the life I picked

a bushel of gumption, an ounce of grace

bleu

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The past year or so I have been thinking a lot of the Kieslowski film Bleu. It is a beautiful piece of work, the first of his trilogy based on the colors, bleu, blanc, rouge, and ideals, liberté, egalité, fraternité, of the French flag. …

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autumn graces

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Sliding in to this season of bittersweet. Too many dates, too many anniversaries seem to tip the scale. No longer my season, I share it with– sorry, seasonal pun– a lot of ghosts….

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fall, harvest graces

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The crabapples of last year’s tree are no more, and won’t reappear til next, amazing biennially producing tree that it is….except, this evening, I looked up and saw maybe two dozen crabapples, fresh, red, and at the tippy top of this amazing tree. Huh. What is up with that biennially producing crabapple?A slim crabapple harvest this year, a single crabapple on the crabapple tree.

Don’t know. But expecting no crabapples chez moi I’d undertaken a search. Had a source, but somehow they were sold from under me. Long story short, suffice to say: there may be no crabapple jelly 2014. Will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, the grapes look superb. Keeping with the trend of surprising fruits (biennial crabapple produces annually, wild grapes appear where there were none before, flowering quince no fruit becomes with fruit) I am going with it. Concord grape preserve yes, crabapple jelly maybe no this year. Cider sage on deck.  My sage is just out of control, am dreaming up how to do it honor. Quince, for sure…or as sure as these things ever are.

When it comes to the grace of fruit, of harvest, well, you just have to bend to it.

late summer colors & flavors

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As the shadows lengthen so do the colors deepen and the textures shift. The bright berries and stone fruits of summer–strawberries and raspberries and blueberries, cherries and peaches and apricots–ebb and make way for crisp apples and crabapples, fragrant quince, sweet seductive grapes….

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