“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

— Rumi

The round-leafed dogwood [Cornus (Swida) rugosa] is a specimen found in the Yale Herbarium. It is native to Falls Village along the Housatonic.

Image courtesy of the peabody Museum of Natural History, Division of Botany, Yale University; peabody.yale.edu]

The vision of Plantin’ Seeds is to invite the local elementary school in Canaan to explore the sense of belonging one gleans through nature’s wonder.

In our corner of the world, April is cool and damp, which are ideal conditions for mushroom cultivation. Pom’s Cabin Farm shared our inoculations as the Farm established shiitake colony producing delicious mushrooms for years.

A blueberry field expands across a swath of the Farm’s property, bordered on the southwest with four wooden housing projects, home to honeybees of Russian, Italian and hybrid extraction of --- the genius of Vermont’s Ross Conrad. Close neighbors are single-family swellings of our native mason bees, tucked into the housing of select blueberries.

Pom’s Cabin Farm is a richly-varied twenty-seven acre piece of land along the Housatonic River that is nurtured and celebrated by its owner, Dale McDonald, and her dedicated team headed by horticulturist, Robin Zitter. Diversity is expressed through differing habitats including meadows, woodlands, wetlands, and a dynamic floodplain along the Housatonic River.

This landscape is an expression of historical, cultural, and ecological life in the Northwest Corner of Connecticut. As we grow in relationship to this land, and as its potential is revealed, a sense of place emerges. We are not so much on this land, as of it. Thoughtful ecological practices encourage native plants through a variety of restorative approaches: Paths now wend through woods, whose dominant understory of Japanese Barberry is considerately managed: Meadows have been seeded with native flowers and grasses.