The Slope

Clear your blackberries.

We have a house in Astoria, Oregon. Behind it is a steep slope and above the slope are dense woods.

When we bought this place, the slope was covered in nasty invasive plants: Himalayan blackberry and ivy with a blanket of wild cucumber over the entire mess. I could see bits of sword ferns here and there but I couldn’t imagine that much else had survived under those vines.

But this winter I started clearing the vines away and it turns out there was tons of good stuff growing underneath. I restored a big swath of the slope this spring. Now it’s summer and, let me tell you, it’s beautiful.

A few of the things I found growing there:

deer fern

St. John’s-wort

thimbleberry

salmonberry

sword fern

lady fern, I think?

hedge nettle, I think?

buttercup

bleeding heart

I also found this today, buried in the ivy:

Running Up That Hill

We just watched the Stranger Things finale and cassette tapes have been on our minds. This felt like some kind of weird message from the ivy. I wondered if the other things I’ve found buried in the ivy were also messages and, if so, what they meant.

old water pump

birdhouse

rusty scythe

mysterious rocks

I also planted some things on the slope: salal, evergreen huckleberry, currant, Oregon grape, and the western red cedar you can barely make out between these two foxgloves. It’s the feathery thing - my favorite tree.

Working on this slope has been bringing me a lot of uncomplicated joy. The more I clear, the more I find, the more things grow. If this hot mess world is getting you down, I recommend spending some time in the woods clearing invasive plants. Just start pulling them up and cutting them away. You might be amazed by what’s under there.

Love,
Carson

photo by Colin from the kitchen window

---