Shepherd's Corner

On the fourth day that we arrived in Columbus, still a little car lagged, slightly limp from the humidity, and brain squishing around from all the change, I had an interview at a place called Shepherd's Corner. I really, really wanted to work there. It is owned by the Dominican Sisters of Peace, most of whom are located in the Mother House near downtown. (I'd never heard that term before, and at first I guffawed just a little as I thought of a "Mother Ship" and little alien nuns all living there. Turns out it is a beautiful brick building with elderly ladies all living there, living fascinatingly devoted lives that hardly anyone ever knows about.) Turns out, a few of these nuns decided to invest in land after WWII. They bought about 100 acres of farmland that now, in 2009, is worth millions of dollars. Surrounding the Corner is nothing but development. But here, where the nuns staked their claim, is an oasis of green, refusing to succumb to concrete, inviting in the wild, and providing a place for people to remember their connection to land, animals, weather, and people. It is a remembering place.

During my interview for the position of "Agricultural Assistant," Eric, the Head Farmer, took me on a tour of this foreign and beautiful place. The Corner is 163 acres of native Ohio restoring itself to original plants, wetlands, prairies, and forest (except for the four or so acres we use to grow vegetables and raise animals--sheep, uno llama named Fernando, 22 or 23 chickens depending on which side you take, and three infirm turkeys that were four infirm turkeys just last week, but more on that later).

Part of my job as Ag Asst. is to keep up the network of trails that connect all the wild life to humans passing through. Miles of trails and a natural labyrinth that is 1/2 a mile in and out, funny enough. Anyway, as we walked I was stunned by GREEN, the sight and smell and sound of green. Crickets and frog, trees swaying every which way. There was absolutely no sight of my native brown and gold hills, no bare patch of ground anywhere, and an interesting looking leaf with funny red spots all over it. I suppose I wanted to impress Eric with how observant I was, so I reached down, put the leaf between my forefinger and thumb, rubbed it around and asked, "What's this? What are the spots?"

"That's poison ivy my friend," Eric said, very calmly. Instant adrenaline, slight panic controlled for the interview's sake, and suppressing a tremble in my voice I said, "Oh! Um, now what do I do?" And that's when I got a little taste of Farmer Eric's wisdom. "Well," he said, very slowly I thought at the time, "whenever nature provides a poison (only humans react to poison ivy, by the way, animals don't even notice it), she also provides an antidote. There's Jewel Weed up here along the trail, rub that on there and it oughta do it." And there was Jewel Weed, and it did mush up nicely, leaving a green and orange tinted smear all over my hands.

The interview went great (despite the poison ivy) and I did get the job. On my way out that day I shook Sister Rose Ann's hand absentmindedly and worried for a week whether or not I had poisoned a nun with my ivy-contaminated hand. 4 hours later, I had no reaction to the ivy, so either I'm immune or that Jewel weed really works. There is a lot to learn about the land out here, a lot of silencing the noise in my head in order to hear the land sing, to hear the harmonies it has with the people who putter around on it 40 hours a week or more. What a way to learn about Ohio--to dive, head first, into her soil, creeks, trees, and wildlife. I feel so very lucky to be able to do so.