The Keep

Deep in the Pacific Northwest, ten acres of conifer forest stand around a stone castle. Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, grand fir and western larch; moss on the north sides, lichen on the wind-fallen branches, and paths that the deer keep as much as the keepers do. The forest is old enough to have moods, and the Keep has learned to live by them.

The Winning of the Keep

How the keepers came here

The Keep was not easily won. The keepers found it in the hard winter of the plague years, buried to its knees in snow and already promised to another. They asked for it anyway — one keeper tending the mundane work of the world, the other tending the rest. The first promise broke, the way such things sometimes do, and the Keep changed hands as it stood: unseen, uninspected, its history withheld.

Spring showed them what the snow had hidden. The first years were spent hauling away what did not belong here, mending what had been left to fail, and letting the forest breathe again. The Keep asked a price, and the keepers paid it. Few good things come without one.

The Residents

Who lives here

The keepers are not the main residents of these ten acres. In rough order of how much they let the keepers see:

The daily company. The chicken flock, who supervise all outdoor work. Chickadees, nuthatches, juncos, and hummingbirds, who take their share of the keepers’ attention as a toll. Chipmunks and squirrels, who take their share of everything else.

The neighbors. The wild turkey flock, who patrol the grounds like they hold the deed and leave their feathers where they walk. Deer at the fence line, taking a professional interest in the Garden. Crows, who announce everyone. Garter snakes in the sun, frogs at the Pond, rabbits in the margins.

The passersby. Elk and moose, bear and cougar, coyote — the forest is genuinely wild, and sometimes the wild walks through. The keepers find the tracks and are glad of them, mostly after the fact.

The sky hunters. Hawks, owls, and eagles are honored at a distance — magnificent, and politely asked to do their hunting somewhere the chickens aren’t.

And once a year, a groundhog the family calls Sir Plumpsalot arrives to lounge on the deck railing for a single day, as if inspecting the year’s progress, and is gone again by morning. Where he spends the rest of his year, the keepers do not know and have never asked. The day is kept as a small festival.