More Muscadines

All the grapes seem to grow under the vines and leaves;
I have to crawl on the ground, the fruit to retrieve.
I never met Mamie's man, but he couldn't have been too tall,
Our maybe he sent his kids to pick whenever they started to squall.

I really need a toddler next time that we pick grapes,
Or maybe I could try to train a family of apes.
The only thing that may be a problem with that plan,
Is I doubt that very many grapes would end up as jam.

The toddlers would drop them on the ground and not pick them up.
The apes would sit down on the job and on the fruit they'd sup.
Last year's batch of muscadine jam was a sight to behold;
It was a rather shocking green instead of a burnished gold.

Muscadine Madness was a sad joke of a jelly;
Even Santa wouldn't put that stuff in his belly.
This year I'll know better than to add any color magic;
The green hue of last year's jam was quite literally tragic.

Free-Falling Fruit

Mountain Mama Mamie was in fine fettle today;
She called to say the muscadines are ready to be put away.
She had been feeling poorly the last time we came by;
She had sleep-over company, so we knew she wouldn't cry
While we were in the city with our widowed friend.
But her company and aches and pains had come to an end.
It was time to come pick grapes for jams, jellies and wine;
I told her we'd be over as soon as we found the time.

Greta had already informed me that her pears were ready for me;
She was tired of the crows getting all that fell from her tree.
I had told myself we were finished with canning for this year,
But I can't resist the gifts of new fruits as they appear.
Last year we had no pears for our cran-pear-ginger chutney,
And my godchild Gary has asked for pear butter from me.
A garden is God's way of keeping us from having too much pride;
The people who guaranteed success obviously lied.

We have to bow to God's whims regarding the bad weather,
And we must push ourselves to gather when things are better.
God lets many other creatures feast upon our soil;
There are times when we have no reward, no matter how hard we toil.
Of course the old-timers always have theories about what went wrong;
Something to do differently next year is their favorite song.
Sometimes I think hunter-gatherers were smarter than we are;
They simply enjoyed Nature's gifts from places near and far.

Traveling with the seasons, following the beasts,
Like manna from heaven, they acquired their feasts.
Now, here we are attempting to control the land,
Convincing ourselves that Nature needs a hand.
We sweat, and plow, and fertilize with chemicals,
Never paying much attention to Nature's rules.
I'm sure that we could live on what occurs naturally,
But we'd have to be content with what we're given for free.

Movable Memories

Some call them senior moments,
But that doesn't apply to me.
I never could remember anything;
I went from ADD to senility.

I like to say that the mind
Is like a computer's CPU,
But when our brains get too full,
There's little we can do.

There should be an external drive
Where we could download the overflow;
When we needed this information
To our jump drives we would go.

Our ear canals could serve as
Our data retrieval ports.
We'd simply plug in external drives
For information of all sorts.

What would even be better
Is we could trade memories,
My trip to the dentist
For your vacation overseas.

Wouldn't the world be lovely
If we could walk in each other's shoes,
By simply plugging into another's memories,
And replacing ours when we choose?

Ladies of Love and Laughter

The ladies were lovely and a whole lot of fun.
They may be with churches, but not just one.
The quilts they make are not for UT;
They're made for Children's Hopital, you see.
These gals have hearts as big as the earth;
Each one giving whatever she's worth.
Pastor Lynda is very good at recruiting;
For community efforts she has everyone rooting.

Eda is sewing a border by hand,
While her daughter Anita by the ironing board stands.
Tina makes yo-yos that will become keychains;
Jessica is piecing, so no two quilts are the same.
Gayle sits and sews a fine seam;
Joyce is helping with several teams.
They make tissue box covers and coasters, too
For Christmas gifts, I may buy a few

Donna and Delight are comparing their thoughts
About which items will be most readily bought
By folks attending the Autumn Gold Fest.
I couldn't decide which things I like best.
I got great stories of their efforts;
I took their pictures; they were great sports.
The cookies were eaten with great gusto;
They laughed at my stories, then I had to go.

Chocolate and Church Ladies

The quilting queens of Coker Creek are meeting this morning, and I plan to be there. I usually wear rather thin rather quickly on church ladies because I blurt out things that they don't even want to think about, much less hear about. Sometimes I can even upset people without saying a thing; they can see in my eyes what I'm thinking.

