The Beehive (and other ramblings)
By Eydie Wight
Well, here it is nearly 5:30 AM and another night has passed in work rather than blogging (I’m hearing wheezing, sneezing, and coughing in my after work sleep these days.). Brother John may have to post another yummy recipe while waiting for me to catch up. But, Sammy and I have the weekend off and I have a list. Writing a blog is on it. Somewhere near the top. Along with painting my beehive, filling out Roger‘s Fafsa form for college this fall, cooking the turkey that’s been in the freezer since Christmas, repairing Roger‘s hematite frog necklace for the fifth or sixth time, sending Uncle Dave a get well card, sending Uncle Mike a very huge thank you for doing our taxes, moving the old refrigerator out to the shed so the work on finishing the basement can continue next week and, of course, the usual weekend dusting and vacuuming, laundry and litter box detail. I may hold off on single-handedly solving the national recession until next week. Ditto world peace.
Sammy and I plan to sleep most of today, then go to coffeehouse tonight. We’ve been working on the song “Good Riddance” by Green Day and I thought maybe we would have it ready, but we both had a few days of feeling a bit peaked this week and I didn’t have enough time to get my part comfortable. Sammy does the singing and plays guitar throughout and could walk on stage with five minutes practice. I have two measures here, three or four there, and a little chording at the end, but my fiddle has a HUGE problem with stage fright so we’d better practice some more. I do plan to read a few of my poems. Our usual coffeehouse has a nice mix of musicians, poets, and storytellers. I think I’ll read “Street Busker of Her Heart” and “The Musician’s Wife.”
I think I mentioned in some of the Christmas posts that Santa brought me a “beginning beekeeper” kit. It came from the Dadant catalogue (making beekeeping a family tradition since 1863!) Ever since Sammy and I made our first batch of mead and started having conversations with beekeeper Dan I’ve been dreaming of honey bees, writing poems in their honor, and catching every show I can find on National Geographic and Animal planet about them. Last summer I discovered “wild” Italian honeybees in great numbers all over my flower beds and nearby wildflowers, and became fascinated with them. So, this year, Sammy and I are going to give beekeeping a try.
My “hobby kit #2” came un-assembled and contained two medium ten frame supers, an inner and outer top cover, and solid wood bottom board and some essential equipment. (Smoker, gloves, hive tool, feeder, beginner’s book, veil.) This was about $153.00. A little plug here for the Dadant catalogue. Not only does it offer everything a large scale beekeeper might need, but it also has equipment, cool bee factoids, and helpful hints and suggestions for us “newbees” (ha ha.)
I have to admit that my hive sat unassembled in it’s box until last week. It was only partly procrastination on my part. Sigh. Santa had also brought me several books on beekeeping. I made the mistake of starting to read the big flashy one with all the fancy expensive pictures (and I won’t mention it’s name ’cause I’m not going to be very complimentary.) The very first thing the author started opining about was that you should NEVER get an un-assembled hive to start out with because they take a rocket scientist to assemble, the instructions are lousy, the parts are never cut to fit, and it’s all “oh so off-putting.” And of course here I was with the unassembled hive. Then, as I read on, it was a never ending series of “you can’t do this, you can’t do that, people do it that way but that’s WRONG.” I know nothing about this author and she may be a pleasant enough person but boy, I was stressing before I got halfway through. I just didn’t want to read the section on foulbrood, hive beetles, varroa mites, tracheal mites, and wax moths BEFORE I read about joyful, happy, healthy hives. I want the “Joys of Beekeeping,” not the “Buzz about Bad Bee Bummers.”
So I agonized about the whole beekeeping idea for a nearly two months, and then did what I should have done from the start. I talked to beekeeper Dan. His advice was to “put that book down and start another.” He also said, in his gentle way, something that interpreted as, “You’re not an idiot, just sit down and put the darn hive together.” So I did. Both. Seeing as the Dadant catalogue had been my friend, I opened the book that had come with my beginner’s kit, “First Lessons in Beekeeping.” It started with POETRY. I was sold. And, Sammy and I sat down that night and in a few hours had the hive together. It was easy. Once all the pieces were laid out in matching groups, and the nails sorted, the diagrams made sense. We put the whole thing together on the living room coffee table with a minimum of mess. We put the whole thing together while watching “City Slickers” and drinking mead. I was in my pajamas. Putting together the frames with their foundation wax was just as easy, but a bit more time consuming as there are ten frames to a super and two supers. I did that the next day in about an hour and a half while watching CSI New York.
