Laughing Lhursday*

(Last) smile.

* [For first time visitors]:
Typo in the title? Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Earth apples

Getting curious I dug up the first potatoes.
Looks as if we're going to have a fine harvest.

Kohlrabi

We shall have Kohlrabi for lunch.
Oh!
And this year's first potatoes!

After all

Actually, we did not plant marigold.

The marigold was but some weeks quicker.

By now the potatoes start booming.

How boring!

A day's harvest.

Satisfied curiosity

The first new potatoes tasted well today,
and so did the beans.

Becoming of blackberries

May 27th

June 9th

June 30th

July 10th

July 22nd

Time to be thankful

While digging up what some Germans would call earth-apples,
not only was I murmuring one of my favourite poems,
but thinking of how painful it was to plant them,
not knowing at the time there were some litres of water bubbling in my lungs.
And although I felt this time the digging took ten times longer, I felt thankful.
A good harvest it was, much better than in 2010.

Same goes for apples, pears, walnuts,
of which some got harvested this afternoon.
Not to speak of plums, beans, onions, carrots,
Kohlrabi etc., and ... all these delicious tomatoes.

An urban dweller might, of course, not know
how fruits and vegetables do taste
that have not been spiced with insecticides and pesticides.

Natural Arts

It's done

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

Just a daily phenomenon

The last potatoes digged up, the field rakened and green manure sowed, one morello tree shortened by about two metres, peppermint and sage picked and dried;
... that happened end of August. Ah! And the magic of all those flowers ...

Meanwhile almost four weeks have flown by; since, there has happened quite a lot on this planet quite a few of which you might even have come to "know" as it has been covered in (y)our media.
One daily news you will neither have read in your daily newspaper nor heard elsewhere, though, as being published / told day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade that yesterday approximately 30 / 40,000 children have been dying of starvation would be bloody depressing ... well, at least damn boring, would you agree?

Life is difficult enough to thoroughly enjoy, isn't it? If only I think of that the other day a bit too much sea-salt in the tomatoe soup spoilt my dinner.

Who in our civilised world would be able to care about how many women have been raped in Congo or elsewhere, while I was kept busy with picking plums, for hours? I mean, it's not my or your business. I can't change anything, can I? And neither can you, hm?

Not that I would not feel pity, whenever I come to think of it for some seconds now and then; but that's life, isn't it?

One is getting raped, a second tortured, a third murdered, while I am busy with watching butterflies and (bumble-)bees enjoying their kind of milk and honey that is flowing in Seanhenge, and while you perhaps are struggling with what outfit to choose for tomorrow's dinner party.

Ah, I should not have started this. Did I write 30,000 children per day?
That means, 750,000 children within 25 days, doesn't it? Phew!

Coming to think of it: Isn't it wonderful, magic well-nigh, that despite of this marginal phenomenon not worth to daily make its way into the news, there are living more than six billion human beings on this wonderful planet, thus about four times more than when I was born, about half a century ago?

Thinking positive - and aren't we told to always think positive?! - we are blessed that day by day 30- / 40,000 children are dying of starvation, aren't we?

Ah, no! Really! See? Such easily a post's content is being manipulated by thoughts about marginal daily phenomenons that are not worth mentioning.

Let alone, that I can be absolutely sure that those who are reading this are able to distinguish cynism from sarcasm, it's a great relief to know that most of those poor? nameless? anyway: unnamed creatures - and I am not talking about those 40,000 children who day by day are leaving this planet to enjoy life in this or that paradise, depending of the god their still somehow surviving parents are made to believe in - are analphabets.

In this sense.
A most joyous weekend to those
able to read.
May your god bless you,
and if it (read: your god) were the head of a dead sardine.

Enjoy
the peace of the night ...

in which - provided you are sleeping eight hours - approximately some more than 10,000 children are dying of starvation.

And if this were my last day ...

:)

... I'd like to plant an apple tree.

Kohlrabi for the Poor Mouth

After all, only :) 100 days after I promised Jams O'Donnel Esq. to grow some Kohlrabi more, just for him:

Here you are Jams: Bon appetit!

Even more busy ...

As there's daylight until about 10 p.m., we spend most evenings in the garden. It's berry-time.

After the strawberries,

the black - and ...

red currants and ...

... the morello cherries asked to get picked;

potatos, paprika & peas, beans & borage,
cucumbers and courgettes / zucchini,
kohlrabi & carrots etc. ask(ed) to be freed of weed;
bougainvillea and gentian to repotting them,
the meadows to be mowed, some flowers and bushes
to get planted; and - as it has not been raining
for about ten days, all they are thirsty,
as are

the dear deads on the cemetary. :)

So, after showering and having a little snack, mostly I feel too lazy to do anything else - except after about 30 years re-reading one or two chapters in the Book of Changes / I Ching.

All this just to tell why these days I am even more busy with not blogging than usual, but that it's not impossible this will change.

Although, ...

by looking at our cherries, I suppose ...

Seanberry's

Well, just imagine this were ...

... the last strawberry of this year - which it is not :)

Here's waiting the future red currant jelly.

Ah, how beautiful ... how delicious ...

... and the morello cherries, ...

... and ... ah! the black currant ...

... well, and about two weeks later I shall run
the risk to fall off the ladder when
picking - almost :) - the sweetest of all cherries.

A perfect story

The perfect story contains - as everybody knows - of sex, crime, politics, religion and nobility.
Voilà:
I believe the thyme spake to the wasp: It's no crime when you take me deep, Mylady.


And may I assure you that by telling we had lousy few strawberries this year, so that we not even once had strawberry cake with whipped cream up til now, nor made 25 glasses of strawberryberry jam, nor ate any just so or with milk or with whipped cream, I am as honest as Ajatollah Khamenei, Barak Osama and Vladimir Putin (please add any name you come to think of).

Blue Diamond

Sometimes ... sometimes ...

Ah, why telling my thoughts in 50 sentences, when after clicking on this tiny picture of an unimposing periwinkle within a second you will know them, anyway.

Impression du printemps II

Voilà - and some flowers from Seanhenge.

Lilies

Rose

Bleeding Hearts

Don't-know-flower :)

Pansy

Stonecrops, primrose

Cornflower

Tulip

Aquilegia

Bet you know ... :)

Impression du printemps I

It lasted only 17 days in April; but for you - and me - I saved a bit of the white brightness into May.

Cherry

Apple

Dansom

Strawberries (still blooming)