!!!

So, I'm so visiting his garden this Saturday - @Garden Joe he said he goes by. He's just so darn sweet and adorable! I can't wait to see his garden.

People do make fun of me because of my name and that I just love digging around in the dirt and planting and weeding and growing and tending. But it's totally why I'm here, really. When my fingers get into the dirt they get all tingly and it's like I've got these long long long tiny wires or hairs that just shoot out through the undersurface... wiggly tingly through the tree roots and the MYCELIUM (yea! extra credit it bio for using that word in a post!) and the myelin sheaves and oh it just makes me feel like a million bucks!

Take care,

Mary A

Isn't fall the best? Every year I get so excited to come back to Florence Hall (one of the all girl dorms) and see everybody and we hug and scream and go crazy and we stay up late even though we're not supposed to and open all the windows and smell that Fall smell coming out of the woods... It's so earthy!!! All those leaves and rotting trees and the compost piles and the reconstitution grounds. It's like the spirit of fall is just rising out of the ground all around the school. LUV IT!!!

Take care,

Mary A