
{"id":10771,"date":"2010-06-03T13:41:26","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T21:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=10771"},"modified":"2010-06-03T13:50:22","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T21:50:22","slug":"returning-your-world-to-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/06\/03\/returning-your-world-to-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning your world to nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>RECENTLY . . .<br \/>\nBy Valarie Schwartz<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nSometimes we get to figure things out for ourselves. <\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Crossroads farm right on time, but neither car nor people could be found where her directions had led. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Buddy was 42 years old \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 142 in human years! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d known him since he was 3 months old and so crazy we couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get him on the trailer. It was the longest relationship I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had with a guy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I did everything you can do to make money with horses,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Kiffney, who grew up with them on a farm near Albany, N.Y. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When kids have experiences with really big animals, they learn that it is not about control, but partnership,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, explaining how no human can physically control an animal so large, but through understanding and cooperation, horses and humans blend resources brilliantly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beautiful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, reflecting upon volumes of examples within memory.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s found her own way to help reverse our direction.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I find the right plant for the right place. I make a decision that not only fits the site but gives the person continuum.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>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. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There are ways to acclimate a house to the climate so you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not having to rely upon closing up the house all year,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n<p>An early client was longtime friend Anna Louise Reynolds.   <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been friends since the late \u00e2\u20ac\u212260s,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Reynolds said. They were both married to doctors and on the same party circuit back in the day. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s smart, funny and still cute.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>When Reynolds designed the house she had built in Fearrington Village in 2001, she brought Kiffney in to design the courtyard. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But she designed much more than the courtyard,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Reynolds said, explaining that Kiffney took her to the N.C. Botanical Garden in order to discover what she liked in nature. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t something Reynolds could explain, other than to say that she hates symmetry.  <\/p>\n<p>Kiffney gave Reynolds what she never knew she wanted. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have places to sit, to eat, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hammock; it looks like a park,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and she considers it an outdoor room \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a true <em>living<\/em> room where no poisons are required for sustainability \u00e2\u20ac\u201c an imperative since Reynolds has developed extreme environmental sensitivities. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have an addiction worse than heroin,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kiffney said of the American lifestyle that among other things promotes conspicuous consumption and the concept of controlling nature with pesticides. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kids are playing on poison carpets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when they play on grassy lawns, she said. <\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re interested in help returning your outside world to nature, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got excellent ideas and boundless energy. <\/p>\n<p>She can help you figure it out. Call 929-6009 or see <a href=\"http:\/\/greenponygarden.com\/\">greenponygarden.com<br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n<em>Contact Valarie Schwartz at valariekays@mac.com or 923-3746. <\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10773\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10773\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2010\/06\/03\/returning-your-world-to-nature\/kiffney1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10773\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Kiffney1-e1275601690624.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Kiffney1\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10773\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10773\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO BY VALARIE SCHWARTZ. Patricia Kiffney at home in her element.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":10773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10771"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10782,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10771\/revisions\/10782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}