The Villanelle
As I write this it’s now Saturday morning. Coffeehouse went well last night. It was a packed, appreciative house with a pretty even mix of musicians and poets, about a half dozen of each. I read three poems and received an official congratulations on my recent “specialty”award for a poem I had entered for our county’s annual poet laureate competition called “Winter Morning”. The poem was a villanelle. Now for those of you who aren’t into this stuff, maybe just skip this part. You’ll find It’s going to be boring. A villanelle is a highly structured poem consisting of 19 lines and only two different rhymes throughout. It has five tercets (three line stanzas) and one final quatrain (four lines.) The first and third lines all rhyme. The second lines all rhyme. In addition, the poem has two “power lines” that are used throughout the poem. They are the first and third lines of the first tercet. The first line becomes the third line of the second tercet, the third line becomes the third line of the third tercet and so on. The quatrain has the two power lines as the last lines of the poem. One of the most famous villanelles is Dylan Thomas‘ “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.“
Well, I’m an “old hippie” free verse poet by nature. I don’t rhyme, it stresses me. But, like a dog with a bone, I had to try this villanelle thing if for no other reason than the gauntlet had been laid down before me. So for weeks I agonized. At first I tried this Celtic story of murder, kidnapping, betrayal. My power lines were “‘Tis naught but one left to tell the tale. With voice that falters and lips that pale.” I had rhymes of: tale, pale, fail, sail, ale, nail, jail and: greed, need, freed, bleed, deed, mead. Maybe it would have worked. But it made me crazy. Then I tried a magician story. I had: mage, stage, wage, page, cage, age, rage and: illusion, delusion, confusion, profusion, exclusion, occlusion. Again, though the possibility was there, it made me crazy. Finally, in the wee hours of the deadline day for the competition entries, as my friend Lynelle and I communicated with each other with increasingly frustrated and desperate e-mails, I put together an idea while I was standing at the kitchen window drinking coffee and waiting for dawn. It made me crazy. But, I agonized on and ended up hand delivering it to the arts council gallery with ten minutes to spare before the deadline, saying that it was “The worst piece of crap I’d ever written.” Go figure it would win. My villanelle experience is, I hope, laid to rest eternally.
Back to the Bees
I’d better finish this up soon so I can wake Sammy and we can go accomplish our daytime Saturday errands. Two of which are buying paint to paint the outside of my hive to weather proof it and calling Bjorn Apiaries to order “nucs” for beekeeper Dan and Sammy and I. A “nuc” or nucleus (I just love learning this new “beespeak.” I probably will get stuff wrong or misuse terms and I would appreciate being corrected by those more knowledgeable than I) is a good way to get started. It contains four or five frames of nurse bees, brood, food, and a queen which is introduced to the incipient colony. I wanted to order Italian bees (Apis mellifera ligustica) because that’s what my “wild” girls were that I enjoyed watching as they foraged on the property last year. I think this apiary may have only Russian Carniolan (Apis mellifera carnica) which is what beekeeper Dan wants. That may be a good idea in the long run as the Carnolians seem to be more resistant to some of the bad bee bummer mites. So much to learn!
I have learned that beekeeping is an up and coming area of interest. Those that were wholeheartedly into knitting and bead stringing the past couple of years, and gardening and canning last year, are looking at beekeeping. Any why not? Beekeeping (so I’ve been told and have read in numerous sources) is relatively inexpensive, relatively easy, less time consuming than most gardening, harvesting, canning experiences, and can be done in very little space. There are even New York City beekeepers who have rooftop hives and bees that co-exist with the flowers, musicians, homeless, and knock-off watch entrepreneurs of Central Park! Honey has long, and I mean like Biblical, ancient Egypt long, been a natural sweetener. It has medicinal uses for healing wounds that “modern medicine” has given up on. Honey makes mead, mead makes one happy, therefore (a little twisted Aristotle) honey makes one happy. I could go on and on extolling the virtues of honey, propolis, beeswax, and honey bee pollination services, but let me just end with some way cool facts I lifted from the Dadant catalogue:
- If honey bees ceased to exist today, about 1/3 of all the foods humans eat would disappear
- It would take one ounce of honey to fuel a bees flight around the world. The average honey bee will make about one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
- The honey bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.
- A honey bee visits 50-100 flowers during one collection trip.
And now I must get out of my pajamas, take Sammy to our favorite little restaurant “The Joyful Bakers” for breakfast as I promised, and get to the post office, hardware, and grocery store. The sun is shining, the sap is flowing in the maple trees (although I don’t think any of the neighbors have tapped their trees yet,) my tulips, daffodils, and surprise lilies have broken ground in the front flower bed, and we were just visited by two whitetail deer that we could see from the kitchen window. It is a propitious day, rife with possibility.
Books, Movies, and the Christmas Spirit!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!
By Eydie Wight
Well, Brother John has been wonderfully patient with my absentee blog-ism. The last week has been filled with social events, Sammy’s tooth extraction, un-successful hunting, decorating mayhem, and the advent not of a calendar filled with little doorways and goodies but of our busy season at work. ‘Tis the season to be wheezin’ as we respiratory therapists like to say.
Last Saturday I had the “coming out” party for my poetry book at the open house for our county’s Arts Council. I was pretty nervous that no one would show up and I would sit there at the table with an ever increasing mountain of books and a stack of brand new Sarasa black gel pens listening to the clock tick, tick, tick as I tried not to fidget too much in my black velvet skirt, glittery velvet top, and knee high black polished boots. I figured it would have been stretching the eccentric writer persona a bit far to show up in my everyday apparel. Do they make book signing pajamas? Hmmm. They should.
But, not to worry. When Sammy and I arrived Mom and my “earth sister” Joanne were already there and had broken the ice for me. Mom had brought a big batch of my dad’s chocolate dipped peanut butter candy balls and had introduced herself to everyone. My dad’s name is John Richard (he’s called “Dick”) and I tried not to cringe as Mom asked people if they wanted to try Dick’s chocolate balls. It was sort of like a South Park episode. (Brother John here… OMG! It’s as bad as when Granny used to compliment Dad on his cooking… “This is GOOD DICK”). The Arts Council has a gallery of rooms dedicated to the work of local artists. There were artworks on the walls, framed photography, note cards and pictures, music CD’s, jewelry, knitted scarves, purses, and hats, woven textile clothing, and sculptures done in all sorts of media. They had set up two tables for us “Authors” to sit with our books. They had even made a sign. The sign had my name on it. Spelled right and everything. My friend and mentor Tony arrived, our friend Dave was there to provide some acoustic guitar background, fellow poet Siggy set up at the next table and Jonas was there with his book about a half hour later. Suddenly the gallery was filled with people. They were shopping. laughing, eating cookies, pate, and Dick’s chocolate balls. Sammy and I uncorked bottles of our homemade elderberry and blackberry wine and things had the making of a holiday party.
