Wild blackberries

On the northwest edge of our little farm wild blackberries grow like crazy. More than we can eat and preserve, although Don keeps pushing us to give it a good farm try. This Saturday is "Farm Day," a reunion for my side of the family, so we're determined to harvest as many of these jewels as we can for topping ice cream.

I am daunted by them, I admit. Their thorny, arching canes love to grab skin and clothes. And, poison ivy often grows nearby.

But then, when you see that black fruit dangling, almost hidden by tangled grassy cover, something else grabs hold. You develop an expert delicate touch with fingertips tugging ripe berries off the stem. (Blackberries differ from raspberries in that the "receptacle" stays intact; raspberries are hollow, leaving the receptacle on the stem. Also, some blackberries are twice as big as raspberries.) It's tricky to pick them without being stuck with an invisible thorn from the stem. The challenge is intoxicating because the rewards are so delicious.



White flowers first turn into green berries, then red, then almost black (very dark purple actually), which are ripe for picking. Some of these red ones will be ripe by tomorrow. See the berry, below, that is half red, half purple?




The Web site embedded in the post title tells of an English folktale I've never heard (and being just returned from Ireland, I'm intrigued by folktales). It tells of the day the devil fell from heaven, October 11, into a thorny blackberry bush. He avenges the day every year by spitting on (or peeing on, depending on the version) the blackberry bushes, making the berries inedible from that day on. No worries, for our blackberries are long gone by October 11.

Assistir Filme »

Feverish city

poor, sick daughter with a fever

We knew it would be hot. We didn't know it would be hot enough to hit record highs in New York City: 41 celsius/105 Fahrenheit the morning we arrived, Wednesday. With the heat index it felt as high as 119 in some parts of the City.

Lesley was feeling sick that day, her first day off since moving to NYC in June (she works at a coffee shop in addition to her design internship). Maybe slowing down let the bug catch up? We took her to the doctor Friday, and she had strep. :( When we left this morning she was already recovering with the help of the Z antibiotic she got.

As sorry as we were to see her sick, we didn't mind not venturing out into the City on such blasted days as Wednesday and Thursday were. We just went far enough to buy food, the concrete radiating heat up into our faces as we snuck out to the vegetable and meat markets. (I found out you don't pay the man who cuts the meat. He gives you a slip, and while he cuts, you take the slip to the man behind the window and pay him, he stamps the slip, and you go back to the cutting man with your stamped slip to get your cut-up chicken.)



With a little TheraFlu in her, we enjoyed sitting in Lesley's cool air conditioned apartment catching up on each others' lives, watching movies ("Munich", "Something New," and "Delicatessen"), and cooking and eating.

We loved seeing the Astoria, Queens neighborhood where Lesley and her roommate Julie live. Above is a lady in Lesley's building making sure the cannas, begonias and hydrangeas wouldn't suffer.

Here's a view of the apartment building across the street from Lesley. Silly me, I didn't take a pic of Lesley's building, which is just as pretty! Friday night we sat on Lesley's balcony -- it was finally cool enough -- and watched the world go by.

Assistir Filme »

New York Region Braces for Triple-Digit Temperatures

Yay, for us, we are heading to NYC tomorrow until Saturday to be with our daughter, Lesley! This photo is Lesley on a loom weaving a gorgeous fabric at art school where she just graduated. Now we get to see her in her new environment.

Too bad for us the heat shows no sign of letting up, here or in NYC. The headline on the NYTimes reads like the title of this post. Here's the article. Mayor Bloomberg has removed fees for state beaches and city pools so folks can cool down. All over the Midwest and East coast there are cooling centers for the elderly and anyone who needs to keep cool. We need to conserve energy to prevent power outages.

I doubt there will be time for a blog post from NYC, and anyway, I'll save a little bit of energy by not turning on a computer. :

I'll talk with you when we're back. Love you all!

Assistir Filme »

Good-bye now, green country

It feels right that our last exploring day here (yesterday) was spent at Tara and Newgrange.

The photo, above, is me standing on a hay roll atop the Hill of Tara, looking over 3/4 of Ireland (on a clear day they say you can see that much of the country from this site).

On Tara, 142 kings of Ireland were crowned. There are Celtic mounds here dating back 5,000 years where castles were built millenia later, but are now gone.

Tara is where I feel a strong connection with the yew trees planted more recently in the churchyard. I felt them welcome me last year in a way I have never felt welcomed before or since.



