Ellwood Passages

Hanging On

2005-04-28T23:40:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Oaks are such a sturdy rugged tree. Some of them hold their leaves into the winters. They are never in a hurry to jump into spring, they clasp their buds tight and wait patiently until the days are sure to be warm before they gallop out to play. In this way they have always seemed old and mature to me, able to keep their silence. Not running off with every little notion of spring, but waiting for the real thing. Mature, dignified, that is how Oaks always seemed to me.

I have always noted with interest a large old oak that I pass by on 22.
This tree appears by its size and it’s gnarled bark to be quite old. Some times an old oak tree will be left standing in a field and it is so neat when they do because they get so big and present such an awesome presence. This certain Oak Tree has something else about it, which makes it noteworthy, and that is the fact that it has a serious lean.

No matter from which direction you look at it, it cannot be missed the tree is topping over.

When my daughter and I drove by it for the first time after the rains this spring we exclaimed how much more bent over it seemed to be then ever. Although we were on a destination we slowed down and looked hard for signs of new growth on the tree and we were happy when we saw, Yes! little green-yellow leaves unfurling all over the huge tree.

I got out to visit with the tree a bit and I was greeted with a wave,

It seemed to me that in it's own silent way the tree had so much to say.

I walked up to the tree and I looked up into it's hollow and I took this picture.
Do you see the spirits and the faces that I see there?

The Green of Spring

2005-04-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
The fields are emerald green now. It is as if my world is blushing with hope. The hope that is eternal. The hope that swells within young birds hearts and persuades them that they should sing the song of spring. The hope that makes the flowers rise from the darkness of the ground. The hope that makes them forget their winter.

The old brick house that sits in my view to the north in the winter is removed from my sight now with the first blush of the trees. All that can be seen is her white barn which glows when the sun sets. Oh how can I describe how joyful the trees look with their light, still shy colors of new growth.

The apple trees and the grape vines are blooming although the average last frost is not until May 8th and so we pray that we will be lucky. It is nice for this that we reside up on a hill as the cold fingers of the frost does not always reach up from the valleys to us.

I cannot get over how beautiful and purple are the berries that will turn into cones and are sprouting all over the spruce trees. And then the redbud branches swish against them continuing the same color theme.

The new rhododendron blooms by my front steps as Calie Button runs about and playing with the fairy flowers who only she can see.

Two Portraits

2005-04-06T00:26:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
My friend Edwina Peterson Cross, more affectionately known as Winnie, created a picture for me once of a girl looking out over the hills enjoying nature. When I first saw it I was surprised at how it resembled another painting that I had once seen.

When we were still renting, before we had found our homestead my husband and I were taking a little holiday in a town south of here. And so we were roaming about the town when we walked through a restaurant that had a local artist’s paintings on display. There was one painting that so struck my heart. A girl was standing on her homestead, the farm, the meadow, the creek and the woods swept towards the horizon behind her. But in front of her loomed the skyline of a city. She held a long rifle in her arms and pointed it across the cornfield and towards the steadily approaching monster of commerce.

Winnie’s picture reminds me of this painting because they both have the same hills, and the same girl with the same soul looking out over them.

I live outside of town where farmhouses, fields and woods dot the land just like in the pictures. The city and a lot of population are in front of me, just yet out of view across the cornfield and down the road. Behind me you can take country roads down into the hills and away.

I like to go where I need to in ever-growing city by skirting around the edges of the metro. It is there, skimming around the edges of the material world that I see more and more farm/wood land just plain disappearing.

The beautiful little creeks that used to be so lovely are ploughed over and forced into drainage ditches. There is no place left for a tree to cast its full shadow down the hill of a green field. Don’t they know that our eyes need this? Mine do! I just don’t understand, how much farther will they build? Will they ever stop? Will it keep on going until every field and woods is subdivision?

Today I drove through where there are rolling fields of an especially knobby kind. I have always loved driving there and thinking how magical those little hills are. Now I see that they are destroying this place for more subdivision. As I was driving through I saw three deer silhouetted against the sunset. They posed in hesitation between two new subdivisions.

It so struck my heart how their home had been stolen.
Animals have a code in their hearts that connects them to the land that they were born on. When people move in taking up more then their fair share, the deer stay and they try to travel the old pathways that the genes of their forefathers taught them to travel. They do not understand when we build a highway over their trails and expect them to go someplace else. My heart so went out to those deer and I cried. I felt like the Native American still watching the greed of the new comers. I felt like the Lemurian who hated Atlantis.

