Osage-Orange 3: home again

HOME AGAIN

The Osage-orange tree's fruit which I discovered at Peachtree Creek in October and seemed to symbolize Harvest 2009 was taken back to the park. Rotten contentment.
Who knew it would inspire a song?
That - and the "Apples and Fireworks" store up in thar' hills with that singin' deer bust...

MAKE A WISH


when the great seamstress falls down on her knees
and spills all the apples she picked off the trees, the fireworks she bought
that she holds in her arms like a baby ignite and make light in the night
(and the appppples are rotten but they look white)
Down from the mountain she drove past a store
selling fruits and explosives and not much more
highway 25 dressed in a coat of orange grandfather's burgundy boots carry me
softly with his memory (it's been a year already)

and midwestern trees with an orange bark grow discreetly in an Atlanta suburban park
with a creek named after a fruit whose trees in this area have all been cut down
and no longer grow...
...and the girl in the band with a banjo in hand
drives an arrow-shaped van down the mountain
blues from a bow, it lands by a deer in the snow
"this is your chance," she says, "now let's go."

make a wish, make a wish, make a wish and place your fruit in the spiral
make a wish, make a wish, make a wish and hope that you'll be back tomorrow

won't you take me to a place to a far away place with nothing to remind me and I hope no one will find me but the gods in the garden and pay for my lodging cause I need recharging and ground me out like a telephone pole coming down from a mountaintop i am psyche so i was told bored of gourds and tired of boys

sunset
fawn rising

(if you have any questions about all of this, feel free to ask away!...)

"Desert-shore girl" music video - shows this week at AGIFF!

The video I produced for the song "Desert-shore Girl" will be showing at the Ava Gardner Independent Film Festival in Smithfield, NC this Friday (November 20)!

"Desert-shore Girl" (which I wrote and recorded with my band Found Objects of Desire) was inspired by Florida's parks, less-developed beaches, and natural springs.
Some of my photos and writing that accompany the video and experience are in earlier entries on this blog (September 2009).

Also, a video for "Meandering" - another Found Objects of Desire song, lensed/directed by my friend Athena Reel and featuring mountains in and around Asheville, NC - will show at the festival this weekend.

Here is the "Desert-shore girl" video for all to enjoy!!
Thanks to Kelly, the staff at Manatee and Wakulla Springs, Athena, Jamie, Ashes, and anyone else who helped out with this.

Vogel in October / Leaf Watch GA

A little late, but....


Today is the final day of the Georgia State Parks' Autumn Leaf Watch contest.
(if you've taken photos of leaves at any of the state parks this fall)
Post your photos on Flickr - find out more at

http://www.gastateparks.org/LeafWatch/

VOGEL STATE PARK, GA - OCTOBER 2009

Vogel is the second-oldest Georgia State Park, developed by the CCC and a notable mountain tourist destination in the 1940's and 1950's. It's on the Nottelee River side of Blood Mountain, centered around the little Lake Trahlyta - though the park's several miles away from Trahlyta's grave/home/spring. There's a place to swim in the summer, but the waterfall below is really picturesque and only a short walk away!

photography by zbilly (Billy Gilbert)
wardrobe = "shamanic secretary"
special appearance by Petey the Puppy



2009 Arianna Fawn
RIP granddad

Autumn in North Georgia, Part 1: Deer Season

DEER SEASON
Fall 2009
Looking for that great salt-lick in the woods. All you silly hunters keep away!

All photography: zbilly (Billy Gilbert)
Custom deer dress by Hampton + Mascioli
Locations: Brasstown Bald (highest place in Georgia), Blood Mountain, Choestoe Valley




2009 Arianna Fawn

Osage-Orange 2: update

I returned to Peachtree Creek yesterday, and here is a photo of the Osage-Orange fruit with its majestic tree in the background:


The fruits:


The bark:


And here is a photo of the historic Standing Peachtree site, from Ridgewood Road:

I called the number on the Fort Peachtree website:
http://www.buckhead.net/history/fort-peachtree/index.html
but no answer.
Alas,
Arianna R.F.
10/21/09

Standing Peachtree / Osage-Orange

ADVENTURES IN ATLANTA: Standing Peachtree

Today I tried to visit the place where Peachtree Creek flows into Chattahoochee River, off Marietta Blvd in West Atlanta/Buckhead next to the giant City of Atlanta water treatment plant.
This is the origin of the city, occupied by Creek Indians and visited by white traders until 1814, when Fort Peachtree was built by the military to drive the Creeks out.
The Creek village was known as "Standing Peachtree" due to a single tree (peach or not) on top of a hill or mound overlooking the river. Peachtree Street and all of its descendants are, of course, a reference to this.
Supposedly Fort Peachtree can be visited by the public, but when I drove across the bridge on Ridgewood Drive, I only found a large fenced-off forested area with signs saying "City of Atlanta: Keep Out." No park, no visible fort or even a reference to a public attraction...just a historical marker further on Ridgewood Drive talking about the fort as if it is covered by homes and a neighborhood.
I have a hunch that the Fort, and the settlement remains, and the river confluence, are all behind that fence with the "Keep Out" sign, and that the water treatment plant and overflow facility has taken over the site, deeming it "unsafe" for people to access.
This is a shame, if so - another example of natural and cultural history being carelessly covered in the name of development and industry, not to mention an implication of environmental destruction of the River basin...which, upon research, has been argued multiple times by the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper organization.

Oh, a trip into nature in my beautiful city of Atlanta.

OSAGE-ORANGE REDEMPTION

Luckily, as I drove back through Buckhead following Peachtree Creek upstream, urban park areas began, as the "Atlanta Memorial Park." At one point along the Creek, by Northside Drive, a few Osage-Orange trees grow (and are identified). They have this amazing bumpy large green fruit! The trees are thick and twisty with brown and orange bark. These trees are common in the Mississippi Valley and in the prairies but rare here. I wish I had brought my camera, but I'm going back soon.
Meanwhile, I am going to start referring to Northside Drive as "Osage-Orange Avenue."

-Arianna, R.F.

A Turn to Tennessee, A Fiery Gizzard in the Rain

Imagine being the first autumn leaf at the bottom of these falls.












ttttennesssseee parks I visited last weekend, for the second time - Red Clay Council Ground in April was the first, the last gathering place for the Cherokee before the Trail of Tears was begun - and it was raining but that didn't stop me. I was standing in North Chickamauga River in a gorge with fog covering the peaks above and the water was warm.











Faith is a flat-iron in the valley rain. Hope is a blow dryer. Loneliness is a soggy daisy in Soddy-Daisy. And contentment is this spider on its riverside rock.








After this I was led up Monteagle Mountain, the truckers' favorite hill to hate, and at the top a mountain man suggested this white-dressed witchy woman wander to Grundy Forest and the Fiery Gizzard. One of the South Cumberland Plateau State Parks between Chattanooga and Nashville, on Scenic Hwy 41, it was like a mist tent going down the trail to the creek but I wasn't the only one out here in the rain.











Some waterfalls.....
Dog Hole (or Blue Hole)
















School Run























Foster Falls




and thennn....