After Apple Picking
September 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
-Robert Frost, 1914
(I am about to go to an orchard myself. I can hardly wait – but here is the difference between a few hours of leisurely picking and the farmer’s long day of work.)
III. Nature, XXVIII, Autumn
September 8, 2012 § Leave a comment
The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.
-Emily Dickinson
September on the St. Croix
September 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
Yesterday evening we went hiking.
This is what one ought to do on one of the last weekends of summer, when the sun is warm and the breeze begins to feel cool.
Interstates Park (the states being Minnesota & Wisconsin) is full of climbable rocks, trails along the St. Croix River, a small lake, and many trees.
As the sun slanted its low evening light, we followed the terrain up and down.
Scrambled just enough to where I felt scared, momentarily, on a too-steep wall, which gives such a nice rush of adrenaline. Rested at the top.
The view!
We wandered back down the trail to another along the Lake of the Dalles, listening to children play at the beach and the shouts and conversation of kayakers. I tried to sit on a rock and read, but a certain golden retriever kept trying to pull me into the water.
So, we made our way down to the pet-friendly picnic area and watched the mist and the evening settle over the St. Croix.
Peanut butter and honey and a sweet sixteen apple.
I read Brennan Manning, whose words have often brought my spirit solace and joy.
“It is always true to some extent that we make our images of God. It is even truer that our image of God makes us. Eventually we become like the God we image. One of the most beautiful fruits of knowing the God of Jesus is a compassionate attitude toward ourselves. . . . Healing our image of God heals our image of ourselves.” (Manning, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus)
It is right for me to be in these places of beauty. It is right to make time to reflect. And to remember my truest identity, which has been established by a Creator’s love.
Where Go the Boats?
August 12, 2012 § 2 Comments
Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating–
Where will all come home?
On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.
– Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses
August
August 8, 2012 § 2 Comments
“With the coming of August thunder showers crashed and flashed and poured after sunset or in the depths of night, but most of the days were warm and bright, with daisies and everlasting and yarrow scattered in the open spaces like scraps of lace set out to whiten in the sun.” – Helen Hoover, A Place in the Woods
Summer Sun
July 24, 2012 § 2 Comments
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy’s inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses
Castles in the air
July 19, 2012 § Leave a comment
“There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep,
Aren’t any floors for me to sweep,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
There is a room that’s full of toys,
There are a hundred boys and girls,
Nobody shouts or talks too loud,
Not in my castle on a cloud.”
-Little Cosette, Les Miserables
Do any of you ever imagine yourself in a different space or time, in a castle on a cloud, as the mistreated little Cosette does? Or build “castles in the air,” as Jo March and her sisters do in Little Women? I do – you see them here from time to time, in my perpetual dropping of that handy little word, “someday.”
Someday I will have two dapple gray Percherons with white manes in a red barn with a Christmas wreath on it. Someday I will tie my small sailboat to the end of my sister’s dock, because she will live just down the road on the lake. I will visit her lake house with my kids and she will visit my farmhouse with hers. Someday I will have copper pots hanging from the beams, and a big fireplace, and a claw-foot tub, and a very long table to seat my very best loved ones.
I am curious to know: What do you have in your castle? What are your somedays?
As much as I love to play this game, I think sometimes it makes me forget about the good real earth, the solid ground I’m standing on and how I can build castles right here. Many somedays just require my taking the time to make them come about. So. Dreamers, dream. And then, if you can, draw your castles, and your plans, adjust as you must, and start to build them from wherever you are.
Breathing spell
July 7, 2012 § 2 Comments
“I believe that the great Creator has put ores and oil on this earth to give us a breathing spell. As we exhaust them, we must be prepared to fall back on our farms, which is God’s true storehouse and can never be exhausted. We can learn to synthesize material for every human need from things that grow.” – George Washington Carver
This is a fascinating statement. Thoughts?
Summer Evening
July 3, 2012 § Leave a comment
The sandy cat by the Farmer’s chair
Mews at his knee for dainty fare;
Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.
In the dewy fields the cattle lie
Chewing the cud ‘neath a fading sky;
Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:
Gone is another summer’s day.
– Walter de la Mare
Conflict and resolve
June 22, 2012 § Leave a comment
“The most tragic conflict in the history of conservation is that between the conservationists and the farmers and ranchers. It is tragic because it is unnecessary. There is no irresolvable conflict here, but the conflict that exists can be resolved only on the basis of a common understanding of good practice. Here again we need to foster and study working models: farms and ranches that are knowledgeably striving to bring economic practice into line with ecological reality, and local food economies in which consumers conscientiously support the best land stewardship.” – Wendell Berry, “Hope,” The Fatal Harvest Reader
* * * * *
I just want to add: yes. And you know, as far as we have to go, in my experience there are already many moving in this direction. Berry’s essay was published in 2002. Ten years later, I’ve come across an encouraging number of farmers who want to work with conservationists, and conservationists who are working to understand the needs of farmers. Have we adequately defined “a common understanding of good practice”? Oh, no. That will long be a conversation in progress, a dynamic and region-specific process. But to begin to agree on some fundamental principles of good practice, alongside an awareness of what humans need to survive both in the present and long-term, is a foundation that, I think, many have begun to build. And we’ll keep on building it, as more and more of us realize that we must.
Kinds of Honey 