Postcard from Ragdale #2: Rainy Saturday

It's been raining here at Ragdale, pretty consistently, since mid-afternoon yesterday. This is good writing weather--it keeps me inside--and we're supposed to have one more day of rain tomorrow. Then a sunny week ahead, which is good, because it's going to take a day or two for the prairie to dry out enough that I can go for a walk. Yesterday I had the good sense to walk the grounds and take some pictures before the rain began. (I also had the good sense to decide against a walk on the prairie when I saw how dark the sky had gone--otherwise, I would have been soaked to the bone by the time I got back to the house.)

Yesterday, reading on the back screened porch, I kept getting distracted by the sound of trickling water. Then I decided that I was being distracted for a reason--a fountain exists to be looked at and listened to, after all. So I ran upstairs and got my camera and headed around to the south end of the house. This "purling fountain" sits right in front of an outdoor porch--as I mentioned yesterday, there's no end of spots in which to sit and enjoy the outdoors at Ragdale. It's one of the things I love most about this place. The inscription on the fountain reads "Purling fountain cool and gray/Tinkling music in thy spray/Singing of a summer's day."

Near the foot of the outdoor patio on this end of the house is a cement block that holds the impression of many, many hands. I got all choked up when I saw it--maybe because it reminded me that Ragdale was, for a long time, a family home, and this is such a common and familiar thing for a family to do. It turns out these handprints belong to the children and grandchildren of Alice Hayes, granddaughter of Howard Van Doren Shaw, who designed and built the Ragdale house for his parents and his family to use as a summer place (hence the abundance of porches.) They made these handprints as part of a farewell family gathering just before Alice donated the Ragdale house to the city of Lake Forest.

From there I walked across the back yard and into the garden. The garden gate has an "R" woven into the wrought iron design at the top and two little Chinese lions beside each gatepost. The trees on the Ragdale grouns are just starting to turn (the green leaves have that tired, yellowy color that means they're just about to give up), but the garden is still full of flowers. Also, as is the case in just about every corner of Ragdale, it's full of scultpure: I found this little guy hiding under an oak tree. (I actually had to kneel down and get under some low-hanging branches to take this picture--that's how hidden he is.) In the Ragdale living room there are scultpures of bears, a dog and a chicken, so I'm guessing that Sylvia Shaw Judson, the sculpter, was a great lover of all animals. I'm impressed that the sculptures aren't on display so much as they're just part of the scenery--this deer is placed exactly where an actual deer would be, hiding away out of sight.

Also in the garden: this sundial, designed by Shaw. The inscription reads "Hours Fly/Flowers Die/New Ways/New Days/Pass By/Love Stays." You'll notice that the grass around sundial isn't pristine, and that's pretty much the case throughout the Ragdale grounds; everything is very beautiful and well-kept, but not perfect. This looks like a place where real people live. I think that's why the writers and artists who come here marvel at how quickly they settle in and feel at home.

I left the garden and meandered toward the back of the grounds, where the split rail fence divides Ragdale from the prairie preserve, and that's where I made the decision to turn back rather than brave the prairie in the face of what looked like an impending downpour. On my way back toward the house, I passed this profusion of flowers (and for those of you worried about the dwindling bee population--I really think it's okay. They're all up here, having a snack, and they seem quite happy.) Lots of other flowers in all colors, too, many of them taller than me--that's the really cool thing about the prairie, how tall the flowers grow when they're left to do their own thing. Not to mention the variety of flowers. I didn't even know that phlox grew wild before I saw the prairie last time.

Heading around the north end of the house, I made a final stop to photograph the "Bird Girl" statue that sits in front of the Barnhouse. This is probably Sylvia's most famous statue, thanks to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She's smaller than you might imagine, and I think I'd prefer her without the flowers. The Ragdale office sells replicas of this statue (in addition to sweatshirts and other Ragdale paraphernalia), and I'm fairly certain I'll have a copy of "Bird Girl" sitting on my entryway table at some point.

Once the prairie has time to dry out, I'll post more photos. I'm sorry now that I didn't take the time to walk the trails on Thursday afternoon, when I first arrived. I was so tired from travelling that I opted for a nap instead. With any hope, the trails will be dry and travel-worthy within a few days. It wouldn't be a Ragdale experience without some time on the prairie.