Our Magical, Evergreen Acre of the Universe

"Regardless of your particular spiritual or religious background, for most of us it is undeniable common sense that somehow, in some way, everything is connected with everything else - that there is a powerful source in the Universe from which everything flows..." ~Author Unknown

We live in a neighborhood in the city, part of a large area now consisting of subdivisions and medical offices.... cleared out from what used to be hundreds of acres of farm land.

On this cold day in December, as I look out across our neighborhood from a front window of my home in the culdesac, I see lots and lots of pavement, bare trees, dead patches of grass, and neatly manicured shrubs. 

What a blessing to be able to look into my fenced back yard in the dead of winter, and all the way around see a wall of GREEN. Unidentified brush and a majority of the notorious, considered a nuisance to some, invasive Japanese Honeysuckle....

"Japanese honeysuckle is an evergreen to semi-evergreen vine that can be found either trailing or climbing to over 80 ft. (24 m) in length. Leaves are opposite, sessile, pubescent, oval and 1 to 2.5 in. (2.5-6.4 cm) long. Flowering occurs from April to July, when showy, fragrant, tubular, whitish-pink to yellow flowers develop in the axils of the leaves. Fruits develop in the fall and are small, shiny black berries. Japanese honeysuckle invades a variety of habitats including forest floors, canopies, roadsides, wetlands, and disturbed areas. Japanese honeysuckle can girdle small saplings by twining around them, and it can form dense mats in the canopies of trees, shading everything below. A native of eastern Asia, it was first introduced into North America in 1806 in Long Island, NY. Japanese honeysuckle has been planted widely throughout the United States as an ornamental, for erosion control, and for wildlife habitat."  http://www.invasive.org/browse/subinfo.cfm?sub=3039

The background for the evergreen brush, also all the way around: Tall, tall, TALL pines and cedars that we have no idea how tall in footage, but we intend to find out using trig. Being a house full of engineers and unschoolers, by golly, we WANT to find out and we WILL figure it out. ESTIMATION OF TREE HEIGHT: RIGHT TRIANGLE TRIGONOMETRY

My Evergreens, to me, are survival and hope, a reminder of beautiful things that have come, a promise of beautiful things to come, even through cold, harsh seasons in my life.

Although not really applicable to Evergreens and Winter, I do need to mention other seasonal "magic", things of significance to me.
I always believed that I would build on family land in my hometown, inherited from the paternal side of my family. Land I grew up on, lived, dreamed, played, loved, hated, laughed, and cried on. I held it sacred. I fed and entertained these dreams for years, completely consumed with the idea of it all, and convinced it would all make my life perfect and complete. Through a turn of events, those dreams were shattered....at the time very devastating, yet, now looking back, very perfect and necessary for me (Don't fight the God and Universe, for God and the Universe know exactly what comes next and I don't know shit). In hindsight, I see clearly the reasoning and it all makes perfect sense.
Falling in love with my husband and taking the leap to move into a house, in a neighborhood, in a city strange to me, was frightening yet extremely liberating for me.

Our Second Spring in our "new life", once our privacy fence was up and I felt safe to venture around the perimeter of the yard along the fence (and not be mauled by four pit bulls), which is like a mini nature trail since we did leave a large area of brush and natural habitat in the middle of the yard....

The first thing I discovered was Morning Glory! Wild Morning Glory...in the middle of a neighborhood in a city? My Granny, Ethel Jenkins, the most beautiful person ever I have known, loved Morning Glory. She had them in the front flower beds, and talked to me in my childhood, of her childhood, growing up with wild Morning Glory. This, to me, was confirmation of Granny's approval of my new life, and confirmation that she is here with us always in spirit. I love to walk along our Mini Nature Trail in the morn and see them open wide, then again at dusk to see them closing to take a rest. Every day is a new day. Rest your body and mind at night, and be ready to bloom beautiful the next day. Just like my Granny, the most beautiful bloom, blooms quietly, and only for those placed close enough to see, or for those who go out of their way to see, because they want to and choose to.

Later that summer, the boys came running to me with green "grapes"...Green Muscadine/Scuppernongs! I spent my childhood roaming the perimeter of the pasture on the tractor with Grandaddy, eating Muscadine straight off the vine. We have yet to determine exactly where the vines are, because we only find them on the ground. We are thinking the vines are high, wrapped in a tall, tall tree. We got a nice set of binoculars for Christmas AND Sam is quite the avid tree-climber, so we will find them. Hello Muscadines, your smell and taste bring back warm and tender memories of times past, and you are seemingly magically falling from the heavens into my backyard, to tell me that all is well and right and in perfect time in the Universe, and that blessings will continue to fall upon me as long as I am where You place me.

Last but not least, we have a pecan tree. Yes. In our little yard, in the middle of a neighborhood, in the middle of a city. How many NEWER homes come with an established pecan tree? Very few. My Grandparents yard, which I had always dreamed of inheriting, has three or four HUGE, OLD, producing pecan trees. I played under these trees, climbed these trees, and collected pecans my entire childhood. I remember admiring the woodpecker holes, but never being able to spot the woodpeckers doing their dirty work. Being forced to walk away from those pecan trees was huge to me emotionally, because I thought that I belonged there with those trees for the rest of my life. I have never been more wrong.  Our little tree produces, only enough for the squirrels, but who cares. It is HERE, for ME, I'm sure of it. "I never dreamed home would end up where I don't belong..."  ~Rascal Flatts

Our backyard, in the middle of the city, is full of wildlife all year round. Squirrels have fun running for their lives from the dogs. Jack Rabbits here, Jack Rabbits there, Jack Rabbits every where. Snakes. Snails and Slugs. Clever Crows form teams and steal dog food. Owls hooting, but as of yet we have not been able to spot their hiding places. A variety of birds, and most notable, male and female cardinals. The Cardinal is the NC state bird, yet I never saw so many before, daily, as I have since I moved to South Carolina.

Rarely are things the way you think they will be, but always, things are as they should be.