After Apple Picking

After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

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. 

When life sends you a toxic ploom - plant flowers

It was early spring, we had only begun to prepare the garden for planting. With the studio transformed into guest space, my seedling/grow light station in need of a new home, I traded for plants this year. Eggs and honey! Some beautiful plants were traded and gifted. They were in the house until the ground was ready. I was at UMD the day it happened. Sara and our friend Regina were coming from our house to Duluth for an event. The sky over Superior became covered in a dark cloud. The Husky oil refinery exploded. Superior, WI and surrounding areas were being evacuated.

We didn't think a lot more about it - 20 plus miles downwind - until we saw a map of the ploom. Right over Nammah's Place. The soil likely contaminated. My colleagues at UMD with such expertise recommended we not eat food grown in our soil. "It's just one year. Do something else." Do something else? People who know me know that THIS is not just a hobby or even a passion, it is a way of life. I choose a 10 month contract (2 months less salary) to grow the food I would  otherwise purchase. There is always scarcity in the abundance. Planting, growing, tending, harvesting, canning and freezing...to last the entire year. Maybe two if there are off years. Some people put money in savings. I put away food. It holds the same value - and effort - in my mind.

It's is times like this when you know it is even more than that! Yes it is my choice to be as sustainable as possible with what we eat - rather than working more for money to buy that food. But it is SO much more than that. It is in my cells, my DNA, my hands, my being. The thought that this one little piece of the earth I can have "control" of and do right by - organic - permaculture...but a toxic ploom from an explosion over 20 miles away!?! It threw me into a painful and important level of awareness of what many people in the world experience all the time. Unnatural disasters with disproportionate consequences. Polluted rivers. Eminent domain for pipelines and interstates. My safe and sacred space - my garden - polluted from above and there was nothing I could do about it. Another illusion of control...shattered.

And still the power and resilience of Mother Earth, taught me her lesson once again. "Plant flowers." My chemical engineer colleague said. "The flowers this year will take up the toxicity from the soil so it will be eliminated for plants the following year." This notion made me want to weep. The metaphor of sacrifice for the next generation! And the fortune that only one year was required to rid the risks from our soil. Some aren't so fortunate.

We shifted our plan. Flowers in the raised beds and veggies in the pots.

A salvaged bed frame from pals Tom and David at Whippoorwill Farm and two truckloads of WLSSD composted black dirt and a completed greenhouse (just in time). We were back in the "business" we call a way of life!

Turned out our squash bed was still covered with cardboard and straw from the previous year, so upon removing it, we had a patch of uncontaminated garden soil IN the garden as well.

It WAS a year of abundance! Tomatoes and peppers like never before (they loved the greenhouse. Next year they will be back there and out of pots!) 

The freezers are full and the pantry is stocked. My summer vocation salvaged! 

 #Gratitude!