I signed and sold my first seven books! They were all to Mom! But that was okay! It was exciting!
The afternoon flew by. So many of my friends came out to show their support. Some of them hadn’t even been begged beforehand to casually “stop in.” I signed and sold a few more books, one to a perfect stranger, and then during a lull in the crowd we decided to play the part of “starving artists” and all go across the street to the local coffeehouse, “Espresso Yourself.” There were ten of us including Mom and Joanne, Tony, Siggy, Jonas, Dave, Gary, Beekeeper Dan, Rog, Sammy, and me. Mom and Tony were in rare ribald humor and Dad’s chocolate balls were the source of much raucous hilarity. I smiled so much my face hurt. Of course I hugged everyone and the glitter on my velvet blouse left it’s mark everywhere I went. Tony had glitter in his beard, Mom had a little glitter speck on her cheek, Beekeeper Dan had glitter on his shirt sleeve, Sammy had glitter on one eyebrow, Dave had glitter on his guitar.
That evening Sammy and I “found” our favorite Christmas movie for this holiday season. My friend Carole had said her son had told her she “must see” the movie “The Hogfather,” a TV movie from 2006 based on the Terry Pratchett novel. We sat down to watch it, not knowing what to expect, and it was great. Wonderful music score, twisted characters, fantastic sets, dark humor and witty asides. I had gotten together all my paraphernalia to wrap presents and ended up sitting with the same unwrapped present in my lap for over an hour until I just gave up and moved to the couch. As good as the movie was, it was in two parts and nearly four hours long. A combination of the excitement of the day, the couch, the couch blankey, my pajamas, and elderberry wine soon had me romping in dreamland.
That was Saturday, a good day indeed. Sunday I got up early, did the house chores, and started in on my unfinished wrapping. It was a gray, dismal day and as I rewatched the first part of “
The Hogfather” I wrapped, and wrapped, and wrapped. The stuff was multiplying, I swear. Now, somewhere in the murky ghosts of Christmas past my mom started the tradition of labeling the packages in cute or sometimes just strange ways. Instead of, “To Eydie, from Mom” a package might read, “To Good Girl Eydie Lynne from Barbie Santa.” Or, “To Johnny from the Wolfie Santa.” (What!!! Mom didn’t call me “Brother John” back then???!!! And I miss my Wolfie!!!) Thanks to me, this year we have, “To little Mary from The King” and “To handsome Sammy from the fashion Santa.”
Sunday evening I decided to put up the tree and decorate the house a little while Sammy put up some outside lights. The plan was, this year, since no one will actually be at home for Christmas, to decorate minimally. Sammy helped me bring down the Christmas storage bins from the attic. There were eleven of them and the 30 gallon tree container. All stuffed full of treasures from my nearly five decades of Christmas. I have one lone surviving angel hair (long since banned) ornament from when our Pop-paw was alive. I have a few pieces of Granny’s holly and ivy dishware. I have an ornament I gave big Roger the first year we were married and a half dozen frog ornaments that Greg had collected. I have Rog’s “Baby’s first Christmas” ornament. I have a ballerina, unicorns, a banana, a Boeing plane, Sherlock Holmes, a Scottish bagpiper, Mr. Potato head, and the Mystery Machine from Scooby Do. My life chronicled in ornaments.
Of course I ended up putting out far more stuff than I’d planned because I like my Christmas stuff and I want to look at it for a few weeks. It’s glittery and shiny and full of memories. Better than a bag of gingersnaps and a half gallon of vanilla ice cream to dip them in. Although I wouldn’t say no to eating the aforementioned while I admired my Christmas decorations while sitting on the couch watching part two of “The Hogfather.”
Sammy did manage to get a little deer hunting in during last week. Our work schedule wasn’t too conducive to prime hunting times so we gave our Amish neighbors permission to hunt up in our deer stand. They got an eight point buck and two doe so far from up on our ridge. Two were from our stand, one from theirs. I hoped Sammy would have some luck, but I didn’t relish the butchering process that follows. The year after my second husband died our unidentified neighbor, knowing we counted on venison as a major meat source, offered to share his deer meat with me if I would process it. I jumped at that idea, and sure enough, he arrived one morning with a gutted, skinned, and quartered deer. The first bit of processing is to cut out the tenderloins, the most tasty and tender back strap of the deer. Around here it’s jokingly called “poison meat” as in “You don’t want that old poison meat, you’d better give it to me.” Then the steaks are cut out, chunks are cut for stew meat, and the bits and pieces are ground for burger or made into jerky. I have my Granddad’s jerky recipe. I may include it on the recipe list, but then again, maybe it will remain a family secret passed down through the generations. But (as usual) I digress. The year my unidentified neighbor brought me the deer three of his brothers showed up through the season with deer for me to process and share in the meat. I suspect their mom, knowing I wouldn’t have time to hunt that year, made sure I was taken care of. One reason why I love living in the country.
