Wilderness Wanderings with Sojourner the wonder dog
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A view of a Streambank Restoration

7/10/2021

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Picture of a streambank restoration project. Segments completed at different times are highlighted in red and teal.
May 5, 2021 - various stages of a streambank restoration that I've been experimenting with for several years now.
I am infinitely grateful to Grandmother Earth herself for her inspiration and collaboration without which this could not be happening. She herself has a profound capacity for healing and regeneration, if given a chance. The steep stream bank on the right side of the photo (above) was severely eroded and largely barren when I began restoration efforts in 2014. I've added dashed lines (in the photo above) in order to draw attention to two different segments of that stream bank, which ended up needing different restoration techniques. 

The area with a Red dotted line around it, further downstream towards the top and left of photo, proved easier to restore. In that region, look closely and you might see the grey trunks are willow and dogwood trees, now nearly 8-10 feet tall, which started off as bare-stick "live stake cuttings". In addition, there is a nice dense understory of mosses, grasses, sedges, and wildflowers that has developed and diversified over time. Overall, that part of the stream bank indeed became fully vegetated and has remained quite stable since 2014, despite retaining the original steep 4' tall slope profile which was never altered.

The area enclosed in the Turquoise dotted line initially received the exact same treatment, twice in 2 failed attempts; I eventually realized that because it was both even steeper yet and also shadier than the region in red, it needed a different approach. By the time I had come up with a better plan for the turquoise zone, it's state had devolved from barren nearly vertical, to a concave profile with an unsupported overhanging top as illustrated in the photo below. (Hopefully that will indeed be it's final "before" stage of a thriving restoration.) The difference employed this time was creation of a series of tiny stair-stepped terraces to modify the slope, the first one is visible below in mid-installation: as a dark brown board at toe of slope held by wooden stakes.
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March 22, 2021 - Note the "landmarks" highlighted in red for reference/comparison with subsequent images.
Having staked in the brown board at toe of slope (visible above) to serve as the first terrace, I carefully created a new more convex shape to the upper slope using a machete. I used the soil and sod removed from re-shaping top to fill the lowest terrace first, then I was able to install the second, higher terrace board, and fill that one next with additional re-located material, and so forth. As is most visible in the photo collage below, I ended up creating a series of four and five terraces all along the lower slope, 

use to create miniature terraces with. Then I used a machete to cut off the overhanging top of the bank which had no underlying support. The soil from that filled up the miniature terraces created by the boards. 


From there, the process was similar to that I'd used previously -- I tacked down a 4 foot wide woven jute mat along the streambank. Then installed "live stake cuttings" of various willow and dogwood species which will grow into trees. Then I spread a variety of seeds, and also transplanted some local native plants within the protection of the jute mat, and in this case, within the terraces as well. That was about 6 weeks ago now. The photo here shows the new growth as of yesterday.
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3/23, 3/24, 3/25 (2021) - Subsequent photos taken a day apart during a 'Scaffolding' phase of restoration in 2021.
TEXT TO GO HERE
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Cath on her journey of Great Unlearnings

7/2/2021

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Part of my challenge with keeping up with this blog as I would really like has to do with:
1 difficulty translating my thoughts and understandings and impressions into words;
2 even when I find words, ideas are so interconnected that there'd be simply too many;
3 often by the time I manage to extract words and to write them, my ideas are shifting;
4 it feels almost embarrassing to look back at static words because I'm still evolving;
​5 yet it seems like it might be helpful to have a trail of some sort to look back upon;
6 because those static understandings were indeed my lens on the world at one time. 

​For many years now, I have wanted to write about some of my unlearning journey, and I felt confounded and inarticulate, so maybe my ideas / words were all just gestating still. 

My thinking and worldview have undergone major shifts in recent years that I have felt unqualified to try to address, but also I am not comfortable keeping my thoughts inside. These relate to issues of race, religion, gender, socioeconomics, colonialism, ableism, intelligence, supremacy, hierarchy, even just the concept of "Wilderness" in and of itself.

