A Tribute to John
When Kit and I bought our home in the Sierra foothills four years ago, there was much to be done to make it ready for our April move to Northern CA. Old carpets in the 1978 house needed to be replaced with new hardwood flooring. The entire interior needed repainting, plans were set in motion for closets to be redesigned, and exterior painting had to be completed in the short window of time before the sale of Boomerang Creek was completed. We literally had one month to massively downsize, pack our belongings, and drive west from Columbia, MO to Nevada City, CA.
That feat alone was enough to exhaust our energies, but immediately upon arrival, the reverse mountain of tasks got underway as we were faced with unpacking every box we had loaded into a moving van just a week earlier. Blessedly we had the skilled help of Kit’s nephews Joel and Nathan Salter as well as yeoman’s work done in our absence by John Johnson—a rare individual who can literally do anything requiring home remodeling, painting, electrical work, as well as demanding landscape tasks where sources of irrigation and power are needed.
A mix of Paul Bunyanesque strength and the quiet spirit of a gentle giant, John has become family over the past four years. After Kit and I finally got settled, John constructed a raised redwood flowerbed that I’ve since filled with peonies, hellebores, lavender and thyme. Then suddenly when Kit’s health needed my full attention after a serious fall, any thoughts of further landscape projects or entertaining friends on my own were shelved indefinitely.
But this April as gardens in Nevada City and Grass Valley began to explode with dogwoods, lilacs, wisteria, azaleas, poppies, rhododendrons, camelias, and cherry blossoms, I hired John again to help give the sad-looking yard along our driveway new life. Long before we moved in, an old brick planter at the entrance to the driveway had once been filled with tulips. A broken lamp on a post and an old irrigation timer box nearby had once both been controlled by power sources that no longer functioned. We both agreed that these relic garden eyesores should be replaced by a dry-stacked rock support wall at the driveway’s entrance and a round rock plinth added up slope from that structure to support a handsome bronze lantern that I’d just ordered.
To my delight, John has made all of this happen. After hand selecting a truck bed load of local rocks rounded over time by waters that flow along the South Yuba River, he masterfully constructed a stone plinth that now supports a Frank Lloyd Wright style bronze lantern with a power source at the bottom of the driveway that is now connected to a light switch inside the garage. His next project was to remove a flimsy, ineffectual drip irrigation system that no longer functioned. In its place, he installed a new timer unit that controls raised sprinkler heads spaced along pipes he’s buried in a trench dug by hand, reserving spreading ground cover that he has carefully tucked back into place.
While John engineered these landscape feats, I drove to a local garden shop and bought a majestic Cherokee Brave pink dogwood tree that I squeezed carefully into my 2009 Toyota Rav-4 sedan. Within an hour of my arrival back home, John had soaked and planted the dogwood in a mix of organic potting soil and mulch. Nearby, he planted a small red Japanese maple and a mature Chinese Fringe Tree given to me a year ago by a wonderful nursing assistant who helps care for Kit at the Lodge where he’s resided for the past two years. Plans for expanding my flowering garden/orchard above the driveway now include adding a semi-dwarf Pink Lady apple tree suited for Sierra winters at our altitude (3,750 feet), as well as a flowering plum tree and quince bush.
Last week, I hosted a spring gathering for nine wonderful neighbors. Such an undertaking was possible because I’m finally breathing again; and thanks to John, so is our long-neglected yard. Once again, the much-needed laughter of dear friends has been heard in our living room and around our dining room table.
With May’s arrival, warm light once again spills up and down our driveway at night, illuminating a properly irrigated pink dogwood in full bloom. My thanks for all of these miraculous transformations go to John who has brought water and light our driveway entrance this spring. His generosity, kindness and friendship never fail to raise my spirits.