The wild growth, knocked back for fall.

The blacksmith’s shed with foggy orchard.

As my days are numbered in New Hampshire, I try to take as much time to enjoy the farm as I can. An unnaturally spooky fog recently descended on the property, & I couldn’t resist taking pictures. (Yes, this is a separate fog, observed in the state of the field which has been mowed for winter. Since we will be leaving before the fall, we had it mowed early this year.) Every eerie fog must be captured & savored.

A late morning fog.

In the orchard.

Certainly, I’m excited by the big move, but it’s been emotional nonetheless. Weeding through things to downsize, making travel & property arrangements, donating bags of clothes & boxes of foodstuffs. It’s still a lot to absorb. Please let me underscore my gratitude for the gifts in my life, so I’m focusing on all of the good that’s been unfolding. But any major life change brings with it bittersweet feelings. That’s the difficulty.

View of the shorn field & orchard.

The old shed.

As I sort through books, knick-knacks, kitchenware, tools, toys, & a million other things, I’m reminded of the many, many moves throughout my life. As a kid, I moved schools several times, & that sense of adventure (thoughts of all the good & bad to come) translated to a kind of social gamble. I do get sort of restless after 5-6 years, & travel must occur in some fashion.

My oldest brother calls it our dad’s gypsy spirit that leads the Kehl kids to explore & travel. I’d have to agree.

Looking toward the pumpkin patch.

The arbor & heirloom apple tree.

Yet, if you’ve seen Howards End, I feel a little like Vanessa Redgrave’s character who becomes so swept up in the everyday magic of her family home, Howards End, that she cares little for her gowns or rules of decorum. She soaks in nature, seeing the fantastical in every vine, bit of hay, or vegetation around her.

Please indulge me with a quote from the novel:

“Oh, the beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine… Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large red poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday – I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on smelling it. The air here is delicious.“

The lovely spruce.

The rose of Sharon.

Part of me feels quite grateful that I started this blog back in February. Thanks to this creative outlet, I now have a living kind of journal I can revisit when transplanted to the new landscapes of Utah. Admittedly, I love the mountains so that acted as a big draw, along with the incredible career move forward. Very few things could have lured me away from Hillcrest Farm.

But I’ve also learned that I’m meant to learn a lot & help others in this lifetime. I must go where my soul is being led. This blog will track this introvert’s journey.

Willows & vines.

The grand maple, with the old black walnut stump & Japanese threadleaf maple beyond.

Fellow introverts & kind readers, how do you connect to natural landscapes? Are there places & old haunts outside that bring you so much joy you forget what you’re wearing or the passage of time? Are you in connection with something bigger, a kind of otherworldliness of being?

Where are the places that feed you?

The old farmhouse.

The shrubberies.

Another quote from Forster’s Howards End gets to the root of what I mean, here, gesturing towards that romantic sense of connection to the spirit of the land. From Mrs. Wilcox’s perspective, reflecting on the place of her ancestral home:

“To them Howards End was a house; they could not know that to her it had been a spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir. And—pushing one step farther in these mists—may they not have decided even better than they supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp of hay with dew on it—can passion for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?“

How do we convey these kinds of spritual experiences, dear introverts? Words fail us, but we still try to approximate connection, meaning. Like Whitman’s spider, we keep throwing out gossamer threads to find others.

To whom will we bequeath the possessions of our spirit?

Hydrangeas.

Another view of the shed.

Regal old trees.