Meet the Correspondents--Lin Frye says "Hello Everyone!"

Thank you once more!

I'm Lin Frye, hailing from Oxford, North Carolina .. a rural town outside of Raleigh. I live in the woodlands, our farm-ette so to speak, and work 90 miles away, so I spend 4 out of 7 days out of town. Not the best situation, but oh, to come home to the peace and quiet of rural living!

I'm married to a wonderful man who loves to go grocery shopping, cook, play the guitar and sing. I have three children - two boys and a girl (I should say, two MEN and one WOMAN!! LOL), 4 grandchildren - three girls, and one 'Dennis-the-Menace' boy who is just like his father.

Like Kate, I've been playing in 'nature' all my life. I'm a trained ethnobotanist, meaning I study people/plants relationships. I love to hear and collect the stories people tell of their gardens and their plant uses. I am a gardener, a wildfood enthusiastist and have had my 'recipes' published in a South Carolina Wildfood Cookbook. I have been writing all my life -- poetry and natural history articles and I've written a book on Low-Country ferns - their lore, legends and uses.

I work for a community college teaching horticulture and developing an Arboretum - which means I spend most of my time writing grants, fund raising, advising students, planning events, workshops, writing, writing, and writing!! LOL You can see some photos of this developing project here: http://www.johnstoncc.edu/arboretum.

I have a blog, View from the Oak and a Flickr.

I am fairly new to watercolor, falling in love with the idea of sketching nature, flowers, trees, and the like from books published by Kate and other nature writers. In fact, I've had Kate's first sketchbooks on my shelves for YEARS before attempting to really learn how to draw and paint! LOL

I'm looking forward to this blog -- to sharing my love of nature, perhaps a wildfood recipe or two, some nature/tree/flower/garden stories, and to learning from the other contributors.

I'd like to finish this post with a poem I love -- The Tables Turned, by William Wordsworth --

UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you'll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun, above the mountain's head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless--

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

(of course, I don't think Wordsworth would mind us SKETCHING the nature we love!!! LOL)

Thank you once again, Kate.