Guest Post by Greg Orth

Time is a funny thing, it can be as rigidly fixed as concrete, and as ephemeral as thought, and we must look back and forward if we are to succeed.

My wife Kathleen and I moved to Kentucky in 1999, we were dreaming of owning more land with more water so we could do more gardening, yet Colorado, being semi-arid, offered little rainfall, and land was at a tremendous cost. We decided to consider land farther East with enough rain to sustain our dreams and our plants. Though Ashville, NC did not feel the way we had hoped and expected, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill did.

We returned to Boulder with a plan, and it required finding land and designing the home. Then time did its thing. The house sold to the first buyer, and we had 30 days to leave.

The challenges of building our own home on Sunwise Farm and Sanctuary, meant it had to be completed ASAP, before I had to take a full-time job, so we were at the site by 6:00AM, and put in as much time building as we could. I took the first job available, and Kathleen worked at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and has painted nearly every day here for 27 years. Well Done, Kathleen!

We can never predict what time will bring. I never expected to learn that our land was once a Native American village, or that I would take an interest in their lives, looking for the ever-elusive arrowhead, yet little was left except flint chips and flakes.

Some were found where the sun first shines in the morning, some found where the breeze blows in the summer, some near a cool shady spring. They spent their time in places they liked.

Though I have found many trails, including the trail they used to access the Kentucky River, I also found stories, such as, how the Shakers found a Mastodon in a 1500-acre lake, now gone.

The discovery of “The Big Pond” allowed for the understanding of the trails and their placement, all leading to the Big Pond. Early humans living here followed the animal trails to the Big Pond, and found an abundance of resources, water, grass, animals, and soil.

Kentucky Prehistoric Migration Routes map, Greg Orth

Today’s humans living here found the same things. Over the last twenty years I have located and mapped my findings, and apparently it is called “Landscape Archaeology”, and I was doing it without knowledge.

I am encouraged by the accomplishments of my wife Kathleen, whose creative time is well used, and her ability to create daily amazes me. Yet time presses upon her, and her focus now includes answering the call of her legacy. How to preserve and protect what she has accomplished and created, and how to leave her life’s work for future generations.

The announcement of a Data Center of Hyper Scale being considered in the heart of my research area changed the timeline. In order to prevent the bulldozers from wreaking havoc on the shoreline of the Big Pond, creating toxic water, air and soil, and bombarding us with noise, both low and high frequency, I would have to join the fight to prevent it.

Stopping the imminent threat required me to finish and print maps that were not yet ready, and reveal research which I would rather have waited to announce.

Industrial Technology Zone map, Greg Orth

So, the pressures of time have required me to speed up, complete maps now, meet deadlines, not to miss our one chance to help save the community, and by looking back in time, we may guide the future.

Kathleen too feels the added pressure and has responded accordingly, being more informed, more involved and more active, and yes, more creative. Her workload is constant, and fueled by the need to use time to the fullest, be as creative as one can, and preserve and protect what we have achieved, and protect it for the future.

PS: link to Geography of Time, Place, Movement and Networks a previous blog post and Greg Orth’s chapter Amateur Archaeology and the Mystery of Daniel Boone’s Footprints: Persistent Myths Collide with Native American Indian Archaeology