The earth is a spiritual being, will we wake up and be aware of this?
The earth needs to honored again. We act as if the earth should honor us; well it is the other way around.

I feel like the girl in the picture that Winnie created standing in awe of the God given beauty. I also feel like the girl in the painting that Winnie’s picture reminds me of, the girl with the rifle standing ready. Because the city threatens to come towards my little piece of hollowed ground and I would like to pick up my rifle and chase it away.
But I reckon when the day comes that the material world starts to swallow up this little spot of mine that I will just have to pack up my bags and leave and find some, more country, place to dwell. God I pray that this so called progress will come to a halt before there is no country quiet place left to go to. For where would my soul gather then?

April

2005-04-01T18:04:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Lemuria Awakens

2005-03-23T15:17:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
I couldn’t believe that I was hearing what I was hearing but there it was. I listened intently and between the passing of cars and the sighs of the winds, there it was, loud and clear last evening as I went out into the darkness of the porch to gather more wood for the fire, the Spring Peepers, peeping! It seems impossible because it has been cold and dreary without much sun. How dare the peepers declare that it is spring! Their biological clock runs in rhythm with something other then the temperature of the air. And so does the clock of the daffodils because they are coming up through snow and bursting with yellow-green.

Snowdrops

My Little Buddy in His Cave

Winter is so pretty sometimes. I am not sure that I have had enough. But when it snows now it cannot be taken seriously and is as harmless as whipped cream on pumpkin pie.

Earth Cleansing

2005-01-20T11:09:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
I shared this on the forums but thought I would also like to share it here.

One morning last week as I was coming from my dreams I was in my car and God was washing the window over my dashboard, all at once everything was clearer, and I could see better where I was going.

I got up and went to see a friend of mine and we got to talking about things, the tsunami, and how it seemed like everything has changed and it is the end and the collapsing of so many things.

Then she told me about something that she said she kept thinking about and that was how people all over the world are reaching out and helping the people where this earth movement happened. And it reminded my friend of the blackout that happened in NYC and how people helped each other and there was less crime during that time period than unusual.

We talked about what I read that people got to sit outside and look at the stars in the sky for the first time in their lives ever, during that blackout. People talked to their neighbors for the first time. We felt that everything that was not aligned with love was coming to the service and being washed out. Our rivers and streams here in Ohio have spilled up and over their banks many times this winter and flooding surrounds us. Great big house are washing down the Ohio river, it is like the dam broke loose.

It seems that suddenly nothing can be hidden; any leaves stuck on old logs are getting stirred up and washed on down the river. And the debris created by `the wave` is getting carried back out to the sea. Everyone’s lives have dramatically changed or are changing.

We were talking about this when my friends ex came by bringing over little Job. Job is an enchanting mix of wisdom and innocence wrapped up in his sparkling eyed, two-year-old self. Job showed me his new toy while his Daddy joined his mothers and mine conversation, His Daddy declared that we were in the Apocalypse. Patty and I agreed that we were living it now. It was no longer in the future but the scales had been tipped and everything was sliding into the pot now. The end of the earth, it is here.
Job’s father continued. “We were living in it, participants of the end.”
And then we asked him what he thought was next. The end, he replied.
“This it it, this is the end. “
And as it seemed that he just left it there,
We asked him, ”What do we do next? So where will our souls go then?

As Job’s father pondered his answer, little Job, unexpectedly and spontaneously piped in ,and in a voice which seemed to imply, don't you grownups know!?
He informed us,
“ WE GO HOME”

There was a hush in the room as we all withstood the impact of Job’s input.
And then we all laughed and said, Yes, Job got it right!
We go home! There is no place left to go but home.

As I drove home I had this big feeling that I was not living in the same world that I was living in yesterday but that the new world was superimposed over the old.
Another thing happened before I left my friend, her daughter called her on the phone and she shared that when she woke up this morning she felt like she was waking up for the very first time and seeing through brand new eyes.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

One Winged Seed

2004-10-24T17:44:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
Once there was a winged seed who lived high up in a maple tree. She was so happy there, floating in the breeze. She thought that life could only get better and better. All her seed friends were giggling around her and she felt loved and content.

But then one day a big wind blew and that little winged seed lost her hold. She spun down from the tree, her one wing fluttering and being torn by the force. She then found herself upon the cold wet ground, her wing broken, her hopes shattered. The rain forced her deep into the mud of the earth and she hurt more then she had ever hurt before. Never had she known a cold so cold, nor a silence so deep.

