The Nest

by Jennifer

While weeding the potager and preparing it for new seeds, Nick and I came across 3 baby cherry trees. Beautiful and strong in their adolescents, we wanted them to flourish, to grow, to one day produce fruit and shade for wwoofers to come. With permission from Hermine, Nick began the process of transplanting them near the field with a couple apple and quince trees. When planting a baby tree, you must put a gate or barrier up to protect if from outside sources and keep it safe from harm. After transplanting the first cherry tree, Nick and Hermine wrapped around a thin green wire fence three times. I felt bad for the tree, looking imprisoned inside the metal gate. But it did need protection.

The next morning Hermine showed me a page from a French gardening magazine with a picture and the caption "Des bordures en lianes de clematite". Hermine to me, "You see those sticks there (pointing outside the window to a big pile)? Can you do this here, make this like this in this magazine? Do you think?" and her words hung there, waiting for me. My French is pretty cursory, at best, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to read the article. I tried to translate at least the caption on the internet, but it was no good. I put the computer away and went outside to stare at the pile. How was I going to make a fence out of this? I took a crafts class in college where I learned how to basket weave, but that was using a large needle and also some raffia to wrap the cord. Here I just had branches. 

I found six sturdy and straight sticks and hammered them into the ground in the shape of a circle. I picked up the clematite branches and started weaving. I figured I'd make it up as I went along, like everything else I do. And it worked. I kept going. I wove pieces into each other and slowly, I was erecting the nest. Over three days and tens of splinters, it was created. From nothing, something came. 

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

the boys made me get inside the nest, like a little egg

Me and the nest, Nick and his cherry tree

While making the nest I listened to music. Lady Gaga made me miss my friends, dancing, and wearing heels. Bruce Springsteen asked me if I was ready to prove it all night while I pulled clematite through itself, layer by layer. Sam Cook sang sad love songs into my ear while I wrapped the wood around sticks, as tightly and securely as I could, to maximize structural integtiry. I thought about home, my family, about saying goodbye, and about what might lay ahead of me. 

The irony was not lost on me. I was making a nest, lovingly, for the tree. A home, a safe haven, protection from the elements. I was making a nest for the tree, painstakingly, and then I would leave. Protecting everything and everyone around me, I had no home myself. 

When the nest was complete we picked it up and moved it over top of the tree Nick had planted so delicately. We hammered the six sticks into the ground and the nest was secure. We took some photographs and walked away from the tree and the nest. It's been raining since then, watering the tree and weathering the nest.