Moss Whispers

Introducing THE POTION HOUSE of Thunder Mountain! Potions don’t just ‘happen’…they are products of the alchemists of time! Maybe that’s just my fancy way of saying that they began brewing even BEFORE the births of each of our Six Grand Children! In fact, they probably started even before we acquired The Little House that we first moved to our Pleasant Green House at Riverbend Station back in 1983 before Will was born. Only when we happened to notice this clue written just outside its door, did we realize what was magically happening to The Little House….

Let me back up a bit to give a history of how this brew came to be……… There have been so many wonderful happenings in the last few months that I haven’t wanted to miss a chance to capture them in words and pictures before they fleet on.., mingle with the clouds and lose their place in my memory. Christmas day was such a day! The magic of grandchildren exploring the land makes my heart dance and my memories merry.

When we moved here from our Riverbend Station on Pleasant Green Road, I thought we’d be leaving all our memories of children there and I’d just need to keep them alive in my heart. Never know what blessings grow in the future of the unknown. But JUST in CASE, Alex and I decided to move ‘the little house’ that the railway people gave us for free. It used to be on the side of the railroad tracks near Caboose 359. It had already had a lifetime of memories itself…as a Switch Office by the railroad tracks near where Hwy 55 is in Durham. When we moved it to Pleasant Green Road, to Riverbend Station, it briefly became a tool/garden shed…morphed into a play house for our kids, a studio for my artist friend, and lastly my Fiddlehead Fern Fairy Shoppe! Then after we hauled it to Thunder Mountain and nestled it among the trees, atop the hill and beautiful moss-covered boulders, it first served as a Sleeping House, though I was mostly the only one who wanted to sleep there! I remember only a few winter nights sleeping under a comforter fluff, and walking out under the trees with their amazing shadows dancing around me enlightened and enlivened by a gorgeous winter solstice full moon! Owls were actively conversing. When weather warmed and bugs and snakes crept forth, Sleeping House slept no more and gradually became ‘The Place to Put It’ …It and all things that were in the way of Life’s next steps. UNTIL…Fall of 2019! Alex and I emptied it out, vacuumed, power-washed and then bleached the walls to eliminate mold and other crud-critters growing there! It was then that I put up one of the favorite garden signs I had given my mom which held the wise word: METAMORPHOSIS. We were hoping the Grand Kids would enjoy it in whatever fashion they chose.

We added a table, a shelf and a few small cast iron pans, thinking the grandkids might enjoy turning it into an outdoor kitchen. Next came the children, Nora, Finley, Andrea and Oliver…cooking up their own ideas for the ‘lil house’….

It LOOKED like they were cooking as they filled each bowl or skillet with berries, leaves, moss, acorns, and more! They were cooking alright! But much more than just ‘pretend food’…they were cooking up ‘real magic’….POTIONS! that is! Soon signs began to appear inside and out of The Potion House!