While I harvested the flowers, berries, leaves and roots from this ever unfurling / scaling back / unfurling hedge of aromatic wonder woven between the living spaces of my cobb outhouse, the communal outdoor kitchen, our gardens and my cobb cottage home, I also spent just as much time 'cutting back' the 'chaos' being rightfully poked and prodded in return from the protective bramble. I'd spend hours in the humid air gloved covered in thick-canvased Carharts trying to carve paths into the center of giant groves to get the best berries, or cutting them out of and digging them up from the edges of garden beds we allotted for annual food or perennial herbs. I'd find enclaves where the birds made nests, or the deer made tiny beds to rest. I realized through this relationship with pokey and sharp brambles, and my tendency to stay away from parts of the farm that I could not traverse because of the thickets of prickle, that there was a purpose to these hedges.