Making cider poems

Apple ... There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Different cultivars are bred for various tastes and uses, including in cooking, fresh eating and cider production. Domestic apples are generally propagated by grafting, although wild apples grow readily from seed.-from Wikipedia

"Up the hill,
Up the hill not 
To the right,
Nor to the left"
We sought the party
Out of sight.

At last familiar truck
With bright kayak
Two bikes
Atop his rake
We made our way
On a perfect Fall day.

I wish there were
Photos to recall the day
The day of ruckus wind
Bending Alders
Chasing wildness
Through stands already topped.

Buckets of apples
Colors of yellow-greens,
Mottled almost marble reds,
Large as a boy's baseball mitt
Nibbled by hunger squirrels
Apples.

Unfettered  wasps
Sought some sweetness
In bags of fruit
They left one sting
We wash, chop, grind, press
Cider makers.

Chattering girls
Women in boots
A farmer in flipflops
City visitors
Island neighbors
Make juice.

At last the final
Apple cleaned
The quarters
Ground and pressed
Pink juice
And apple pie

Made for
Autumntime smiles
Cider in tiny
Glass apple jars,
Empty water jugs
Harvests of the year.


As I sorted through my dreams and waited for the oatmeal to cook I visited Rima Staines and found these words and photographs. Inspired by her autumntime renderings and photographs the scolding dreams lost their sting and so this blog made its way ... up the hill, not right nor left.

And, just for fun, rewound and snipped. A poem can be made twice by taking the tail off each stanza and making cider poems. Try it yourself, with friends, or after a dish of oatmeal or sip of cider.

Harvests of the year
And apple pie
Make juice
Cider makers
Apples
Through stands already topped
On a perfect Fall day
Out of sight.

UKULELE

One of the things that has added fun to life is playing ukulele.  We left Everett more than a year ago, and one of the gifts that came with us is an old soprano ukulele.  Slowly, I began plucking at the strings.  Slowly, I added whistling with the plucking.  I knew three chords:  C major, C7 and F.  My tentative strumming warmed me up, stirred things long asleep.  Three chords, whistles and melodies from the somewheres just wanted to play!  A year later, I play a few more chords, whistle and sing to my kitty, my Pete and the hundreds of trees that are my favorite company. 

People around our community are asking, "Do you play (ukulele)?"  I've said, "Yes, and I sing, too."  Last fall my son was visiting and he said, "Mom, I didn't know you could sing?"  So many parts of a person wait.  And then, time comes when the waiting parts say, "Now, for something completely different."  I'm humming, whistling and practicing the song E KU'U MORNING DEW, written by Larry Kimura and Eddie Kamae.  My friend Lizzie is practicing that song too, on her baritone ukulele.  Someday the two of us will be in the same place with our ukulele and then watch out.  Led Kaapana's rendition is inspiration, and pure enjoyment for me.  Hope you enjoy it, too. 

Do you play?

Do your best in all things … BELIEVE YOUR BEST IS ENOUGH.

"Let's paint the stainless ..."

Playing with milk paint colors in the blender

Squash Seed Inspiration ...
no thought to WHETHER it will grow
(That's the squash on the left with a friend from the compost pile on the right.)

We are playing in VARDOFORTWO. The stainless steel walls are pieced and fitted, a fresh coat of milk paint covers the ceiling and I have been playing with colors. "Maybe we could just paint the steel," Pete said. An accident while painting the ceiling opened up one more option. `Aue ... alas, maybe. So I took the idea and played with the funky blue and ceiling color to come up with combination that is more like teal brushed it over two pieces of scrap stainless steel. The pieces are drying inside VARDOFORTWO.

The joy of things popped up quickly ... I nearly missed it as I headed to the sink to wash out the blender and squeeze the sponge brush clean. Fortune of fortune though, I did not miss the joy in the moment. It's that simple and small, in the midst of the struggle like squash seeds buried in compost, the tiny seed head BuRSTS through the dark dirt. That seed has no thought to whether it will grow, it knows. While mixing milk paint and making a color yet to be the seed of HAVING FUN JUST SHOWED UP FOR ME. We were just doing our best and the rest ... happens.

We have an idea planted for where we could milk paint steel...and more shall be revealed.