Rose Garden

I spent the morning walking on the grounds of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings homestead in Cross Creek. Though I didn't read her books until later in life, I loved the movie version of The Yearling and when I moved to this area from Maine, Cross Creek was at the top of my list of places to explore.

The lady in the background of this photograph is tending to the tomatoes in the vegetable garden. She and her husband spend two months each year working on the grounds in exchange for camping privileges. As we chatted she asked if I was familiar with Rawlings' books. When I said that I was she smiled and said "well then you'll understand", then told me about getting up that morning and seeing a fawn at the edge of the grove. I smiled right back at her. I understood perfectly.

"It is necessary to leave the impersonal highway to step inside the rusty gate and close it behind. One is now inside the orange grove, out of one world and in the mysterious heart of another. After long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again. Here is home." M.J. Rawlings; Cross Creek, 1942

....and the adventure continues.