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The Verdance
Aug. 10th, 2004 10:45 amA week ago Monday, the girls and I made a pilgrimage to a place I call The Verdance. It isn't far from our cottage, in fact it's just a short scramble through the undergrowth across the road, however flies and mosquitoes often deter us from going there. It is dense and dark, with massive hemlocks obscuring a granite cliff encrusted with moss and lichen.
The ground below is strewn with fallen trunks and flooded with an ephemeral stream. Ferns grow in deep shade. The predominant elements are earth and water.
We like to climb the rockface. The forest at the top consists largely of hemlocks, too, but is open and breezy, offering glimpsed vistas over Lake Fletcher. The soil is dry and soft, covered with different kinds of mosses, dappled with sunlight through the broken canopy. We find owl pellets on the ground. The predominant elements are air and fire.
To me it is sacred, a word I use differently than my dictionary suggests. I mean awesome and peace-inducing.
The Verdance is difficult to photograph, it is so complex and overgrown, but I like these two photos of my daughters on our trek.
The place is part of the inspiration for the garden beside our cottage. During the week, Brenna and I brought back a few pieces of moss and some flat stepping stones to add to our landscape.
Brenna
Marian
The ground below is strewn with fallen trunks and flooded with an ephemeral stream. Ferns grow in deep shade. The predominant elements are earth and water.
We like to climb the rockface. The forest at the top consists largely of hemlocks, too, but is open and breezy, offering glimpsed vistas over Lake Fletcher. The soil is dry and soft, covered with different kinds of mosses, dappled with sunlight through the broken canopy. We find owl pellets on the ground. The predominant elements are air and fire.
To me it is sacred, a word I use differently than my dictionary suggests. I mean awesome and peace-inducing.
The Verdance is difficult to photograph, it is so complex and overgrown, but I like these two photos of my daughters on our trek.
The place is part of the inspiration for the garden beside our cottage. During the week, Brenna and I brought back a few pieces of moss and some flat stepping stones to add to our landscape.
Brenna
Marian
