Week 6-My Neighborhood

Feral Ground

Across from my apartment complex an old dump site is in the slow process of re-wilding. While concrete slabs still jut though the soil complete with rusting bones of rebar, thick undergrowth and a forest of young trees cover most of the site. The area is thick with bird life and also shelters a small herd of deer. This spring my 2-year old and I found a fawn hiding there in the grass.
Each day some of my neighbors trek into this little patch of urban wildness. I think some forage for usable plants I’m not familiar with—though of course some just walk. I went their recently to gather branches that had grown into spirals as they pushed their way around the straight growth of other branches or trees. I brought them home and arranged them in little sculptures for my house. Judging by the empty beer cans, the site seems also a favorite for the local teenagers. The one homeless man I seem regularly spends his days on a bench just on the border of these woods.

There is a little mystery a little unpredictability that surrounds this patch of trees that makes it the antithesis of the strip malls that lie just on the other side of the river. Here people gather what they need (they don’t buy) or simply spend their days living outside (or at the edge) of the economic system. Here dogs run off-leash, kids break the law, and undomesticated animals make a home between neighborhood streets and a major thoroughfare.