On April 12, the Plantation Garden Club met in Grenada for a field trip to the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve. First on our agenda was a lunch at the Square Market downtown Grenada on the Square serving up every kind of salad, sandwich, dessert tea or coffee you’d ever want. I’m going back for the fun, relaxed atmosphere when I can devote time to shopping Grenada.
Robin Whitfield, local acclaimed artist and now also nonprofit operator, was our tour guide for the afternoon. Following her out of the restaurant’s side door and across the alley, we were invited to her art gallery and studio. This is where nature begins. You see it, you feel it, you are surrounded by all things earthen — not a plastic pot in sight. Pots, glass jars and wooden bowls hold nature collected in its season of growth for the color it produces. Different dirt, different colors.
One series of 12 greeting cards took Robin five years to complete, averaging three cards a summer as she patiently explored and waited for the perfect flower or berry to provide the needed color. Each card has a bird, an insect and a flower. When arranged in order, it can be hung as a poster.
We had learned so much already and hadn’t reached the preserve yet.
Back in our vehicles, we consulted GPS directions but before we got a clear map we were there. It’s that close; just right on the edge of town at a place once used for dumping trash.
A little way down a road was a clearing with tree stumps in a semi circle where Robin held us spellbound of how this area turned from a dump lake to a preserve, with trees scheduled to be cut saved by environmentalists who stepped in, created a many long years lease and a board.
Working with other artists, Scout groups, schools and adults, colorful quilts were made in addition to the logs for seating but were so very artistic they were hung and displayed. Many limbs create gate openings and backdrops of interest like a rising sun. So much work was done in these first years.
Others took notice as time passed and bought property across the street and gave it to the preserve, which is reviewing a variety of uses including storage for the with kayaks and canoes donated by Delta State. All of these unplanned details of Robin becoming a nonprofit and having a team of individuals who love and believe in what they do is nothing short of a God thing, just like the nature and berries and birds they strive to protect.
There is a host of activities on the calendar for children and adults. If you are just wanting a place to be quiet, the preserve is on an oxbow of Grenada Lake, on peaceful swampy ground of still water, where rare things grow and new plans are in place for boardwalks to take you deeper into your thoughts.
Just like their mascot, the prothonotary warbler, the preserve survives above water amid decaying trees, saved from destruction. The prothonotary warbler can only survive in decaying trees above water, as the decay creates the holes that become home to these beautiful yellow song birds. Another God thing.
