Natural Paths and Walkways

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A MEMORABLE PATH

A path ought to be more than a footway from here to yonder.

It should beckon ...like the path to the spring house at my family's old home place where we'd all gather for July Fourth picnics when I was young. There was a mysterious, dark opening in the wall of black oaks off toward the river, and the cousins and I couldn't help but enter ...and then had to discover what lay beyond the first turn, then the next and the next as dry grass underfoot turned to spongy forest loam, then to mossy cobbles as the path wound down to the low shed over a flowing spring that chilled buttermilk, fresh eggs—and watermelon. The mosquitoes were thick and Great-Uncle Will insisted that a troll lived in the spring, so we never stayed long. But to me a forest path will always promise mystery and cold watermelon on a hot summer day.

Build some mystery and memories into your own path. Give it at least one turn—and two or three are better—so that you can get a little lost, and for a bit can't see where you came from or where you're going.

Build in a few surprises, too-such as a shady alcove that offers a flat rock or a garden bench to sit on and a tree to sit under.

Or put a bower over the path—an arch-topped, open-work arbor made of saplings or thin wood. Mail-order gardensupply catalogs sell arbors ready-made from wicker or-ech-plastic. Rambling roses or grapes can be planted to grow up and over the top. Romantic poets write of the marvelous things that can happen in bowers.

Or, make a grotto. Just the word grotto conjures up visions of a deep nook with spring water dripping down mossy rocks nestled in ferns. Lacking a spring, install a little pool with an electric watercirculating pump (also from the catalogs).

I'm told that the best grottos host elves-if you believe in that sort of thing. After a hard workday, a stroll along a proper garden or woodland path should lighten you up enough to believe for a while—or want to.

Then, without a solid base, frost-heaved soil moves under the new path and the concrete cracks or the brick or pavers slough crooked the first winter. Without proper bed compaction and edging, spring rains will wash loose earth out from under the tar before it, too, cracks and then turns to goo on the first hot summer day.

The paths I've built have been to serve a practical purpose. The grocery-hauling path from drive or garage to the kitchen door is heavily traveled and well kept while the formal walk to the front door is used only by traveling salesmen and the preacher, so it's more for show than use and often sorely neglected.

Most of all—on my place, at least—paths are to defeat mud.. .without having to resort to the cityman's solution of paving everything over. We have two "mud seasons" here. In spring, there can be as much as six weeks between thaw and the time that the soil dries out and grass begins to grow, firming up the sod. Between times, any sod or open soil turns to gumbo if subjected to repeated traffic from people, pets, or livestock In the fall, if there's much time between the end of growing season and a hard freeze, the mud can be just as evil. It sticks to everybody's shoes, cakes the kids' bicycle tires, and swallows any tool or set of keys that gets dropped into it.

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