So Hi-Tech! So Cutting Edge!

​With thanks to Robert Frost:  I was on a walkabout at Topsmead one June morning and came upon two mown paths diverging in a hayfield --I took the one seemingly less traveled by, and it led me to the Topsmead Butterfly Garden next to the Orintas Wildlife Viewing Station.
 
The Butterfly Garden has been lovingly managed and nurtured by Caroline King.  Early each spring, she decides what the garden needs more of and/or less of to refresh it for the coming pollinator season.  First, she chooses any new plants she needs from a local garden center. Then, and I have it from a reliable source (her husband, Chris) before she takes the plants to Topsmead, she makes an outline of the garden in their driveway and arranges and re-arranges the plants until she finds the just right design.  Finally, it is off to the garden to implement her design.  I think Caroline must channel Lucy, the flower-loving Burall sister, during this process!
 
From personal experience and summers past, I know how important it is to keep the garden watered. The past watering system involved a multiple-gallon drum with a spigot that depended on rainwater collected from the roof of the Wildlife Viewing Station, several plastic watering cans, and a lot of volunteer watering hours. A few years ago, that system received a minor update to make the water source more reliable: a very large water reservoir on wheels parked behind the Wildlife Viewing Station and kept full by towing it down to the farm barn and filling it with water. Same plastic watering cans, same spigot, same volunteer hours.
 
On my walkabout to the Butterfly Garden that morning, Diane Ryan treated me to a demonstration of the new watering system. The water still gets to the garden via the same reservoir-on-wheels being filled at the farm barn, (a well out by the garden is on the wish list...), but now there is a newly installed solar panel on the roof of the Viewing Station that connects to a solar-powered water pump. Thank goodness, no more need for plastic water cans and many water-toting volunteer hours. All it takes now is one person and the hose with its sprayer.  So hi-tech!  So cutting edge!  I am sure that Miss Edith would approve.
 
Right now, vivid blues are the dominant color, so follow that mown path less traveled by to visit the Butterfly Garden and enjoy a serene moment sitting on its stone bench. Be soothed by the quiet hum of the bees and be delighted by the dancing of the butterflies. 
 
Margaret Hunt
BlogMistress