The unidentified neighbor has nine brothers and sisters. Their mom lives on the “home place” and throughout the year the whole clan shows up for summer picnics and swimming in their big farm pond, the men all come and bring their sons (and a daughter or two) to hunt deer in the fall, and or course, everyone shows up for Christmas. One Christmas when Rog was young there was a big snowfall just before Christmas vacation started. Then there was a freeze so the snow stayed around. The farm has a perfect sledding hill and that year it had a perfect crust for tobogganing. Some of the teenage boys built a big ramp about halfway down the hill and would ski or snowboard off it. All the neighbors, including me, my second husband, and Rog, showed up for the sledding. There was a bonfire to stand around and thaw out in front of, and some of the dad’s were engaged in building competitive snow forts for later snowball battles. We all took turns going down the hill. Mostly toboggans, but some runner sleds, snow tubes, a big tractor inner tube, and some sheets of paraffin coated cardboard. The hill was fast enough that the runner sleds and toboggans were too fast for me. I like my sledding sedate. So I took one of the snow tubes and happily slid down in lazy spirals and curves along with the toddlers. Unfortunately one of those lazy spirals brought me, now sliding backwards and all unknowing, onto the path of the big ski jump ramp. Next thing I know I had an excellent view of the downward slope of the hill. Unfortunately it was an upside down view as the tube performed complete 360 in the air (with me still hanging on out of desperation and shock.) The tube and I landed to applause from all and sundry and calls of “Do it again, Mrs. Hall. That was soo cool!” I gathered my wits and waved as my heart slowed from it’s trip hammer pace and I (hopefully) nonchalantly ambled off in search of home, pajamas, and hot chocolate.
Excitement Over My New Book!
By Eydie Wight
First I’d like to say, “Welcome home Brother John and Kathy!” I may work in a hospital but it’s the LAST place I’d want to spend 24/7 time for nearly two weeks. Especially, in Kathy’s case, being poked with needles, tied to monitors, and a being a guinea pig to the whims of residents who HOPE this medicine or this test will fix the problem that they HOPE they have figured out. Medicine is not an exact science but it is an exasperating one! And, in Brother John’s case, days of sleeping in a chair, not being provided with a place to shower, having to eat cafeteria food and Kathy’s leftovers, and making sure that doctors realize they have to wash their hands just like inferior people all can make you just want to curl up and have a Twinkie. Brother John will have to expound on their adventures in ICU land.
On Thursday I officially turned my book of poetry over to the printers! I am obnoxiously excited and beg forgiveness for shameless self promotion but this has been my dream for so long. Number one on the old bucket list! I had been working pretty hard the last several weeks to get everything in the correct form. I’m not very computer literate and the pictures I was trying to place kept jumping all over the screen, growing larger and smaller at whim, knocking my text right off the page, or disappearing entirely. Last Saturday was a cold, drizzly day so I worked steadily on the book, progressing from page 17 to page 65, typing in poems I only had in hard copy, searching for elusive photos I KNEW we had somewhere in the big Rubbermaid vat of photos, picture CDs, and negatives, and writing the “thank-you”page, content page, and cover pages. Then, I hit a whole slew of poems that needed to be typed into the format and I was so tired. I was whining to Sammy and he came up with the idea that they could be copied from a poetry site I belong to. And then he somehow hit the “X” button. Now, despite what I have been told over and over again, I hadn’t saved any of my day’s work. Yup, back to page 17. I stomped around the house cursing, I slammed the refrigerator door and kitchen cupboards, I finally grabbed the keys and ran out into the rain. I drove to the top of the ridge and sat in the car and pounded the steering wheel and cursed some more and wailed and boohooed. Then I drove back home, made a pot of strong coffee, and re-entered everything. By 4:30 AM the darn book was done except for proofreading and a little editing. Poor Sammy made me the biggest, most beautiful breakfast in the morning.
So, Thursday we drove to the printers. I had everything on disk, which I copied, including a copy for the fire safe. I had a hard copy (one in the fire safe too). The meeting went smoothly and well, even though I had to pop a couple of Mylanta and wished for a much stronger deodorant. I had a little trouble actually handing over the disk and hard copy. My fingers just didn’t want to let go. I did ask them to make sure they tucked in my poems before bed, didn’t let them go out and play in the rain, and if it wasn’t too much trouble, maybe sing to them just a little. Yup, they think I’m a crazy lady. So, December 1st my poems will come back to me in perfect binding form with an ISBN and a price tag. I may have to break out the Scotch. I DID break out the Apple Jack after we left the printer.
It may have been the high spirits, it may have been the Apple Jack “spirits”, but on the way home Sammy had to forcibly restrain me from using the pellet gun on the large inflatable turkey someone had decorated their yard with. I have a deep, abiding dislike of inflatable yard decorations. This dislike leaves pet peeves in the dust and borders on inflatable serial killer rage. First the inflatables started popping up at Christmas. Then I saw inflatable spiders, ghosts, and a seven foot tall Frankenstein at Halloween. Now the turkey. I don’t want to make light of anybody’s right to tacky lawn decoration, but they do make my trigger finger itch.
