Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

I love cherries.

I heard on public radio the other day that the cherry crop this year is abundant. All the cherry trees bloomed at the same time and so all the cherries are ripe for market at the same time. And cherries from the northwest are flooding the stores and are very cheap.

Unfortunately, not cheap around here.

I could eat bowls of cherries by myself. And I have.

On the little farm back in Michigan, my Grandpa had planted many fruit trees: lots of apple trees, a couple of pears, and some cherry trees. In the yard behind the house were the cherries. By the time my parents bought the house and all of us kids were born, only three cherry trees remained. Two were those dark sweet cherries – maybe Bing – and one was the yellow with red blush. The trees were great for climbing all summer; the massive lower limbs seemed arranged just right for our bare feet and grasping hands.

The best time to climb, of course, was when the cherries were ripe. Sometimes I’d climb up the tree, pick cherries, and eat them right up there, spitting the pits across the weedy lawn.

We'd pick and pick the cherries, and have large serving bowls of cherries in the fridge. And Mom would can the cherries and in the winter we'd have bowls of soft, syrupy cherries for dessert. Or when I'd feign illness and stayed home from school, I'd open a jar of those cherries, sneak it upstairs, and eat all the cherries, right from the jar. And then feel slightly ill.

I'd do it again.

I love cherries.

Thrifty finds

Don't you love the tin! It's the Queen Elizabeth. Found it one day, and then the red box the next. I heart hearts.



I'd like to eat a couple of Benson's 'Quality Confections' right now.




Or maybe have a cigar? Cigar boxes, to be used as storage or maybe altered at some point. . . .

Actually, it's time for lunch . . . maybe I can find a recipe or two in the 'Electric Refrigerator Recipes and Menus -- SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR THE GENERAL ELECTRIC REFRIGERATOR.'

Copyright 1927, original price two dollars (which seems like a lot for back then).

Bonus of handwritten recipes tucked inside -- I especially like that the recipe for Egg Spatzen was written on a scrap of MARSHALL FIELD & COMPANY paper.

Would you join me for an Informal Luncheon? I'll serve salad greens and dressing or maybe a jellied soup stock, kept in a covered glass jar in my fancy General Electric refrigerator.

And we can have frozen whipped cream on our dessert -- maybe even delicately tinted pink green or yellow. Fancy.

Remembering sound

The white coneflower and the Rudbeckia maxima right next to the beehive have never stood so tall. Is it the sound of buzzing coming from deep inside the hive that prompts them to grow so happily?



The first day that the hive was in the garden, I stood close to it and listened to the buzzing. I’d heard that buzz before – constant, insistent, low. I was transported back to my childhood – a foggy distant memory of Grandpa George and his beehives.

The hives were not in the small apple orchard that stood between our house and Grandpa and Grandma’s house. They were in the far-off orchard that was tucked back beyond the grape yard. The bees were there to pollinate the orchard and grapes, I suppose; I don’t remember any harvest of honey. I do remember the buzzing and the heat of a summer’s day and riding with Grandpa in his old pickup.

Memory is connected with our senses and I’m often taken back on the wings of scent – the smell of apple blossoms, of cinnamon and yeast, of muguet de bois and Coppertone and line-dried sheets.

But the sounds of memory -- harder for me to summon up. I'm mulling this one over.

What are your sounds of memory?

Patterns in the garden

On a quiet Sunday morning, finding patterns in the garden:


stripes . . .


and dots . . .

It's my favorite time of the week.

Festooning the nest

A little corner of my 'studio'


bedecked with thrifted ribbons and beads.

We all like to festoon our nests.

A day for garden visitors

The garden guest book for today:

lots of birds, of course, and the honeybees.

Also:

a baby toad, a hummingbird,

a doe and twin fawns (in a client's garden),

and a dragonfly.

And here is a lantern for the midnight fairies.

Honey Bees in the Garden

We have a beehive! Back in early May, our neighbor set up a hive in our little garden. He has quite a few hives, at his house down the street and near some cranberry bogs up in Wisconsin, and had asked us if he could put one here. Oh, yes!

A few weeks later the bees arrived. He opened the back of his vehicle and there were boxes and boxes of bees for the new hives he's setting up -- and a few strays just flying around.

He set up the first part of the hive and then put in the queen. (She's in the little rectangular box in his right hand.)


She's sealed in the little box with a bit of beeswax and when the other bees find her, they eat away the wax to release her into her new kingdom.




All the bees are poured on top of the racks and when they settle down, with a little smoke applied to calm them, the top boxes are stacked into place.

And here's our new hive. It's so fun to watch the bees and see where they are each day. They were very busy on the crab tree a few weeks ago. Yesterday they were all over the patch of mourning-widow geranium. Usually I deadhead the geranium a bit early so it doesn't self-sow all over, but this year I'll be waiting for the bees to finish. And I'm planning to put some more plants in just for the bees. Then maybe they won't mind sharing their honey with me at the end of the summer.