At Newgrange, there is a burial/worship mound INTACT that is 5,000 years old. We squeezed inside to see the structure of rocks that curves up to the capstone. I still don't really understand what it means to be that old. My mind can't grasp it. It's older than the pyramids at Giza by 1,000 years. Older than Stonehenge by 1,000 years. The builders of this structure created a narrow opening to allow the sun to shine through it into the structure on the winter solstice every year (and about two days either side of it).


Newgrange; the narrow opening that lets in the light on Dec. 21 is just in the middle where the dark squares are; our students are gathered around the opening

These sites are viewed as sacred and connected to the spirit world by some.

I'm not sure what it is I feel there, but it is strong. I am in awe of people who lived in alignment with nature and its cycles.




Below are two man-made structures. One 5,000 years old: a carved rock at Newgrange. The next a few hundred years old: a door at Trinity College Dublin.






They are just human forms. Beautiful, inviting, full of understanding about their cultures, if we study them.

I don't have a problem with religions, also human constructs (in my humble opinion), as long as they do not divide and violate the Life in all things. They are ways to reach God, understand God, worship God. They are doors. Sometimes closed, unfortunately.

Jonathan Swift said, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

Assistir Filme »

Trinity College, Jonathan Swift and the love of literary things

Click on photos to enlarge.

Most of us who have a degree in English fall into raptures when we enter old universities, especially their libraries.

Our group has the good fortune of staying at Trinity College Dublin, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. The library is another world, and visitors can’t take photographs, so I’ve downloaded this one, below, from the internet for you. The Book of Kells (c. AD 806) is housed in a special room in the library building (photo of a closeup of a page in the Book of Kells below the library photo, below).


Library at Trinity College


close-up of Book of Kells page Chi-Rho

In my photo of Trinity, below, you can see the building where Don and I are staying on the left. Our room looks out on tree-filled Library Square to the right. The library lies across the square from us. Hundreds if not thousands of visitors come to Trinity daily because it is such a landmark in the heart of Dublin and has a lot of historical significance. Every time I walk through the front gate to come “home” I pinch myself.




Trinity's front gate

One of Trinity’s best known alumni is Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).




The author of Gulliver’s Travels (a bitter satire of Anglo-Irish relations) was an outspoken Irishman born in Dublin. He attended Trinity College Dublin 1682-1686 and became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1713. While Dean, Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels and other scathing attacks on the British and Irish political establishment.

I did not know before reading about Swift in St. Patrick’s cathedral today the compassionate spirit he had.


Chairs in St. Patrick's cathedral

In addition to the remarkable stand he took against injustices (kept him from any higher position politically than Dean of the cathedral), he had this memorial (below) erected to his manservant, Alexander McGee, and upon his own death left money to found a hospital for mentally ill patients. Ironically, at the end of his life he suffered from Ménière’s disease, which led many to believe him insane.




By the way, Don and I saw the new film “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” and highly recommend it. It is a gut-wrenching account of the “Black & Tans” – soldiers of the British government who were sent to stamp out the Irish fight for independence after WWI. If you’ve wondered about the beginnings of the Irish Republican Army, you’ll see it told in this lovely and sad film that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.

(Another BTW, Don and I met at Trinity College in 1975. Ha, but not this Trinity College. We met at the one in Deerfield, Illinois.)

Assistir Filme »

Do you believe?

Click on photos to enlarge.



This is Eddie Lenihan, folklorist and storyteller of Irish stories. He has collected and recorded more than 20,000 personal stories from Irish men and women, stories of their own first-hand experiences. What stories? Well, among them, fairy stories.




Are fairies real? If you talk with many Irish people, they will not answer that question "yes" or "no." Their answer will be related to someone they know whose life has seemingly been affected by fairies. Eddie told us a few, and our bus driver to Killarney Monday told us some more.

We heard a lot about "fairy forts."

"A Fairy Fort, also known as raths, are the ruins of old houses where the ancient Celts lived. It is believed that the Druids’ magic surroundings these raths. Although a superstition, many Irish believe that misfortune will come to anyone who disturbs these raths. These raths are located throughout Ireland." (found at http://www.romanceeverafter.com/Fairy%20Forts,%20Music%20&%20Language%20of%20Ireland.htm)

We heard story after story of people who had bulldozed a fairy fort and suffered early deaths or disease in themselves and loved ones. Every Irish man or woman we asked knew just where the local fairy forts were.

After hearing Eddie's stories, next day we travelled to Killarney, a 25,000-acre national park that felt like a fairy land. We rode in boats, horse-drawn carts, and listened to the wind through the heather and mountain gorse.
















On the bus ride back to Cork, the driver stopped for us to show us this fairy fort! You can see (through the window, sorry) the trees are in a ring.

Whether or not they believe, the Irish respect fairies and don't ever want to meet them.

Assistir Filme »