Speaking of alcoholic beverages, the mead is bottled! At the moment the pantry is empty of carboys. We bottled a case of small beer sized bottles and a case and a half of fifths. Young as it is, the Minsi Mountain Mead has a mellow, somewhat earthy flavor. Not too dry, not too sweet. Now it should age for at least a year. We’ll see…
Each year I try to knit several little Christmas gifts. This year I was so excited because I found a knitted slipper pattern that had belonged to our Granny. I remember those slippers. Every family member had a pair in whatever colors Granny happened to have yarn scraps enough for. They were great for skating down the hallway. I can’t remember which cousin it was (I’m thinking cousin Tim) who had the bright idea to lemon pledge the hall first and then skate down it wearing the Granny slippers but that worked GREAT! Kids, try this at home. (I mean knitting slippers but the hallway slide part is pretty good too!) The slippers are an easy pattern to make. (You can follow the pattern here: Granny’s Knitted Slippers but come back when you are done!). I made my first pair the other night after 40 years of slipper less knitting. I chose a thick brown wool and then knitted a narrow cashmere trim to line the foot opening. Unfortunately the kittens think my slippered foot is the best play toy ever invented. I may have to knit them their own pair. They keep dragging the slippers all over the house at night. Usually a soggy chewed on slipper finds its way into the bed during our day sleep.
I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is nearly here. I still haven’t finished all the fall projects (like winterizing the shed where the outside cats sleep and sorting through the flower seeds I harvested.) I do have the heater running in the cat shed and the old comforters washed and set out on the shelves in there. Big Fat Sherman refuses to leave the shed in the winter so he has a litter box even though the whole world could be his litter box. I have neurotic cats.
I remember one Thanksgiving when my second husband Greg was alive. He was quite a good hunter and had shot a fine big turkey with the shot gun. I skinned it, cooked it with all the trimmings (mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, corn, pumpkin pie) and made myself a nice lunch to take to work. Greg and Roger had gone to mom and dad’s for Thanksgiving and stopped by afterward to see me at work and brought ANOTHER whole plate of food! I had been working with one of the hospital residents who was from Russia and had never had a “true American Thanksgiving” I had spoken of the food in glowing terms during the shift and decided, since I now had two dinners, to share the one I had brought with him. I heated everything up and eagerly awaited his opinion. Well, it seemed that I hadn’t gotten all the shot out of the turkey and the resident’s first experience of an American Thanksgiving resulted in a broken tooth and a first visit to an American dentist. Also, I had over microwaved the mashed potatoes and he had to chisel his way through them. The stuffing like wise was “bone dry” and as he struggled politely through it I thought I was going to have to give him his first American Heimlich maneuver.
We had a little bit of a snow shower as Sammy was driving us to work last night. Combined with my double header of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “The Wizzard of Oz” that I watched before coming into work, I’d have to say I’m getting into the holiday spirit. There’s nothing like holiday movies, a nice fire in the wood stove and (you guessed it) my pajamas to make me a happy girl. Add a little snow falling outside, put a cup of hot tea on the coffeetable and some Granny slippers knitting in my hands and I’m a very happy girl.
Announcement!
By Sammy Wight
I was so pleased this past Thursday when we drove into the “Burg” of “Harris” for a long awaited special event; the day had finally arrived after two years of very laborious work, when my wife Eydie had completed her first book of poetry entitled: “SEPTEMBER BUTTERFLY“.
The printer was excited to be working with her to ensure that this book would be perfectly bound and presented with a cover that everyone would be proud to own a copy. They told us that the book would be ready to pick up by December 3rd this year, so we became even more excited! That means when our Perry County Arts Council has it to display among all the other artistic contributions from our area, that we can proudly offer it to her fans and future fans! I have also heard that 2 other local writers are planning a “book signing” party at the arts council in Newport, so, it should be a very uplifting time for Eydie and her family and friends this year.
Eydie has also spoken with a representative from the “Borders” media store about hosting a book signing there, and from all first glances, it appears that we can schedule that also. I am so proud of her for her work on this book, and the future contributions that will come from her arsenal of stories waiting to be completed.
Eydie has a wonderful story that she has written called, “The Christmas Bear“, that we hope to have ready by next Christmas. It will have some detailed illustrations that are contributions from one of her artist friends. Eydie’s time has finally arrived that she can complete some of these long awaited projects and share them with her fans. Believe me, her dreams each night, as told to me every morning, are just as vivid and spectacular as her poems and stories. I guess the next thing is for us to get our “Screenplay” written from a dream i had back in the mid 70’s that has never eluded me and is begging to be written and made into a very powerful film. I know Eydie is chompin’ at the bit to write a story to the website and offer her interpretation of things.
I sent brother John many photos from our Fall Driving adventures, and from our bottling of the wine and mead recently. By the way……….the Mead tastes wonderful! Wait til you see the photos!
(Brother John here. Well… why wait? Feel free to click on each image below to see it at full size!)
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Well, bye for now, and hope to hear back from our readers!
Sammy
Cutting Firewood To Make Nut Brittle
By Eydie Wight
Sammy and I had had great aspirations of filling our wood shed to overflowing when we were off on our “working vacation” a few weeks ago. And we did bring in several loads. Then, the rains came. Not for 40 days and 40 nights, although the people of Texas probably felt that way, but enough to make our access into the fields a mucky nightmare. So, this past Thursday we sallied forth (well, Sally didn’t go, only room for two in the truck plus Jasper) to our unidentified neighbor’s farm to cut a load of firewood. It was actually chilly, intermittently overcast and with a stiff breeze blowing. Enough so that I had an old gray sweat jacket on and came home with pink ears and a somewhat windburned face. Our neighbor had cut several trees down that grew along the access drive to his 100 acre property. He had done this so that in the winter the sun would be able to reach the road surface and melt some of the ice. I’d been on that road a few years ago when it was possible to skate (or in my case slide on my backside) down the length of it to where the truck was parked at the bottom, unable to make it any further up the drive.