Perhaps I am coming closer now to the emergence of my words: on their own schedule.
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Cath on "Gifted - Disability Lessons" - from 4/24/2019

7/2/2021

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My snail's pace has continued in terms of adding to my blog here. Back in April of 2019, I had another entry published in an InterGifted eBook. This time it was in a book entitled
"​
Making the Invisible Visible: Intersections of Chronic Illness, Disability & Giftedness."

Now, two years later, I offer it here as well: "Gifted-Disability Lessons from Cath:"

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Cath's entry on "Being Me" published through Intergifted

7/16/2018

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As alluded to in my post from 3/6/2018, I had come across a virtual community called Intergifted last winter, and in addition to benefiting from their partner program Intrepid Integrity, I have found delightful fellowship in the Intergifted HEPG Group. I am delighted that I have both an essay and a photo in their e-book "Being Me: Reflections on the Gifted Person's Path to Authenticity". I am going to include my entries here below...

On Being Me, as of April 5, 2018, by Cath Hopkins of Vilas, NC, USA...

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Cath and Melanie on Swimming Upstream...

3/12/2018

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At the Feb 5, 2018 meeting of NAMI High Country, my partner Melanie and I gave a joint presentation about our journey toward accepting difference. I was profoundly moved by how many friends turned up to support us. I was also so deeply moved by feedback we received right afterward, and wish I could have recorded it somehow to recall on dark days. The part I offered is shared publicly on the "notes" tab of my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/notes/cath-hopkins/swimming-upstream-one-couples-journey-toward-accepting-difference/10155131534145918/
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Risky Business and Whole-Hearted Living at High Country UCC

3/11/2018

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I accepted an extraordinary invite from High Country UCC Pastor Tamara Franks: 

“I am asking a handful of mature souls to offer a story of truth, a story that offers your vulnerability to our gathered body. For the next six weeks, our Worship theme will be ‘Risky Business.’ Acknowledging and noticing that the teachings and ministry that Jesus was about proved quite daring and risky, one's vulnerability and truth often comes in response to the angels ‘Do not be afraid’ message.

Through both Brene’ Brown’s work on vulnerability and shame and Molly Baskette’s Standing Naked before God: The Art of Public Confession, I am hearing that ‘We churchy types should ask ourselves: are we supporting a culture here that makes it hard to tell the truth? Do we give off signals or otherwise shut down honest expressions of pain, vulnerability, and disclosure?’ 


The gift of whole-hearted living and the freedom of living life in all of its glory, weakness, fear, joy and decisions of bravery entails accepting grace and compassion in situations where we have struggled or felt alone, unlovable or otherwise separated. The more we hear these stories of truth allows each of us to relate, to grow deeper in our own humanity and divinity and grows our Gathered Body in the process. (Aside: I have actually had people tell me, ‘I’ll be back in church when I have it all together.’)” 

 [end of invitation]

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Screenshot photo of Cath Hopkins by caption "Justice for All" on the About page for High Country United Church.

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Well, it's progress, less than 2 years have passed this time :)

3/6/2018

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Okay, so still no massive writing or photo-processing spree has taken hold yet, but there is movement afoot! So in an ever evolving quest to understand myself, and in part due to my writer's / photo-processer's block, I have been on a bit of an online research journey the last several months. It was inspired by having come across a folder of childhood records and realizing that I never paid much attention to the fact that I had been formally recognized for high IQ and giftedness. I started to wonder whether that might have something to do with the intensity and diversity of my life experiences, and my seemingly paradoxical gifts and disabilities. As it turns out, the giftedness has had many unexpected impacts on my perception and experience of life. But  identifying as gifted can seem so haughty and exclusionary, it felt awkward to discuss. But I explored it more.

