"God’s World" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

God’s World

O World,
I cannot hold thee close enough
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise.
Thy wood, this autumn day, that ache and sag.
And all but cry with colour!
That gaunt crag To crush!
To lift the lean of that black bluff.
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough.

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this:
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart –
Lord I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me – let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

"October" by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost –
For the grape’s sake along the wall.

-- Robert Frost

blueberry facial

Blueberry season has started here, so I'd like to share with you the Joys of Blueberrying.


1. locate an organic blueberry farm near you
2. pick a mild day or go early in the morning
3. don't bother feeding your kids before you go
4. pick zillions of berries
5. watch kids stuff berries into their mouths.
6. be happy that you don't have to wash the berries first as they don't have nasty sprays on them.
7. go home
8. put berries in bag (do NOT wash them first)
9. freeze bags

(time passes)

(snow falls)

10. open a bag of berries
11. notice with admiration and glee that they are still individual berries, not a frozen mushy clump (this is why you didn't wash the berries before bagging them).
12. put berries on breakfast cereal, in muffins, etc.


Did you know that blueberries are the fountain of youth? Yes indeed. In August of 2006 CNN reported that

Wild blueberries rank Number One in antioxidants for fruit, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with a score of more than 13,000 for total antioxidant capacity per. Cultivated blueberries are the second highest, with about 9,000 (for comparison, Gala apples score around 3,900).
There's no official recommendation for daily antioxidant consumption, but they are known to be important for fighting off free radicals in our body and from the environment. Free radicals cause damage to cells, disrupting the DNA and potentially setting up the body for disease. And the cell damage may be at the root of a host of health issues, from aging to macular degeneration to cancer to Alzheimer's disease. But antioxidants scavenge those free radicals in the body, neutralizing their effects. According to the National Cancer Institute, considerable research suggests that antioxidants may slow or possibly prevent cancer. They also fight inflammation, now known as one of the main causes of diseases like arthritis and cancer.

They are just plain good. Good tasting and good for you, whether applied internally or externally.

In your blender or food processor, combine about

• 1/4 cup fresh blueberries,

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice,

• a dollop of honey,

• 1 Tb cornstarch,

• 1 Tb rolled oats.

Whirl until it is smooth. Let rest a bit so the oatmeal and cornstarch can absorb the excess liquid. Apply to your face. Sneak up on your kids and say boo! (optional). After about 20-30 minutes, rinse off with warm water.

If you have very fair skin, you should do a test patch, as blueberries make a great dye. My skin is olive colored and I'm tan, so it works fine for me.





:: this post was originally posted in August of 2007

what to do now?

It's raining (naturally, being June in Washington) and I have completed my obligations for Spring Quarter.  We have some home-schooling curriculum to finish up, but there is room in my life for some projects.  The nominees are:

• paint all the interior trim on the addition
• work on my manuscript
• clean out the basement
• purge the kitchen & laundry room
• make jam from last year's frozen jam berries
• clean out the barn
• prep a Pilot course for a private English class I am teaching next fall, pending sufficient enrollment
• prep a fall Eng 101 class I am teaching, pending sufficient enrollment

The Raven

October seems like the perfect month for Poe's The Raven:

• Classic Poetry Aloud offers an elegant reading of this classic creepy poem.
• StoryNory offers a perkier version.
• and you can hear the Allen Parsons Project version as the soundtrack to this whimsical home-movie interpretation of the poem: 

God’s World

God’s World 

O World,
I cannot hold thee close enough
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise.
Thy wood, this autumn day, that ache and sag.
And all but cry with colour!
That gaunt crag To crush!
To lift the lean of that black bluff.
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough.

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this:
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart –
Lord I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me – let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

October

October

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost –
For the grape’s sake along the wall.

-- Robert Frost

quickie

• Jamie and Chickadee are building a kit doll-house, though I get to take a turn next weekend, I'm told.
• Chickadee made dinner for us tonight ala Mollie Katzen (the whole thing with ZIPPO mom help, though I did sit in the kitchen for 3.5 hours and supervise).
• I slogged through the towering pile of medical bills and E.O.B.s and am finally done with 2009, fiscally speaking.
• Dandy has lost his bedroom (again).
• My online class open on Thursday and it is all loaded up. As in, every assignment, task, discussion board, quiz, and essay assignment for the entire quarter is in place this very minute. I just have to answer questions and grade from here on in. This is -- in the life of an on-line educator -- indescribably delicious.
• We are buying daffodils and looking at seed catalogs and fostering a strong denial of how much winter we still have to endure. Can't we just fast-forward to April?