The first tree Sammy began cutting was a nice sized walnut. It was big enough to provide that day’s truckload of wood. And, it was covered with walnuts. I’ve already mentioned that I have this quirky survivalist mentality. To me, a tree full of easily accessible walnuts means a source of protein for the winter should society fail completely and Sammy and I be unable to keep us in squirrel and deer meat in the style to which we are accustomed. The walnuts also mean my favorite nuts for Dad’s Microwave Nut Brittle. The first year he made this stuff (two or three years ago) I thought it couldn’t possibly be any good. Wrong. I put that first piece in my mouth and it had just the right crunch of nutty goodness. Let it stay in your mouth a bit and the whole mess melts into a sweet sticky glue that renders you incapable of separating your jaws for several minutes. (Great for kids if you know what I mean!) Dad has since doctored the recipe to include coconut, confectioners sugar, brown sugar, and peanut butter. I’m going to experiment with (of course) honey this year. I have to laugh at this mental image I have of Dad bringing out the container of nut brittle at Christmas time. It’s like the pied piper if you can picture a gaggle of (mostly) overweight middle aged adults all trying to get their sticky hands into the smallish plastic container at the same time and fighting over the “big” pieces.
My job, when we are cutting wood, is all the ancillary duties. Sammy cuts, I load the truck. I also pull aside and stack the ends of branches too small to cut, hold pieces still as Sammy cuts them, pull out fallen (and usually brier covered) limbs and dead fall, and play with Jasper in between. (Brother John here… I once worked for the tree trimming company Asplundh and, except for Jasper…, these were also my daily duties. The person doing this type of duty was called a “Brushy” back in the day). Well, to add to my list, there were walnuts to collect because, (chant with me Brother John, and Sylvia, you’ve been around enough to join in too) “NOTHING MUST BE WASTED!” I had no idea how many walnuts a tree has when the entire tree has been cut and all the nuts can be harvested. And, not knowing the nuts would be there, I hadn’t brought a bag along. Imagine. I was unprepared! After a minute or so of abject humiliation, and after shortly abandoning the thought of filling my jacket pockets 20 or so nuts at a time, I graciously volunteered Sammy’s jacket (which he wasn’t wearing) and started loading it up with nuts. Each jacket load I would then dump in the front foot well of the passenger’s seat of the truck. Why I didn’t just throw them in the back I don’t know. Maybe nuts and wood, like oil and water, don’t mix in my head. Anyway, by the time the truck was loaded with wood I had enough walnuts to reach up to the seat. I sat in the seat, my feet resting on a mountain of walnuts, and realized that with the back full, Jasper had to ride up front. On my lap. Seventy-five pounds and I hadn’t peed before we took off for home (on some of the finest washboard dirt roads ever traveled).
When we pulled up the driveway I had Sammy stop at the top and let me offload first Jasper (who had enjoyed the trip home immensely, with “Mom” serving as a captive petting machine) and then the walnuts. Drive around the county this time of year and you’ll see many a driveway full of walnuts. The walnut comes off the tree with a thick green hull. This turns brown as it dries. This hull has long been a natural source of brown dye. The first time I hulled walnuts I used my bare hands. I had dyed brown hands for nearly a week. Now I do what everyone else does and throw them in the drive way to be driven over until all the soft hull has been worn off. These hard walnut shells are so tough that even driving over them doesn’t crack them. They scoff at traditional nutcrackers. (Brother John here… I always wondered why people did that! I always figured the nuts would get smashed into little bits, making that a very stupid thing to do. Now I get it Sis!). I place a few nuts in a rag and then take the hammer to them. Dad uses a vise, I think. I’m open to a better suggestion. But, it is one of the late autumn/winter pastimes when the weather is nasty. Sit around the wood stove, crack some walnuts while Sammy cleans a rifle or plays a little sweet guitar. A truly rustic picture. Completed by the image that I am, of course, in my pajamas.
Tomorrow we are going to get a few more loads of wood and meet up with our unidentified neighbor who will be cutting down a couple of the larger trees that still shade the drive. I’m hoping that after the work is done he’ll suggest a walk. He has lived in the area all his life and has shared some amazing discoveries with us. I have been along when a wild honeybee tree was harvested (the bees had swarmed and were given a new hive to populate). I’ve seen heavily fossilized shale covered with the imprints of shells and algae. I went along arrowhead hunting and collected blanks and pieces of arrowheads along with one that was complete. One day we walked into a field of wildflowers. He clapped his hands and suddenly the air was full of fluttering Monarch butterflies that landed on our arms, head, and clothes.
I always keep my “other” eyes open when I am out in the woods and fields. My imagination fills them with fairy worlds that live just beside the one we know. I often feel something else, an energy, or presence, or spirit. These days I call it God. I call it all God. It could be called many things. But I know, on those fall days when I lie in a cut field and feel the earth cool beneath my shoulder blades and the sun is warm on my face and a red tailed hawk soars searching in the blue sky above me, I know that there IS more. It gathers beneath me, goes through me, and connects with things unseen. One of my poems, “Fair Paladin” came from the magic the special places hold, or at least that I imagine they hold.
