From The Innkeepers

On Embracing, Not Resisting Change

Or: When Life Gives you Silverberries, Make Silverberry Jam

It has now been just over a month since Aaron and I joined Ryan at the Inn. Marcia, Pat, and Sharon are settling into their new condos in Grand Rapids, and we have unpacked enough to be functional. We hosted our first retreat as a new team, and it was a success! Slowly but surely, we are finding some routines and rhythms here. 

Being self-employed is an adjustment. Suddenly all the structures you once railed against and wished weren’t there are gone. What do you do when no one is telling you what to do?  At first, I felt a bit untethered. I needed some structure. One of the routines I quickly adopted was a daily trail walk. I worried at first it might feel tedious, taking the same route each day. But I soon discovered that even though I walk the same path, I’m surprised by new delights each day.  The sassafras that was green yesterday is glowing a bit orange today. A white mushroom that was just an inch high yesterday has fully unfurled, displaying a yellow and red cap, now only speckled with white. A birch that was standing tall yesterday has lost a major limb in last night’s wind storm. It is a good reminder that everything in nature is in flux.  All at once, Mother Nature is continually growing, changing, dying back, and springing to life. 

We were reminded of this fact when we were looking at some of the Inn’s early photos. In one picture, the “great green meadow,” as my Aunt Marcia called it when they bought the property, was a blank canvas of green grasses.  In contrast, a recent drone photo taken by my friend Jennifer showed a completely different scene.  The once open prairie was now home to a host of huge bushes dotting the landscape like sheep. The autumn olive, now a herd, had clearly begun its takeover of the meadow.  

If you have never heard of autumn olive, consider this your introduction.  Elaeagnus umbellata, most commonly known as autumn olive or Japanese silverberry, is native to Asia and can grow to 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide. It was brought to the U.S. in the early 1800s as an ornamental shrub. In Michigan, conservation districts promoted it through the mid-1900s as a way to control erosion, create wind breaks, and provide food for wildlife.  Unfortunately, by the 1970s its invasive nature was clear.  Autumn olive was spreading aggressively, crowding out native plants.  At the Inn at the Rustic Gate, it arrived over a decade ago, once the meadow was no longer plowed for alfalfa. I remember my Aunt Marcia lamenting its invasion as it started springing up in the now fallow meadow.  Within a few years, it had spread to the paddock, the edges of the  lake trail, and the hillside in the pines, blocking one of the best views of the lake.  

Battles were waged. Marcia began to research how to defend against it. Unwilling to use chemical herbicides on plants surrounded by wetlands, she and Pat went to work trying to cut them down. That effort ended when she was cutting a bush on the side of a hill and lost her footing. It was the first (and hopefully last) time an ambulance had to drive on the lake trail. Later, Ryan and Aaron took up the fight.  Each time we would visit, the guys would spend an afternoon or two hacking down the bushes that grew along the lake and threatened to close in the trail. A few months would pass, the cut stumps would sprout new shoots and more bushes would spring up in new places. The autumn olive bushes did not care at all that we did not want them here. 

After all the thwarted attempts to stop them, it became clear that there was nothing to do but surrender. On our trail walks in our first week here, Aaron and I noticed the bushes were covered in light red berries. We had never been here in September when they were fruiting. With a close look, you could see the silver speckles that give them their prettier nickname, “silverberries.” Off the bush they tasted tart, almost sweet, but not quite. We knew that some people forage autumn olive berries and use them in different recipes. Fruit leather and ketchup were the most common experiments I had heard of. 

We came to the conclusion that we should at least try to make something with them. After all, they were everywhere we looked, they were not going to be stopped, and they were offering something. Maybe we were looking at them the wrong way.  Maybe we could appreciate them for what they give, rather than what they take away. Aaron decided he would make a batch of jam.  He trekked out to the meadow and an hour later brought back two pounds of tiny berries.  After an afternoon of boiling, pressing, mixing, and canning, we were spreading his “silverberry jam” on toast.  

It was delicious.  It was the consistency of apple butter, only much brighter in flavor, something between pomegranate and cranberry.  I loved it. It was genuinely tasty, but I think I loved it more because of the emotional journey we had traveled to embrace it.  We used to see this plant as an enemy, but now we saw it as a gift. I think the shift made it taste that much sweeter. 

In a recent interview clip, I heard Robin Wall Kimmer ask, “How are you going to fall in love with the world if you don’t pick berries?” At the heart of this question is another: How are you going to fall in love with the world if you refuse to see its gifts? Our conflict and ultimate resolution with Elaeagnus umbellata taught us a powerful lesson. We can keep seeing what’s wrong with the world, resisting what we can’t control, and fighting battles we’re destined to lose. Or we can open our hands, receive the gifts within reach, and fall in love with the world.

With gratitude,
Erin, Aaron, and Ryan
Keepers of the Rustic Gate