The Weight of Strawberries

Tuesday in the rainy morning I spent an hour bent among the strawberry plants, picking. I was especially concerned about gathering the still-white ones showing their first touch of blush, from among the plants growing below the Kay Gray and Canadice grapes.

These plants among the grape vines I had meant to weed out. Since I have yet to get to that task, though, I have been taking what fruit I can before the robins eat it all. Last year from these plants we harvested almost nothing: the birds were voracious. This year by picking at first hint of ripening, we are adding to our strawberry stores.

After picking below those grape vines, I picked in the areas that are fenced and netted -- and then walked up the hill to Organic Maple Co-op, the place where I am putting in some days of work. In the course of moving some 400-pound barrels of syrup that day I threw my back out, a little -- enough for a few days of discomfort. The fault, of course, lies with the strawberries. I was bent over in the rainy chill for an hour -- then went and exerted myself. Were only strawberries a more respectable weight -- say, five or ten pounds apiece -- then even in the rainy chill I would have limbered myself up for other tasks of the day. I would have been sweating, wheelbarrowing the strawberry harvest up from the gardens to the basement chutes where I would dump the morning tonnage.

Instead, what are strawberries? Tiny bits of soft and seedy ripeness that at their largest will fit in multiples within the open palm of the hand, weighing probably less than the heads of the robins we would like to decapitate for their marauding incursions. Strawberries as fruit are tiny, low to the ground, leaf-hidden, and connected to their parent plants by whiskery bits of green thinness.

No wonder they break backs.

Cheers ...

Realistic

Is there anything more difficult to acquire than a realistic expectation?

The problem is that you cannot know what to expect of a place unless you have been there -- and unless you know what has transpired in that place since the last time you were there.

The problem is further that if you have an expectation about a place you hope to reach, then you yourself are a part of the conditions leading to your being in that place -- and, too, are a part of the place itself, once you have achieved it and are there.

(I was thinking about publishing, among other matters, in jotting down the above -- and now am visualizing grape vines in late summer laden with fruit, and covered with protective netting -- that the voracious birds get under anyway.)

Cheers ...

Why "Vines, Wines and Lines"

I have spent a lifetime pursuing matters that seem built upon lines: lines of melodies, lines of drawings, lines of words.

When working in the thickets and tangles of plants in the garden I keep seeing parallels to writing -- especially in the last few years, as I have introduced myself (in the excellent company of lifemate Martha) to the realm of grape vines and other flowering and fruiting bushes and trees and vines.

One of the pleasures of creative activity is the enriching light it sheds on other activities ... or other lines.

So.

Blogwriting on these connections -- on vines, wines, and lines -- occurred to me, a year or two ago.

I am not one to hurry into a latest-thing-to-do. Not even into yesterday's latest.

Today, wading in snow, I was clipping back raspberry canes. Entangled in them is netting against birds -- placed there in late summer, and left there as the canes grew higher to entangle them firmly with prickles and leaves. I hoped to clip the netting free, and clip down the canes, much sooner than this.

Today, belatedly beginning this particular small task, I quit before finishing: cold fingers, and a Scottie named Lorna who wanted back inside.

This, here, now: another small task, in its beginning.

Cheers ...