My mission today is to get the stories of these wonderful women who gather monthly to make quilts for critically ill kids. Their project du jour is to create a quilt with the University of Tennessee Team symbol for auction at the Coker Creek Autumn Gold Festival. This will help them raise funds to make more quilts.

I'll take along my camera to catch them in their acts of kindness; then we can create a story board for their booth at the fest. Jack and I plan to share booth space with them, if we're allowed to do so. What a wonderful way to multitask, helping Jack promote his book while helping the ladies cuddle these kids. Come to think of it, maybe Jack could go read to the hospitalized children, helping their spirits soar while their bodies are being healed.

Chocolate is purported to soothe the savage soul. I would eat some to see if it would soothe me, but I'm on Atkins, so I'll have to do the next best thing. I hear that even church ladies indulge in the sinful richness of chocolate. I figure if I soothe their souls with some chocolate, they may be less prone to being upset with what I say or what they see in me. And one can't get much more chocolaty than death-by-chocolate cookies.

If the quilting queens of Coker Creek can't retain their calm with me after they taste our death-by-chocolate cookies, I'll just have to give up the ghost.

Creation Celebrations

While it is true that I'm impatient, all my impatience doesn't move The Almighty one little bit. For a long time, I was afraid to show my impatience for fear that it would be seen as a lack of faith. It's not that I don't have faith, it's just that I sometimes have to sneak a peak into the oven to make sure that the cake is in there. I'm so afraid that if I don't peak, I'll forget about the party and miss the cake all together.

I really don't think the The Big Baker minds if I sneak a peak; sometimes I'm even asked to watch the cupcakes for a while. Of course, if I peak too often the cake will fall, and if I get distracted for too long, the cake might burn. Sometimes The Big Baker will let me vary the recipes just to give me a sense of participation. I know The Big Baker will always start a new batch if I don't succeed in my small part.

I just never know when I'll get to be the birthday girl, so I always try to have my party hat close by; and I really like to be the one to help with the birthday cakes. This makes me feel more sure that I won't miss my own party when my time comes.

The parties I most remember are the ones planned just for me, my tenth and my fiftieth. I love planning parties for other people because it makes me feel part of the celebration of their spirits. While I'm waiting for my Party Into Paradise, I feel honored to be part of the creation celebrations of others.

Lots of Life

We're winding down on our home front just as all this party into paradise planning kicks in. The garden is still waiting for us to plow up our last potatoes, but I've done all the canning I intend to do, except for the bunches of beets still in the earth.

I'm not as fond of this year's grape jam, but that's because I had to use a different type of grape. These grapes were larger and darker, but produced a garnet-colored grape jam rather than the rich deep purple of the batches in years past. Oh well, the grapes were free for the picking off Mamie's trellises, and our didn't bear anything worth worrying over.

October will be quite busy beginning with Don's party on the first of next month, followed the next weekend by the Coker Creek Ruritan's big fortieth annual fundraiser, the Autumn Gold Festival. Richard and I will both be working booths, Richard collecting cash at the Ruritan roach coach and me bragging about Jack's book to generate sales.

I had hoped to have Nancy's book finished by now, but we're still running into technical difficulties with the cover. Persistence will finally pay, but it sure is frustrating getting from "G" to "O." (That spells "GO" -- for those not familiar with that colloquialism.)

I'm really looking forward to a visit by a friend of mine since we were in high school. She's actually the woman who picked up the father of my children on Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras Day, back when we were both sixteen. I haven't seen her for years, but I'm sure she's still a man magnet, even though we're both bumping up against sixty.

As soon as Annette leaves, after seeing all our colorful fall leaves, I'm heading south for an extended stay. My baby boy's birthday is on Halloween. I like to go down and play with people's children while they go to my wild child's Halloween party.

With a wedding to attend in Houston in November, and a visit to our newly married nephew and his wife, followed by Thanksgiving and Santa's workshop cranking up in earnest, I don't think we'll have time to be bored until well into the new year.

Oh, and did I mention that we're hoping to host several families for "Holidays in the Holler" between Christmas and New Years Day?

I warned Richard before he married me that he didn't know what he was asking for when he stated that he wanted me to bring "life into his house." I told him he may not be ready for all the life forms I brought around, but did he listen? No...