Hello friends. Kendra here again, to share a bit about My Place.

 

Dillsburg is the name of the quaint little Pennsylvania town where my address is located, but I am here to tell you about My Place. In doing so, I aim to inspire you to find your Place too, which is so much more than just the parcel of property you own (or rent).

 

My partner and I own and steward a little quarter acre patch of land with an old four bedroom farmhouse on it. We have a wildflower meadow, a few raised beds in progress, a compost bin, a few flower beds around the house, and a porch with potted plants where we sit and sip tea while we listen to birds. We are surrounded by trees (oak, maple, walnut, locust, catalpa, dogwood, redbud, spicebush and others), and many more native plants. 

 

An artesian spring runs year round in the woods nearby, and we source our water from this deep ancient communal well. There’s an old private community camp (Mt. Olivet Camp Meeting) across the main road with mossy cottages, built intentionally around/above this wellspring. This area used to be called Hoffman's Woods (no relation)!!

 

We only have 3 other neighbors on our little steep drive, and a farm field nearby that sadly sprays their fields, and even more sadly may be developed soon, regardless of protest.

 

We are living in Carroll township, in York county, of Pennsylvania, the first state on the East Coast above the Mason-Dixon line. We fought for the North in the Civil War and we were one of the first thirteen colonies to declare independence from Great Britain. My state was named "Penn's Woods" after William Penn who "brokered" land treaties with the native Americans who lived here. Some stories say he was a kind friend, attempting to negotiate peace and collaboration between peoples, others say otherwise.

 

Over the years, with our proximity to Ellis Island, NY and many other harbors, this land gave refuge to many men, women and children seeking safety and freedom. It is one of only two commonwealths (a way to set up state government) in the nation.

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This was Susquehannock territory before colonists came and brutally massacred them to a point where they were thought to be gone forever. In that link provided there is evidence that some survived, and there is a present effort to support them and other local tribes in regaining land and recognition. Go to this site to discover who was here before you.

 

Before that era, many eons of megafauna, flora, insects and fungi cultivated this Place together, along with many generations and migrations of humans we cannot identify. This area is ancient, and still relatively intact from when the continents were a unified landmass called Pangea. The Susquehanna river is one of the three oldest rivers on this planet. It is older than the Appalachian mountains, evidenced by where they meet and cross - you can see that the mountains rose up and eroded, under the mighty flow of the river.

 

The beautiful Chesapeake Bay is an impact crater from the landing of a meteor here long ago, and is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. It is essential that we protect it and the waters that feed it, which my Place is directly impacting.

 

Knowing the history and geography of your Place is a foundational aspect of EarthCare. 

 

After living here for a year or two, I asked the state to post a “no spray sign” on my side of the road, where a little spring flows year round. I had to request this from the state because it’s a state road, which I discovered by calling my township first.

 

I agreed to maintain the entire length of my property and the woods edges of other properties (owned by the campground and a farm on either side of me) to keep the water clean of sprays until it passes under the road and into the woods again. They were very supportive of this and you can do this too!

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Laws and regulations inform a Place, and inform us around how we are able to steward it, or help us see where we can make changes to have a wider impact! 

 

My house (including my water waste and septic mound), and the little spring I keep clean, are just uphill from Dogwood Run, a little creek which flows to the Yellow Breeches (known internationally for great fishing), which flows into the Susquehanna River, into the Chesapeake Bay, into the Atlantic Ocean. Everything is connected.

 

Watersheds and water flows are essential to knowing your Place and EarthCare. 

 

I live at the base of South mountain, on the north side, so we get lots of shade, rain and cooler weather patterns, despite the fact that this growing region was bumped from zone 6 to 7, which means it is consistently hotter now than it ever was before.

 

Important note: We only started making changes in the landscape here after 2 years of observing and interacting with nature. By then we had a solid understanding of weather patterns, rainfall, wind, sunlight, animal pathways and the influx of pollution. These are all things that change season by season, so it's important to take their changes into consideration before designing or installing things you might have to change.

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Slowing down to observe and listen to the land is essential to get to know your Place.

 

The changes we make are led by nature, and supportive of the way the land wants to be here. One summer we silage-tarped our front lawn, over the sunniest area, the septic system, to kill all the grass we’d let grow out, and the next spring we seeded native perennial and annual wildflowers. I pull nutsedge and crabgrass daily to help it along, and we will mow it once a year in spring, after the temperatures have risen above 60* consistently to allow all the native stem besting insects to emerge and begin their pollination service.

 

My role here is steward, and my goal is to belong here along with the wider world of my kin, both human and non-human. Once we belong to the land, and find ourselves in deep relationship with it, then we can truly be a restorative and regenerative force.

 

We've come to really enjoy the slowing down and listening part. The first year we heard barred owls, the following year there was a great horned owl, and the next year we heard a screech owl. There are goldfinches and chicadees, catbirds and wrens, blue birds, vireos and many other birds, some even a bit rare, which we identify via the Merlin app (get it!).

 

Delightfully, we've had a robin lay eggs in a nest on our electric meter box right by our front door every year. She’s even come back for a double batch once! As the meadow develops, I look forward to seeing the deer path remerge in the meadow as it grows taller, which was a favorite feature of mine when letting the grass grow out to see what would travel through. I’m planting hundreds of natives of course but slowly. On a budget haha. 

 

Allowing space for emergence is foundational to an EarthCare practice. 

 

There's more! I live within a 15 minute walk to my parents place, up the quieter road behind us. They still live in the old farmhouse I grew up in with 6 acres of woodland, field and homestead, where I spend lots of time tending and growing food as well. So my first Place became my second Place in a way, in terms of the wider definition of place, haha. 

 

Having multiple Places is a sign of potential for EarthCare entrepreneurship. 

 

My actual first Place (before the homestead my parents now live on down the road from my home) was the "creekhouse." We lived along the Conodoguinet Creek when I was very young (til age 5). I’ve always wanted to live along a creek again, likely because of the core memories established at this beautiful simple Place in my earliest experiences on this planet. 

 

Another precious childhood Place was up in the mountains of Perry county, a patch of land my grandfather owned and hunted, wild with hemlocks, berries and black bear. A trickling creek ran through the deep cut hollow where I searched for slippery salamanders and fell in love with mosses, ferns and big adventures with many cousins. 

 

And yet another wildly formative Place of mine was where my other grandparents lived in upstate New York between the finger lakes, with a wider creek filled with flat stones to build dams and a giant gorge to hike and spend hours getting lost in the ferns and moss and the fair world of drizzling misty shale cliffs and waterfalls. These forest felt enchanted. Finding fossils was a favorite activity there.

 

I can’t express my gratitude for these gifts and privileges provided to me by my family. It wasn’t always easy but it was an eternal gift. I’ll build a cabin near a creek in a misty forest someday. 

 

Childhood memories of Place and connection to Nature are a huge part of your EarthCare journey. 

 

What about your Place? Where is it? Can you describe it? 

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Join our EarthCare Community group and share a post about your Place!

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