As she lay there she lost all hope of ever seeing light again, because the sky seemed so far away. But after a time she discovered something, in the place where she had once worn her wing, there was something else. She was sprouting roots, roots which traveled deep into the earth and brought nourishment to her. And she was also sprouting arms, arms which she could reach up from the earth with and peek to the surface.

And then it began to dawn on her that she was not dying, that all hope was not lost. She was still filled with pain but she began to wonder at the signs that she was getting that the one winged seed that she used to be was becoming something else, something quite different from a seed. Something with roots growing deep in the depths of the earth and arms reaching up. And so she began to have hope that one day she would be touching that sky again, not as a seed but as a tree.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Just a Picture

2004-10-03T11:27:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Bean Supper at ClearCreek

2004-09-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

We fell together into a rare two hour afternoon nap when Jim and I found ourselves exhausted after Saturdays Market. Then it was like being awoken from a mummied state, when he let me know that it was time to arise and go to the bean super that we had promised to show up at. “Oh! Why did I say we would go? I berated myself, as I struggled to get ready and get myself and two girls out the door, “It would be so good to just stay home and rest.”

I grabbed a jar of my Company’s Coming Bread and Butter Pickles from the cupboard, and Jim retrieved a jar of honey from the truck to take. We went through town and stopped at Kroger to get some chips and pop to contribute, plus a container of macaroni feeling guilty that it wasn’t homemade.

We traveled around the south side of town and into the country towards the hilly and pretty area that Clear Creek runs through. We found the bean dinner on a beautiful piece of land where a regal but comfortable old farmhouse snuggles on the hillside and watches proudly over the vista, a large sweeping vista with a great blue sky above and a great green lawn below. We parked our car with the others in a row on this span of green and then walked out into the midst of it. We were then between the house and the view and we walked towards the horizon where in the foreground of this landscape the people were gathered on the lawn. The lawn sloped on down past the people into pastures below, pastures which joined a stretching stand of corn that stood glowing amber and gold in the autumn light. Beyond all this flowed the creek, spanned by a charming old wooden covered bridge, which posed, picturesque like, in the valley.

This is the home and land, all 100 and some acres of it, of Hazel and Loraine, fellow marketers. “As far that way as your eye can see,” is the way Hazel puts it, as she nods to the south. When we got there Hazel and Loraine were tending to the kettle that was hanging over a fire. A big black kettle that was as big as your arms outstretched into a circle. They stirred the beans in this kettle with a big wooden tool that looked like a paddle. They were good beans, with ham and lots of pepper.

After Hazel and Loraine greeted us I snuck our store bought macaroni onto the table and with a knife popped open the lid on my pickles and put the honey by the cornbread. Our friends from market, Shirley and Ed were there. Ed was coming back to the table for seconds and he made a point of getting another piece of cornbread just because Jim had brought his honey. He squeezed the honey bear over his bread and then he helped himself to some of my pickles, took a bite of them, “Good, like everything you attempt,” he told me.

As we went to join the others Jim and I realized that we were suppose to have brought our own chairs. Last time we went to one of these get-togethers it was the plates and silver that we were to bring for ourselves, this time it was chairs. I guess we need to study some bean dinner/potluck, textbooks. Before I even knew what was happening Ed had given up his seat and had me seated by his lovely wife Shirley, as he took up a conversation with the fellows by the tractor. After eating and needing to stretch, us women folk got up to walk around and after I got myself a cup of coffee I drifted over to where my Husband was in a conversation with the articulate fellow who had complimented my pickles.

He tapped the resin from his pipe then refilled and lit it and the spicy warm aroma of his smoke wafted through the air. Talk was of market, gardening and the weather. Ed had said something about new people setting up at market and how the new was good, even if it gave the old ones more competition. Then Ed flourished his pipe through air with one hand as he told us how he used to read the obituary when he was young and he would see, “So and So had died at the age of 69, or 73 or 80,” and he would think, “ No big deal, they had a nice long life, it is the natural way of things, the old die, the new take over.”

But he went on to tell us, things felt a lot different to him now that he was one of those so-called old fellows, and he was walking a tightrope with life on one side and death on the other. In his seventies Ed has been in a battle with cancer. At one time he chose to have an operation that the doctors tried to discourage him from having, he would have to be tough to go through it they told him and at best it would give him two months. “I choose the two months,” he told us. When you get right up close to leaving this earth two months seems like a precious amount of time to be with your loved ones. Those two months stretched to years. Again and again he has fought the battle and again and again he has won. We were relieved when Ed informed us that the last test that was done showed him to be tumor free.