Yesterdays flood pics? Piddling compared to today's Whatcom County flood pictues

And I thought yesterday's pics were dire.

• Aerial pics of Whatcom County
• Ground pics of Whatcom County

Kind of makes me nostalgic for the snow.

Friday Poetry: Autumn Leaves

Here is another poem by Aileen Fisher found in I See A Poem.

Autumn Leaves

One of the nicest beds I know
isn't a bed of soft white snow,
isn't a bed of cool green grass
after the noisy mowers pass,
isn't a bed of yellow hay
making me itch of half a day --
but autumn leaves in a pile that high,
deep, and smelling like fall, and dry.
That's the bed where I like to lie
and watch the flutters of fall go by.
~ Aileen Fisher

. . . flutters of fall.





Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://brimstonesoup.blogspot.com/2008/11/poetry-friday-changing-light-original.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>


:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Holly Cupala.

poetry

:: one year ago today: our refuge and strength
:: two years ago today: more lovin''

When It Rains by Aileen Fisher

Oh it is raining. It rained buckets yesterday and is raining barrels today and we expect vats tomorrow. Our county is on flood watch and the cloud cover is so thick that there is little daylight. If we turned off the houselights it would be too dim to read inside; it's only a little after noon.

Here then is a lovely dampish poem by Aileen Fisher. I found the poem in one of the poetry books I had when I was a child: I See A Poem. Thank you Mom, for saving my best-beloved books.

When It Rains

When it rains,
when it rains,
the magpie complins,
the pathway
turns muddy and brown,
the horses look sad
but the meadow is glad
and puddles
jump ^up and _down.

~ Aileen Fisher

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://maclibrary.edublogs.org/2008/11/07/poetry-friday-round-up/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>


:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Check it Out.





poetry

:: one year ago today: because we don't have enough stress in our lives

emergency preparedness & winter prep

As winter (and the impending socialist regime) approaches, my thoughts turn to emergency preparedness.

I found a great site, ShelfReliance, that presents lists of what you might need, emphasis on the might. It seems to me that the emergency preparedness list is a bit of over-kill, but I did glean from the site these items that every home in the county should have on hand before the winter storm season:

Food Stuffs - The Shelf Reliance food calculator will itemize a list of what you need to have on hand to feed your family for a month (or more, you can pick the amount of time). These estimates are customized for your family size and family members' ages.

According to them, if I had all this, we would be just fine if we were stormed in for month.

Grains/Pastas:

• 30 pounds of wheat, not ground up - (of course they are happy to sell me a wheat grinder)
• 6.5 pounds of pasta
• 7 pounds of rice
• 10 pounds of quick oats
• 7 pounds of cornmeal
• 7 pounds of white flour
• 14 pounds of whole wheat flour

Vegies: remember that they are selling these items in cans, so of course they are advocating canned items. Nevertheless, I think the recommendations of quantity are sound, regardless of form:

• 5 pounds of carrots
• 4 pounds of onions
• 5 pounds of potatoes
• 5 pounds of instant potatoes

Fruits:

• 5 pound of banana chips
• 20 pounds of apple slices

Dairy:

• 5 pounds of cheese
• 15 pounds of instant milk (blech)

Beans:

• 15 pounds of dried beans

Baking:

• 10 pounds baking soda
• 7 pounds salt
• 17 pounds of sugar

Food Storage:

• a feasible plan for preserving the food in the freezer if the power goes out (I have some food in ice chests in the freezer, which will keep things cold a bit longer.)
  

Emergency - I added some items to this list

Light and Information:

• hand-powered AM/FM/ Portable Radio with Flashlight
• power-generator - here is the one I want, as it has nifty bonus features: Wagan 400-Watt Power Dome EX Jumpstarter with Built-In Air Compressor
• matches
• candles
• rechargeable AA batteries
• several working flashlights

Warmth:

• full warm layers for all: boots, socks, legware, torso, neck, ears, head, hands.
• heat packs/handwarmers
• matches
• firewood

Food:

• pocket knives
• a means of cooking if there is no power or if the gas goes off (Coleman stove or BBQ with full propane tank or BBQ & brickets or, for us, a wood stove with a flat surface and a handful of cast-iron pots and pans)
• bottled water, or at least clean containers for catching rain/snow or dipping into the well

Shelter: in case the windows blow out or trees fall on your roof

• tarps
• plywood
• duct tape

Health & Hygiene:

• cold & flu medications
• bandaids
• anti-bacterial ointment
  
• Vitamin C & D
• backstock of any necessary prescription drugs
• tp
• lady products
  

Pets:

• backstock of pet food
• backstock of any necessary prescription drugs
  

What else?

