Couhousing community maintained trail.

There’s a neighborhood trail that we pass every day on our walks into town, and every day our six year old asks if this is going to be the day we take it. On our way to get ice cream last night we decided to take that trail. The community maintained path meandered for a few blocks through the natural habitat left between two parcels of land. It eventually led to a co-housing community of cottages sharing common areas and a community garden. The pedestrian neighborhood connected each home with walkways set in a flourishing wild garden. Like most landscapes on the island the flora and fauna blended with it’s natural surroundings. It often feels as if I have come upon an alpine meadow in the Cascades. The co-housing community immediately reminded me of In Watermelon Sugar. I imagined community dinners, a garden, and meeting hall. As the trail wound through the neighborhood we came through such a garden. Well maintained produced was planted in nearly every available space. Asparagus shot up to eye level yearning for the July sun. “Does the trail go through the garden?” I asked one of the residence who was maintaining the grounds. “Oh sure!” The trail ended on the other side of the garden at a gated fence a few blocks away from where we had ventured in.
It didn’t take long to find the Co-housing’s home page once I got home and it seemed most of my instincts of the place had been right. As for the In Watermelon Sugar thing, despite the coyotes moving into the surrounding area, I doubt there will ever be the same problem with tigers. Which also makes me think that I may be living in the land of forgotten things.

Semi related reading:
Winslow Cohousing Group
Richard Brautigan
In Watermelon Sugar
The ins and outs of Richard Brautigan, and his novel In Watermelon Sugar
Two new coyote sightings, and another “coexistence” chat.