I have a bucket list. For those that didn’t see the movie, it’s stuff you want to do or accomplish before you kick the bucket. I have three things on my list so far. I plan to live to be a hundred and three so I’m hoping to add a few more.
- I want to get my book of poetry published. It’s so close. I want to see it on the Arts Council shelf and on the local artist shelf at Borders. I want my mom to be there when I do my first book signing, hopefully at the Arts Council where I’ll provide homemade blackberry, elderberry, and mead wines for my friends (and maybe a stranger or two) to drink. I want someone to pay real money for a copy of my book.
- I want to walk through an airport carrying my fiddle or mandolin to take it on a plane to somewhere and know that I actually play the darn thing well enough to deserve to carry it through an airport.
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I want to take a hike on the falls trails at Ricketts Glen State Park on a perfect day in the company of someone who sees and feels and loves the magic I talked about earlier as much as I do (Sammy and Brother John would do nicely.) We’ll find goblins under tree stumps, fairy houses, alligator jawed dragons, ice eggs, and walking tree Ents.
- Eydie, Brother John here. I have no imagination it would seem. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out which “other eye” vision each of these represent. Hover the mouse and you’ll see one idea, and click on the item to see that and other ideas. It would help greatly if you would define which is which. And maybe throw in a bit of real description as well. Ricketts Glen State Park looks very nice!
But for now, Sammy is out sharpening the chainsaw on the living room coffee table and me (in my pajamas), a novel (The Gargoyle), and the big brown chair have developed this undeniable attraction for each other. Throw the blue gingham angel quilt into the mix and I won’t be long for this world… Zzzzz.
The Problem With Eydie’s And Sammy’s Jam.
The only real problem, that I can see,
With the Blackberry Jam that was given to me.
It was made too well and a little too fine,
by loving family hands, (and it tasted divine!)
Made fresh and sweet, with love and with care,
I couldn’t stop eating, so now my jar’s bare!
-By Brother John
Our First Batch Of Homemade Mead!
By Eydie Wight
Having been up late the night before picking over blackberries and starting our blackberry wine, we slept late and spent a goodly part of the day doing house chores, buying groceries, refilling the hummingbird feeders, and checking the garden for any produce. Right now the garden is producing just enough squash and tomatoes to eat. In fact, we’re still at the stage in the growing season where we lovingly say to each other, “No, you take that tomato Sweetie, it has your name on it.” And then the other replies, “No, I had the last one last time, you get this one.” Later, as the garden becomes more prolific, it will be, “Sweetie, you have to start eating up some of those tomatoes, I don’t have time to can right now and they’ll go to waste.” As Brother John will agree, and it is a point I’ve addressed in earlier blogs, NO PRODUCE MUST GO TO WASTE! Better to eat it all until you burst and die, than waste it! (Brother John actually wrote his first, and only poem about the pressures involved when a garden produces a too abundant bounty. You can read his poem in our Poetry Section).
I also felt compelled to cook some food to tide us over the next few days of our work week. So, I thawed some of Dad’s fish that he had caught. My dad and his “crew” of friends go fishing at Quimby, Morely, and Oyster, VA on my Uncle Dave’s 19 ft. Carolina skiff, the “Binnie May” or on his friend Jerry’s catamaran. They go bay fishing for croakers, flounder, king fish, and shark. Actually my dad is famous in the family for being shark bit last year. Seems he had pulled in a small (five foot) shark. He intended to get his fishing line ready and back in the water, and then deal with getting the shark back in the water. His fishing buddy (name withheld) decided to help dad out and throw the shark back in. He picked it up by the tail and swung it and just that quick the shark twisted around and latched onto dad’s calf. They had to leave the shark there in full bite and cut it’s jaw with fishing scissors down both sides to work the inward slanting teeth out. And then they took dad off to the hospital, right? Of course not. They wrapped a dirty fish scaled rag around his leg and kept on fishing. The fish (and the sharks) were biting good. No fisherman leaves when there’s fish to be caught.
But I digress. So, I had thawed out some of dad’s fish, croakers they were, and decided to bread them with a little crushed saltines, cornmeal, and Old Bay seasoning. I dipped the fillets in a mixture of beaten egg and milk, and then in the breading, and then fried them in hot oil. Since we had a few zucchini that had to be eaten I decided to make a pancake batter, slice the zucchini, and then cook them in the batter. It is delicious that way.
Well, all of this took until about nine o’clock in the evening. It was then time to start making our mead, an event we had planned for and anticipated for weeks! We were excited, anxious, and tired. In honor of the occasion we had bought a bottle of “Mead” at the local liquor store, along with my favorite hard liquor (Laird’s Apple Jack). We poured two little shot glasses full, toasted each other, took a sip, and said simultaneously, “Blech”. Looking at the bottle we saw that the store bought mead was mixed with white wine. Not to our taste at all. Oh well, on to OUR mead.
