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Returning your world to nature

Posted on June 3, 2010June 3, 2010 by Staff

RECENTLY . . .
By Valarie Schwartz

Sometimes we get to figure things out for ourselves.

When I made the date to meet Patricia Kiffney at the farm where she spent over a quarter century raising ponies and helping children learn the ways of horses, she told me that she would be coming in from town and should be back around 2:30. My trip along back roads got me to her Dodson’s Crossroads farm right on time, but neither car nor people could be found where her directions had led.

The two dogs of the home greeted me with wags and yawns; the cats at the potting shed were equally laissez-faire. But the garden sculpted gently into the woods, accented by pieces of art, spoke volumes, declaring that this most decidedly had to be the right place, the home of the woman behind Green Pony Garden and Finnabar Farm. So I relaxed and enjoyed my wait, sitting on a weathered bench under an ancient wild rose vine.

The history of the farm unfolded later as she prepared us tea and shared that the longest relationship of her lifetime with a male unrelated by blood had ended this past winter when Buddy, a Welsh Pony, had died.

“Buddy was 42 years old – that’s 142 in human years! I’d known him since he was 3 months old and so crazy we couldn’t get him on the trailer. It was the longest relationship I’ve had with a guy,” she said laughing. They worked hard together, through divorce from the doctor/husband who brought her from New York to Durham in the 1960s; the raising of five children; and, since 1983, creating Finnabar Farm, where she boarded ponies, trained children to care for and ride them, held summer camps, and, with Buddy working almost to the end, led therapeutic riding classes.

“I did everything you can do to make money with horses,” said Kiffney, who grew up with them on a farm near Albany, N.Y. “When kids have experiences with really big animals, they learn that it is not about control, but partnership,” she said, explaining how no human can physically control an animal so large, but through understanding and cooperation, horses and humans blend resources brilliantly. “That’s beautiful,” she said, reflecting upon volumes of examples within memory.

Even before Buddy came to the end of his road, Kiffney, 77, had moved into new territory. It started casually, maybe 15 years ago, helping family and friends with their gardens, but now her work involves creating outdoor spaces that reflect the vision of her clients – as long as the client envisions sustainable rather than exotic plantings. One of her great concerns is the size of the footprint being placed upon Earth by humankind, a subject she knows well and can get plenty wound up about. She’s found her own way to help reverse our direction.

“I find the right plant for the right place. I make a decision that not only fits the site but gives the person continuum.”

Her garden plans include the house so that trees are planted to provide it shade in the summer and allow southern exposures in the winter. “There are ways to acclimate a house to the climate so you’re not having to rely upon closing up the house all year,” she said.

An early client was longtime friend Anna Louise Reynolds.

“We’ve been friends since the late ’60s,” Reynolds said. They were both married to doctors and on the same party circuit back in the day. “Pat’s smart, funny and still cute.”

When Reynolds designed the house she had built in Fearrington Village in 2001, she brought Kiffney in to design the courtyard.

“But she designed much more than the courtyard,” Reynolds said, explaining that Kiffney took her to the N.C. Botanical Garden in order to discover what she liked in nature. It wasn’t something Reynolds could explain, other than to say that she hates symmetry.

Kiffney gave Reynolds what she never knew she wanted.

“I have places to sit, to eat, there’s a hammock; it looks like a park,” and she considers it an outdoor room – a true living room where no poisons are required for sustainability – an imperative since Reynolds has developed extreme environmental sensitivities.

“We have an addiction worse than heroin,” Kiffney said of the American lifestyle that among other things promotes conspicuous consumption and the concept of controlling nature with pesticides. “Kids are playing on poison carpets” when they play on grassy lawns, she said.

Kiffney has a pretty good idea that she will spend some time along the gulf coast this summer helping work with wildlife affected by the recent oil spill; but if you’re interested in help returning your outside world to nature, she’s got excellent ideas and boundless energy.

She can help you figure it out. Call 929-6009 or see greenponygarden.com

Contact Valarie Schwartz at valariekays@mac.com or 923-3746.

PHOTO BY VALARIE SCHWARTZ. Patricia Kiffney at home in her element.

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