Saturday, September 5, 2009

Plenty of Rainbows

Some days are so "chock full of country goodness" (to quote a friend complimenting some homemade cookies with tongue firmly in cheek), that it almost doesn't feel fair.

Due to the time constraints associated with getting on the road to visit most of my family at my sister A's place for a 30th birthday and housewarming shindig, plus due to the natural editing effects of the passage of time (memory does its selection), I shall relate two elements of the most recent Thursday that K and I (Jason) spent together.

Janelle and her friend J, who was visiting on a short break from her work in Labrador, were galavanting around town looking for maternity clothes (for J) and getting J her fix of Thai food when K and I walked up the hill to S and M's aging orchard to get our fix of fruit picking. K has, for some time now, been expressing a preference against all things having to do with, among other things, apples and pears. There was, then, some resistance to the notion of spending an hour or so picking the [graciously offered] Grimes Golden apples and Seckel pears that were in danger of becoming deer cud. However, soon the adventure and the possibility of climbing trees overwhelmed her prejudice, and we were in business.

We picked the apples in relatively short order, getting what we could reach from the ground (and what Kali could reach by climbing) first, and then retrieving the picking basket from S and M's barn for the rest. A picking basket, for the uninitiated (most of us), is a wire basket whose bottom is fimly attached to the end of a pole, which has a protruding row of wire hooks along on side of the basket mouth. Sort of looks like an ungainly pioneer version of a lacrosse stick. Our neighbor K, with P on her back, walked past while we were returning with the picking basket, and observed with a smile that whatever we were up to, it had to be fun if we got to use such a contraption. Yes, I agreed. It's even fun already just looking at it. Kali loved hooking onto an apple and then hanging on the pole handle until the branch sprang back empty, then laboriously maneuvering the old tool until the gnarly little fruit (not all of them were like that) could be plopped in her half-bushel basket.

The pears required a totally different harvesting method. Again, we picked what we could reach from the ground and Kali picked what she could reach by climbing, but Seckel pears are pretty little, so picking with the basket was not time effective (not that it was a whole lot better with the apples when Kali was running the picking basket, but still...). Also, being light in weight and still at a somewhat firm stage of ripeness, it soon became apparent that shaking the branches to loosen the fruit, and then retrieving the fruit from the ground was the most effective way to harvest, especially as we were mostly planning on saucing the pears to mix with, and thereby sweeten, the applesauce. Kali thoroughly enjoyed the climbing and shaking while I gathered, even inventing a brand new game, on the spot, called "Try To Hit Daddy On The Head." Believe it or not (don't look now), she actually sped the process up considerably by doing so. In other words, she ACTUALLY HELPED! This is a milestone.

As I assumed would happen, Kali decided she wanted to try a taste of apple and pear. What she said about it turned my head just a bit, "I think I've decided that I shouldn't not like something just because I decided I didn't like it, but that I should actually try it and see if I do." This does to me what the loose tooth does to Janelle, that is; producing mixed sentiments associated with my little girl growing up. The pears, she decided, were too sweet, and the apples too sour. But she TRIED them (the next day, after dutifully cranking the apple strainer, she sat down with a bowl of warm apple sauce and the cinnamon sugar shaker and quietly and methodically ate it all down).

The other element of our day that has survived the test of memory for me came late, late in the evening. Janelle and her friend J had been planning to head to the Mountain House of Hope (Janelle's parents' second home in Harman, WVA) for one of the nights, and at that time we had sweetened the deal for the disappointed-to-be-left-behind Kali by proposing that I would stay up to midnight with her. Although we don't have a set bedtime for her, usually both of us choose to go to sleep earlier than that, and she chooses not to stay up alone, despite always complaining about not being tired yet (we always beg to differ). Anyway, she was happy with this compromise. So happy, in fact, that when Janelle and J decided not to go after all, Kali was not about to give up her opportunity to, as she insisted, "toast the new year." Kali loves holiday ceremonies of all kinds, and she remembers this one from January.

As on January 1, the plan was for Kali to toast with M&M's, rather than smooth white wine. Lacking smooth white wine myself, I also selected the M&M option. When the moment arrived, we got down wine glasses and started the festivities, toasting, according to Kali, the new SCHOOL year (of course!..Why didn't I think of that?). We are homeschooling Kali, and it cracks me up that she would bother to pay attention to the traditional school calender, but yet I was stirred in thinking of the educational project we are undertaking together, and our flamboyant, two-M&M-at-a-time toasts to healthy batches of chicks, lots of tomatoes, good memories of Nora, etc., etc. (all with Janelle and J sound asleep on the futon in the front room) could not have been more appropriate. I don't remember all the many toasts we each proposed, from the silly to the solemn, but I know we both nearly got sick on M&Ms, and switched to water for the last few. My favorite toast was one Kali proposed, perhaps with the prompting of a nearby multicolored wallhanging: "To plenty of rainbows!"

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