This is Your Brain on Rocks

My grandmother had a passion for nature that I inherited or developed. 

Mammaw lived in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains and we spent time with her during the summer months. She was an intelligent, tough, but kind woman, who took in strays and fed the wild birds in the winter. She loved nature and she loved learning, and I suspect she taught herself multiple skills such as masonry and carpentry.

She and my grandpa lived in a little house on a hill directly across from the Little River near the town of Walland, Tenn. I loved sleeping on her couch next to the front windows where I could hear the rushing river which complemented the Insect Summer Symphony.

How I loved to hear the water rushing over stones they lovingly caressed to a smoothness I still love to hold in my hand. I often had the urge to fight off sleep, but the Little River, she is like a Siren with her whooshing, bubbling rapids. On a moonlit night you could almost see her -- floating by on her own time. 

Perhaps her waters that just passed by were made up of past and present drops, uniting to make music, as they have for millions upon millions of years.

How I really looked forward to Mammaw's and her mountains each summer as far back as I could remember.

My grandmother was an artist of nature. She and Grandpa layed brick over siding and built a cinderblock garage. But the most spectacular project I have ever seen was her rock garden.

It took a couple of years to finish, but once it was filled with wildflowers and some perennials, people driving by would often slow or stop to admire their work.

The garden was tiers of small steppes, or plateaus, row atop row. The hillside was about a 10' slope and was at least 100 feet across. 

Each row was about 2 feet high, maybe three in places, made from stone Mammaw and Grandpa gathered from the river, stone by stone, wheelbarrow by wheel barrow, working their way across then up, across then up.

They mixed bag after bag of concrete in that same wheelbarrow and cemented in the smooth stones one by one. There were volcanic rocks, sedimentary rocks, and minerals such as yellow quartz.

I've been back there only two or three times since she sold the house and died a few years later. 

Of course the garden is still there, but since it is now someone's vacation home, it is not as well kept as it was before. 

I built my own rock garden where I live now. It isn't as grand as Mammaw's, but I have been gathering rocks for it one by one, bucket by bucket. I have sparkling drusy in greys, clear, pinks and browns. I have some geodes and some milky quartz and several other quartz minerals. I have calcite and some jasper I found in California. 

I periodically will let someone come to the house and buy a few because I believe they are meant to be shared. 

Subscribe to our website and I'll let you know when it's time to harvest a few rocks. 

Cooler weather is fast approaching the Midwest and Missouri, and I'm ready to roll and rock hunt! Who knows, maybe I'll go to Tennessee and get some rocks.

Peace be always to everyone!

The Eclectic Dragonfly