The first thing we did was make up a couple gallons of sterilization solution. And boiled a big pot of water and then allowed that sterile water to cool for rinsing. Everything we used, buckets, spoons, measuring containers, utensils, HANDS, were sterilized and rinsed each time they were used. Step one was to pasteurize the honey. Now, my apologies to beekeeper Dan, about pasteurizing the honey, because many people believe this is an unnecessary step, but this was our first time, and the honey was raw, so we did. We first skimmed off any particles of wax and propolis that were on top of the honey. Then I had to make Sammy stop eating big spoonfuls of honey long enough to help me measure out 5 quarts of honey (about 15 lbs). I put one and a half gallons of spring water into a big pot, brought this to a boil, added the honey, stirred it, put the thermometer in the stuff and raised the temperature back to 160 degrees. This we let simmer at about 160 degrees for fifteen minutes to pasteurize the honey. All that sounds so easy and uncomplicated and it really is. But, you have to add to the equation my obsessive compulsive neat freak habits and the worry factor. Minsi Mountain honey is beautiful, tasty, wonderful stuff. But it’s sticky stuff. Sammy and I were ladling the honey into a two quart container to measure it and, of course, some dripped on the floor, and the counter, and the stove top, and my shirt, and my arms, and my face, and my hair. We stirred the honey for the entire time it was pasteurizing and kept playing with the heat to try to keep it EXACTLY at 160 degrees. Worried it near to death. Then, Sammy suddenly said, “I forgot!” and ran out of the room, leaving me stirring. I was hot, sticky, cranky, and none too pleased to see him come back with the camera. “I almost forgot to take pictures for Brother John!”, he said. Now, I’m in my pajamas (again), I’m honeyed but not too sweet if you know what I mean, and Sammy’s taking pictures. Fine. Couldn’t look anymore like a hillbilly then at that very moment. Yee-ha.
Well, after the honey was pasteurized we poured the honey mixture (called must) into the sterile bucket. We added two more gallons of the spring water (of the original four gallons there was now 1/2 gallon left) and stirred it up. It was at this time that we realized that the mixture was still way too hot and was going to take a very long time to cool down. One of our guru sites on the Internet suggested the two gallons of spring water could be frozen before being added. Or at least refrigerated. Next time we’ll do that. So we waited. We were waiting for for the honey mixture to cool to 80 degrees. We mixed up two packets of yeast in a half cup of warm (not hot) sterile water and let that sit for 15 minutes. After that time the yeasties were bubbling nicely. We added yeast nutrient, and yeast energizer to the must (per package directions) and added the yeast and stirred the mixture in the bucket actively for five minutes. I did dance around the bucket chanting, “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, cauldron boil and cauldron bubble.” but Sammy was back E-mailing Brother John with the pictures we had taken so far and he missed it. Gee. Too Bad.
We promised our mead that we would see it soon, (told it to be good and ferment “like a nice wine”), and then we put the lid onto the bucket. We added a fermentation lock out of curiosity (you don’t really need one at this point) and Sammy hauled the bucket down to the basement. Our basement is dry, stays about 70 degrees, is quiet, and mostly dark. We put the mead in the back bedroom/storage room. Here it would sit thinking secret thoughts for about two weeks.
I did have an image, as Sammy was going down stairs, of him tripping, falling, and splattering gallons upon gallons of sticky goo all over the basement where it would flow into corners and mix with dust bunnies and possibly grow into an evil monster that would kill us all while we slept. If that happened, I would just get beekeeper Dan to bring in some honeybees and they could just live in the house until the spill was all cleaned up. Speaking of honeybees, we put all of the propolis and comb that we had skimmed from the raw honey, out for the wild honeybees. They cleaned up the bowl in a few days, as beekeeper Dan said they would. The mead did demand a small blood sacrifice. I scraped my knuckle getting the lid on the bucket. No blood went in the mead, just a spatter on the floor.
Well, I scrubbed the floor, counters, sink, dishes, myself, and sat on the couch at last. Sammy and I “high-fived” each other a few times, I ate a half a celebratory box of Wheat Thins and drank a few shots of Apple Jack and Sammy, my loving soul mate, brought out the cocoa butter lotion and gave me a long, thorough foot rub. Life is good at the Wight House!
How we first discovered Mead.
By Eydie Wight
My first experience with Mead came from a fellow writer from my writer’s group. Jim was a song smith, a rather opinionated and gruff sort. The first time I attended Writer’s Group I sat shaking in my sandals as Jim systematically told it like it was to the poets and narrators who proceeded me. When it was my turn and I read my poem, “When Lydia Was Ten“, Jim took a sip of this amber colored stuff he had in a paper cup, and shoved the copy of my poem back at me. I thought, “Oh god, it was so horrible he doesn’t even want to have a copy of it. I’m about to be drummed out of the group on my very first visit.” I started to put the paper back in my folder (my special blue plastic folder with the hippie flowers on it that I had bought special for the meeting) and he said, “Hey, what are you doing with that?” I swallowed and thought, “What, does he want me to crumple it up and throw it away so the taint will be removed from the hallowed hall? Do I need to ceremoniously set fire to it?” He said, “I want you to sign that and give it back, it’ll be worth something one day.” And then the poet laureate of Perry County, a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth, a woman so talented and radiant I had only been able to sneak glimpses of her throughout the meeting, said, in an affected tone of voice, “Well, you know you aren’t supposed to walk in here from off the street and show us all up.” And then they all clapped for me and passed me a cup of the amber stuff. I took a sip of that pure honey rush and knew that I would carry that moment with me for the rest of life as one my best top five.
Jim died a week after that in a freak canoe accident, caught in flood waters and an undercut rock. He would meet some friends every year to canoe and camp. He had taken some of the poems from the writer’s group to share with his friends and mine was one he had with him. Jim’s wife brought in some of Jim’s homemade mead, which I found out was the amber stuff in the cups, from time to time to share with writer’s group and that was how my husband Sammy got his first taste of it.
The Adventures of Eydie and Sammy Wight 