The sun slipped beyond the hill behind the house and the air grew cool. We gathered around the fire where the children roasted marshmallows. As we stood in the shadow of the hill, the sun which had been behind a mist for most of the day peeked out and cast a red glow on the forest of trees beyond the creek. As dusk fell we said our goodbyes and found our way to our cars over the now wet with dew grass. A mockingbird that had gathered his songs of imitation began to practice them to the moon, filling the now dark air with his trilling tunes, I listened to him from the car window as long as I could hear him as we drove off into the black night, on our way back home.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

September is so Beautiful

2004-09-19T13:06:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Hurricane Ivan mellowed as he came north towards us. He lumbered through the Appalachians and then turned into an autumn Ohio storm, swelling the water ways and washing us clean with rain. Then from the north swished a cool breeze that pushed the rain east, and left us with crystal blue skies.

September charms us with yellow rays of goldenrod filling up forgotten fields, turning what once was green into seas of yellow.

Dancing in these yellow seas sways the temptress, aster. Together they weave a spell of gold and lavender, goldenrod and wild purple aster waltzing.

Sumac stands red and proud against the clear blue sky. Every little hedgerow and by-way is a-glow in the late summer sun. Red, gold, yellow, brown and green reign, as the leaves of every little vine and twig turn splendid.

Jim took our last harvest of honey off the hives yesterday and was up late into the night extracting it from the combs. This whole place smells like honey right now. The sweet aroma wafts around the house from the honey hole, (place of honey extracting). The bees are filling up the hives out back with the fall nectar, which gives off a very strong robust essence. This is the goldenrod honey, rich and dark, which they prepare to sustain them through the winter.

I have been harvesting the bittersweet; the berries on our vines are tight and peach colored and the leaves have not yet turned yellow. I gather them and take them inside to hang, where overnight the berries pop open and greet us the next morning with fire and orange. I tie these in bunches and take them to market. I enjoy working with these radiant berries and passing them on, they are something that is missed. People stop by our stand and ask the name of them, or drop off reminisces of their grandmothers picking it, or lament the demise of it in the wild.

It is a good selling plant and worth the effort as a market plant. I cannot make enough apple pie jam to take to market either. They try it, they buy it, has become our motto. There are still berries and apples to pick and squash to put in the meals with tomatoes. But we know it won’t be long, the season is signing now that it is time to make up our apple and tomato sauce’s for winter and collect the wood close to the hearth. One day soon there will be a full moon coming up on the horizon of a clear cloudless night with a chance of frost in air. We will be out grabbing the last green tomatoes to save for ripening in the house.

But oh how beautiful is every moment of this season now.
I just want to stop and stare while summer says her long goodbye with autumn kissing on her face. It wont be long before the sassafras glows red and gold and like a watercolor paints the sky with flurries of yellow swirls as she throws them all away one windy day.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

As the Storm Rides

2004-09-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Watching the storm sweep through the sky,

Is where we stand, you and I.

You and I know that right on the other side

Of the dark cloud, comes the bright day.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Door to My Lemuria

2004-09-08T02:14:00.001-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Those Who Make You Wonder

2004-09-05T13:57:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood Of all of the people that we have had the privilege to get to know this summer at the farm market, Amish Man Dan and his family are the ones who intrigue me the most. Their whole way of living from the land, staying out of the system and adhering to an old, forgotten by the rest of us, way of life makes me long to learn more about them. I have never seen children who love to work like their children do.

To the Amish children work is play. We have seen them compete with each other and scramble to get a job done. They show much delight in doing the best job that they can do. Little John is only two and one day I watched as he piled the muskmelons that his father had put to his care into a display for the market crowd. Every once in a while his chubby little fingers would lose grasp of one and it would roll away and with all his might he would wobble out to retrieve it and then he grasped the round melon with both arms and with all seriousness and firm determination he would get it back to the top of the pile. Later I glanced back and was blessed by the look of pride on Little John’s face when his father came by and smiled at the muskmelons piled high.

We took our wagon to unload at their home after market Saturday and six children came out to greet us. They immediately saw what needed to be done and the little ones climbed into the wagon and started handing produce to the larger ones and us, which we all then placed on the table in the shade. An older Amish girl had gone into the house to fetch a broom and just as the produce was clear from the wagon, she jumped in and swept out the left over scraps. We were there unloaded and gone in less then five minutes time.