I came across an online community called Intergifted, and through them found the Intrepid Integrity online "authenticity incubator for gifted mavericks" hosted by Silver Huang. I totally clicked with Silver, and the others participating in the Pioneering trial run of the Intrepid Integrity program. To encourage and free up our creative expression, we were invited to post fantastically imperfect creations -- that was so liberating to me. And we spoke just as freely about ways in which we are gifted as the many ways in which we are imperfect. I felt myself uncurling and breathing into valuable parts of myself that had been abandoned or underdeveloped for the sake of convenience and fitting in. I discovered a keen relatability to the autists in these online groups.

In part too thanks to a new-to-me therapist who is extremely insightful, I have in fact learned along the way, that there is a great likelihood that undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome (in the US, now called Autism Spectrum Disorder) alongside the high giftedness has underlain my gifts, differences and disabilities. Finding this out has clicked in helping make sense of my life exceptionally more than any of the other laundry list of mental health diagnoses that professionals have doled out and retracted on my behalf for over 25 years now. And apparently, I am far from unique in this. People are trained to screen for Autism as it appears in boys or men, but it can look exceptionally different in girls or women -- especially if they are bright, smart, or gifted.

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Why post this particular image of Sojo here? Accuse me of anthropomorphizing if you must, but if there is such a thing as Autism in dogs, I think Sojo has the canine version. It is uncanny how similar our neuroses, sensitivities, and gifts seem to be. She does so much better being out and about in her "I Need Space" vest, and now that I have invested in a weighted vest, I don't have to borrow hers so much :)
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Two years have passed

10/10/2017

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Well, once again my plans to write and/or post pics regularly have not panned out. But why not give it yet another try? I guess part of my problem is that I feel like I have so much I want to say, but so much of it seems paradoxically disparate and yet interrelated. It's been almost 2 years now since posting here, and also almost 2 years from our big completion of the Appalachian Trail to our first post-AT backpacking jaunt which we took last week into the Linville Gorge. The biggest joy there was sharing our whole trip with Melanie. I ran into technical glitches when I uploaded our Linville Gorge photos, but then came across my mostly unprocessed AT photos once again. It's pretty neat looking back through them from a bit further out in time - they bring back the adventure so freshly. So grateful that Sojo continues to be well, and helping us better appreciate the present too.
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Nourishing sights

11/30/2015

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While many of the wondrous views in nature are on a wide landscape scale, many more are smaller and literally underfoot. Mosses like those above bring me both comfort and joy. As does snow falling in frozen streaks into pools highlighted by fall foliage below. I am grateful that in scrolling back through photos from our AT adventure I see such sights again and can share a few of them as well.
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A tenuous beginning

11/23/2015

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Reflecting back on everything that went wrong during the beginning of our AT trek back in April 2015, I am particularly amazed that it ended up turning out as well as it did, one step at a time, through October 2015. Our first day was cold and foggy and wet, AND, I realized I really had caught my nephew's bronchitis; Sojo chewed through her 1st leash; and at supper my 10-year old stove turned into a fireball. Through the first 2 weeks I had to use cough medicine - and an asthma inhaler for the first time in many years - to help my lungs clear the bronchitis which made the ascents extra difficult. A few days in, I also chipped a front tooth, and my tongue became obsessed with failed efforts at smoothing the new rough texture. By a few weeks in, the soles of my feet felt so bruised I took an unplanned rest for some 5 days so I could walk rather than hobble. While Sojo loved the hiking and adapted to the camping, she was still highly anxious and very reactive during that time period whenever we encountered people or dogs. I am now so grateful that we were able to keep plodding along until we hit our stride, and so grateful too for early visits from both Melanie and my parents that kept our spirits up. So many amazing sights and experiences lay ahead. 
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    Cath Hopkins on
     her Wilderness Wanderings with canine Sojourner

    An image & text collection for photos and thoughts from a wacky wilderness wanderer, with her companion canine.

    This blog may at times be unanswerable questions, or perhaps verbose ramblings, likely intermittent interspersed with periods like hibernation.

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