Plants growing through the steps’ gravel treads bring the garden even closer and merge with gravel walkways that offer a choice of hidden destinations. Even in winter, conifers work to mask outer walls and fences, visually stretching boundaries to borrow glimpses of neighbors’ treetops. An implicit logic governs everything underfoot. Flagstones pave areas that, unlike the gravel surfaces here, are shoveled clear of snow. Gravel’s civilized tone seems out of place in the woods, where bark feels more at home, so rather than have different materials run together messily, native stepping-stones mark a neat divide. The wife, an artist who sculpts and paints in her backyard studio, often accompanied Hoerr on trips to Wisconsin quarries to select each weathered rock. Some now provide rustic pedestals for her bronzes, such as the pond-side frog, Ballet Dreamer.
