Image update for May 2020

Top of SkyScape tower

The bird room in SkyScape

Rainbow Cafe

Rainbow Cafe under construction

The Airstream

Ground floor of SkyScape

Dorm rooms in the barn - under construction

Shambhala - meditation space

Magic Garden - under construction

Daz'l at the window - Rainbow Cafe

Magic Garden

Magic Garden

Started work this week on completing the Magic Garden, an annex to the organic garden, devoted to the pleasures of the senses. Climbing grape vines, scented roses, a fig tree, all-around bamboo fence, three mega-raised beds with herbs, a spring-fed cold tub (ex hot tub), two splash fountains, and a shady corner nook for wine and wonder. We cut more bamboo from 'Japan' to make the gates, and dragged it back on the ATV. And collected lots of dead but standing cedar trees from the woods - still sound with hard red cores - for the main structure. For the Garden of Epicurus just add conversation. [photos to come]

Prayer Flags from Bhutan

I brought the cloth back from Bhutan, and installed
this group of flags on a breezy spot near the tower.

Adios my friends

Goodbye goats, goodbye Ruffles.

I inherited Ruffles from neighbor Estel Reed when she went into a nursing home. Ruffles joined Zip in looking after my goats. Nine months ago, all 13 of them disappeared without trace after being terrorized by some sort of Big Cat (aka likely mountain lion). Ruffles and Zip began their unemployed life living on my porch, and barking at whatever at night. Last week Ruffles disappeared. I alerted neighbors and searched far and wide. Gone. She was a sweet dog, in mourning for her mistress and her goats. A little lost.

Spring Fever

Spring Fever at Yellow Bird

With new wwoofers, Marie from Switzerland, and Wonder,
ancient sites of chaos and neglect are being swept away. A new broom.

1. Marie and I fixed up the Airstream to make it habitable for Wonder, and brought this splendid space back online.





2. Marie and I dredged feet of silt out the spring cistern - the best water I have ever tasted - and reconnected the water supply (5 gals a minute) to the garden.



3. We reopened overgrown trails, and are preparing marker posts.
4. Daz'l made the staircase in the Rainbow Cafe, and is finishing the ground floor of SkyScape: Meeting the Birds Halfway (the Tower), which is turning out to be everything I had hoped, with a secret room, a reading space devoted to bird books, and the top look-out level, with 360 deg views.

 

5. Leopard and I spent a long time working on the Rainbow Cafe's window wall.



6. We have all been working on the garden, weeding dreadfully overgrown beds, sowing seeds, repairing the raised beds, and covering the greenhouse with a monster plastic sheet. (Thanks Maxzine.)



Wednesday Magic a constant companion, digging up seeds, protecting the strawberries.

Volunteer at Yellow Bird

Volunteer at Yellow Bird to help us prepare to offer Shinrin Yoku experiences. Forest healing. We provide food, accommodation, training, reading material and the opportunity to shape a beautiful 175 acre estate set in the Tennessee countryside into a place for natural healing. Yellow Bird is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Email David at yourdruid@yahoo.com.

Note: at this Covid-19 time, volunteering is limited to socially distancing day visitors. Special skills needed: carpentry (rustic benches, mending wooden sculpture)), gardening (weeding), ATV mechanic, electrical work, trail blazing.

Yellow Bird: a History

When people ask me how long I have been here I aways exaggerate -- on the short side. I guess I cannot admit that I have done so little in all that time. And in truth, I have a terrible memory for dates etc. So I have started a chronology starting when I bought the original farm in 2002 from Joe Davenport) and the house in 2008. When I fill in all the gaps, it turns out that I have actually done a lot, especially on the building, landscaping front. That will be the subject of a separate blog. But I imagined creating more of a shifting community which hasn't yet happened. I'm hoping to pair up with Bashi at Mountain Path Healing Arts Studio to offer weekend spiritual retreats for small groups.

Woody passed away

My friend Woody, who ran Clark's scrap yard in Murfreesboro, died last year. He was a most welcoming, cheerfully mock-aggressive, presence in the yard and the place is haunted by his absence. Many local artists had the same experience, I found a 48' square iron cut out blank that Michael Baggerly (MTSU) and I plan to fill with acrylic resin in many colors, like stained glass, to commemorate his life.

Meditation hall/performance space

Finally I got the slab poured for a barn-like building that would serve both as a Zen-style meditation hall, and as a music/theatre stage, opening onto the grass. I found four 8' tall glass panel doors at Clark's, the local scrap yard, and with a couple more that I will make, they should slide aside to open the stage. I'm trying to figure out a simple post and beam construction method, with a Bhutanese style double roof, indirect light up top, and an 'agricultural' metal roof.

Shagbark Hickory in memoriam

My favorite tree - an ancient shagbark hickory that had been through the wars and loomed over the dirt road going up the hill - fell over in the Fall. It was a monster and it completely blocked the road, with the corpse close to my height. Bob brought his tractor over to try to move it. Randal added my tractor's power too. But we needed to get a friend of Bob's with a serious chain saw to cut it up before dragging it to the side of the road. I was reminded of Sartre's remark that there is no such thing as an obstacle 'as such'. A fallen tree, he said, was only an obstacle if you wanted to get past it This was an obstacle. I wish I could get it sawn up into huge planks. I was reminded of my slow burning book project on Trees, for which I have so many notes. I had not thought much about their death as individuals. There is so much emphasis now on their sociality, their secret communications. But this tree was a singular majestic being. As its name suggests it had a remarkably rugged bark. Interestingly before I had the road up the hill cut through the woods, this tree was lost among all the other trees. After the road, it gained a stature and prominence it had never had before. It was like a guardian spirit.

Photos to follow.

Last two years (cont'd)

4. Last week there was a storm and the Bridge to Nowhere was destroyed by a falling tree. Now it goes - nowhere. Thinking of renaming it American Justice, or Democracy, to better fit the image. Does it have a new life through its demise?

Compare Robert Smithson's Partially Buried Woodshed (Kent State, 1970)

Last two years

Much has happened that I should have recorded, including:

1. Estel Reed was taken to hospital and her goats reassigned. I inherited her goat-dog Ruffles, who kept returning to her house over the hill. Finally she stayed with me, but seems permanently sad. Finally Estel passed away.

2. Last year, a mountain lion started taking my baby goats. Eventually the herd got fed up, and wandered off. The dogs Zip and Ruffles came back. I think the goats were stolen. Neighbors saw nothing. Now my dogs hang out at or near my house and don't know what to do.

3. With Leopard's help I have been creating an Outdoor Cafe at the end of the barn.

Lots of multi-colored window frames.

SkyScape News

It's almost two years since my last blog. Much has happened since then. The tower - 'SkyScape: Meeting the Birds Halfway' - has seen off a few builders but it's now almost done. My friend Daz'l has played a major part in this. Here are some recent images. This is an artwork, dedicated to the birds, including a library on the second floor with poems, pictures, models and sounds of birds. It has become an obsession. It is also a lovesong to the aromatic eastern red cedar Juniperus virginiana, used extensively throughout. There is an extraordinary 360 degree view from the four open windows at the top.