:: one year ago today: first storm of the season

Friday Poetry: After Apple Picking

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

from the archives

Too busy putting up fruit to write anything. Here are a few from the past:

:: one year ago today: soccer + rain = flu and Christ Beside Me, Christ Before Me.
:: two years ago today: October by Robert Frost

Friday Poetry: Applesauce by Ted Kooser

It's apple season here. Apple pies, apple dumplings, and applesauce.

Applesauce

I liked how the starry blue lid
of that saucepan lifted and puffed,
then settled back on a thin
hotpad of steam, and the way
her kitchen filled with the warm
wet breath of apples, as if all
the apples were talking at once,
as if they'd come cold and sour
from chores in the orchard,
and were trying to shoulder in
close to the fire. She was too busy
to put in her two cent's worth
talking to apples. Squeezing
her dentures with wrinkly lips,
she had to jingle and stack
the bright brass coins of the lids
and thoughtfully count out
the red rubber rings, then hold
each jar, to see if it was clean,
to a window that looked out
through her back yard into Iowa.
And with every third or fourth jar
she wiped steam from her glasses,
using the hem of her apron,
printed with tiny red sailboats
that dipped along with leaf-green
banners snapping, under puffs
of pale applesauce clouds
scented with cinnamon and cloves,
the only boats under sail
for at least two thousand miles
~ Ted Kooser

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://authoramok.blogspot.com/2008/09/poetry-friday-is-here.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>


:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Author Amok.



poetry

white shoes after Labor Day: just say no.

As I am the self-appointed white shoes monitor, here is your friendly public service reminder:

Between Memorial Day and Labor Day: white shoes - okay.

Between Labor Day and Memorial Day: white shoes - not okay.

white shoes

Friday Poetry: Fall Song by Mary Oliver

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

~ Mary Oliver in American Primitive.

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tushuguan.blogspot.com/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>


:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by BiblioFile.

running out of time

For us, this is the last two weeks of summer - we start school (community college teaching and kids at the homeschool/school district partnership program) on the 22nd.

Here is what I need to do before then:

can pickle relish

can pickles

can pickled beets

bake and freeze zucchini bread

freeze bags of basil for winter pesto

harvest and freeze plums for winter pies

harvest and freeze apples for winter pies

harvest and freeze blackberries for winter pies

gather and freeze blueberries for winter breakfast

prep English 101 class

prep Writing Workshop class for aforementioned partnership program

put away pool

put away most deck stuff

take kitties to vet

attend GOP meeting x 2

attend homeschool meeting x3

attend Campaign for Liberty meeting

attend English Department retreat

celebrate 3 family birthdays

change over the wardrobes (sundresses away, sweaters out)

pick up slack for My Gift who is routinely working 12-14 hour days including weekends

Do you think I will make it? Oh, and the nasty flu that has been haunting me since mid-August, setting me this far behind, it is gone -- I think -- but I am super wimpy, tiring after 30 minutes of activity. How am I going to do all this?

summer goals check-in

cloudscome, over at a wrung sponge, reminds me that it is time for the summer goals check-in.

1. go geocaching with the kids - nope, too hard to do without a GPS thingamagummy.
2. take children strawberry and blueberry picking - did some blueberry picking, will do more this week, along with the blackberries in our 100 acre wood
3. go swimming very often - yes. We get an A+ in swimming
4. grow and eat lots of home-grown heirloom tomatoes - still awaiting these
5. have my fall classes fully prepped by the end of June - ha ha ha, aren't I amusing.
6. make progress on manuscript - don't even know where it is
7. make lots of jam - done, strawberry and raspberry
8. install pavers into south flower garden - nope
9. stay home a lot - not recently
10. get children to at least one week of VBS - two weeks, actually
11. declutter basement - nope
12. move mill end pile out of driveway - yup. I don't remember what he did to earn this, but Dandy moved all of it (approximately 2 cords) over a weekend.
13. continue to make own bread and yogurt - off-and-on
14. reconquer the north and front flower gardens - nope
15. go to Darrington Bluegrass festival - nope

But I still have month left as we go back to school Sept 22 (that is, our homeschool co-op starts up and I start teaching at the community college).

How did you do with your goals?

Friday Poetry: Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith by Mary Oliver

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green
stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.
~ Mary Oliver in West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems.

Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://lisachellman.com/blog/2008/07/poetry-friday-thinking-winter-height-summer#comment-164"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://lh5.google.com/image/chndlrsblog/RmBFj-SN_DI/AAAAAAAAB34/at3HZsHcKd0/poetry%20friday%20button%20-%20fulll.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a>

:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Under the Covers.

Mary Oliver
poetry