"My name is Jan Spring and I grew up on a working farm in Graves County, Kentucky. I was a young’un digging in dirt, wading the creek, playing with animals and riding my pony. My playmates were boys; we did boy stuff- climbing trees, stalking game, building forts and shooting each other with our BB guns.  Fortunately, we were good shots! Life was idyllic.

Farming, hunting, fishing, caring for animals and the land is in my DNA.  Our farm had two acres of gardens, an orchard, a strawberry patch and filbert bushes by the creek. We raised hogs, cows, chickens, ducks and geese and the crops that fed them- corn, hay, and sorghum. We hunted squirrel in our woods, rabbit, quail and doves in our fields and caught fish at Lake Barclay. We made annual fall trips to the “bottom”- wetlands by the Mississippi River- to gather black walnuts, pecans and big, fat scaly-bark hickory nuts.Some of my fondest memories are of momma, daddy and me shelling peas and snapping beans while watching TV in the summer and cracking and picking nut meats in the fall. We were self-sufficient and resourceful. If we didn’t grow it, pick it, shoot it, catch it or butcher it, we didn’t eat. We had a good life and I had a wonderful childhood.

We started the creek project in 1979. To say it was a major undertaking is a gross understatement. It was like a terrific government project- over budget and way behind schedule. After cutting down eight trees- five were in the creek bed- moving the creek bed 15 ft, digging the side branch to create the island, using 25 tons of Stone Mountain granite to shore up the sides and pouring concrete over the sewage pipe to make the damn, I had a yard scape to work with. Fortunately, I had Jack Halliday as a neighbor and gardener extraordinaire who loved wild azaleas. One of the many things he told me about our area was that it had been covered with native azaleas before the development started. Natives are so pretty and smell so sweet- some people call them wild honeysuckle. I was smitten and determined to rescue and preserve as many as possible.

Initially there were six pink natives growing along the creek in my backyard and one on the island. Two nurseries in north Georgia sold wild azaleas and Jack knew the owners so I bought a lot of my orange bushes from them. My good friend, Jenny Lynn McGee, and I moved four very large pink azaleas from her grandmother’s farm in Gwinnett County. I started following road construction news in Cobb County to stop bulldozers so I could dig up wild azaleas. For years I carried a wash tub, shovels, gallon jugs of water and three kids in the back of my station wagon. My kids played in the car and I rescued wild azaleas. I have a bunch from the Akers Mill area that I dug up when the road along 285 was being widened and others from Whole Foods where the dumpsters are now. There was a cluster of orange natives off Long Island Drive - a new subdivision was going in and even more along Johnson Ferry Road as it kept being widened. Now I have over 60 of all colors- pink, white, yellow, orange, gold, flame, bicolor- magnificent glory in springtime.

I am donating most of them to McFarlane Nature Park because beauty deserves to live, to be loved and enjoyed. The big move is planned for November 14 or 21 depending upon the weather. I met last week with Karin Guzy, chair of the park and Jeff Miller of Blade and Bush who has the transplanting equipment. My helper and I will start pruning in two weeks.

 Visit McFarlane to smell the wild azaleas and cherish our wonderful neighborhood park."