Emma the mother of the nine is such a cheerful soul, she says that her time to rest will be here in the winter, when she is sitting by the fire, quilting and watching the birds that she delights in feeding through her window. She put up 92 quarts of tomato juice Tuesday she told me, the day that she cut open a watermelon at market and shared it with us. Still she had the tomato sauce and whole tomatoes for soup to do. One time as we were unloading she was standing there thinking and writing something down on a scrap piece of paper,
“Are you making a list,” I asked her? She handed it to me and it was a recipe for the watermelon pickles that I had shown an interest in when Dan had told me how she makes them. Muskmelon with vanilla, it sounds so good.

We have been around Dan more than any of the Amish, as he is the only one who always comes to market. I have enjoyed his lively sense of humor and quick smiles throughout these three seasons. We got to talking about growing vegetables without pesticides one day. If a vegetable is not sprayed it will be a little bug eaten at times and how people don’t like to see holes in their food even if it is chemical free.

Then he told me about this one fellow who in the spring kept coming to his stand and asking for sweet corn because he had some of Dan’s sweet corn the year before and he had decided that it was the best. So he was watching and waiting for Dan’s corn to come and every market day he would be asking about it. Well finally some corn was ready and this fellow was the first to buy some. Then this fellow came back the next week and he said that there were a few corn worms on the tip of the corn that he had bought from Dan. Amish Man Dan covered his mouth as he told me, “ Maybe I should not have said this to him, but I couldn’t resist, I told him, Well, I guess it is true that the early bird gets the worm!”

Ah yes Dan he is always so funny. One day he stopped by our house to let us know that he would need the wagon, I was setting off towards the berry brambles up alongside the cow pasture and I mentioned my concerns about the bulls. I told him that when I am out there with the cows I always kept my mind on the location of the nearest good climbing tree in case I ever had to dash up it.

Dan then showed me what to do if a bull ever charged at me. He said what you do is you take off your hat and you roar like a mad man, and he preceded to demonstrate this scare tactic to me as he pulled his Amish straw hat from his head and waved it frantically in the air, his grey black beard swaying to and fro and him roaring like a lion. I couldn’t be scared of the bulls as I picked berries that day for the remembrance of Dan roaring at them like lion kept me smiling. But I did keep my eyes on the nearest tree just in case.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

The Beckoning

2004-08-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

My bridegroom beckoned,
He has informed me of what to wear.
Feathers and beads like veils within my hair.
“Prepare a cape of woolen brown,” says he.
“Warm suede boots to touch the ground.
Have a ritual with Storm.

Your bridegroom awaits you.”

And he spoke of where he would find me.
Beside crystal flowing streams.
Where stone and water meet.
And little fish dance,
Upon our feet.

“Travel by mule over rocky glen, said he,
To find the way within.
Ride with wolf, hawk and bear.
Polar Bear White, she is the mother,
In the cold dark night.
Hawk, he is the one who sees far.
Wolf why, he is your brother.

Prepare three weeks, cleanse with fruit and labor.
The time will come to go,
Three days on sturdy mules, beside moss, riding with kin.
Pausing near flowing sparkling water,
In person,
Crystal aspersion
With no stains.

It is there we will meet again.

Feathers will drift in, from near and far.
They will speak of who you really are.
Gold, bronze, black, brown,
And white.
Look for them, you will see them.
They each hold a piece of the vision.

Wear your hair like in a crown,
The music of the earth will guide you,
The air of the portals sustain you

The path will be laid out, prepare and follow.”
And then he whisperd back to me before he temporarily parted.
“Whatever you do, don’t start Thinking,
That you are dreaming.
Thinking isn’t Real.
Feeling is.

I will wait for you there.”

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.>

A Whole New World

2004-08-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood I was washing up honey jars in the kitchen sink when I got to thinking about what the now retired bee-keeper Mr. Burgeaff said to me one day while we were talking with him. My husband was buying some of his old bee equipment when Mr. Burgeaff, with his kind gentlemanly smile, looked right at me, a new bee-keepers wife, and he gave me this prediction “ You are about to enter a whole new world.”
How intriguing, I thought at the time.

My husband interrupted my thoughts as he came through the kitchen to grab some pails to take down the road to the bramble patch. I finished up the jars and went out the kitchen door to take some scraps to the chickens. It was then that I heard the hum. The unmistakable roar of a swarm of bees. I looked up to see a large loose mass of them swirling above the apiary. I could tell that they had not been away from their mother hive for long as they were still in the wide-open scattered stage. Some of them were flying out and then back again to the nucleus of the swarm. The way the whole group of bees appears to roll always reminds me of a hurricane.

As I watched this honeybee hurricane I let the wonder of it wash over me, soaked it in for a moment there in our back yard, the thrill of the honeybee in swarm. I never cease to be awed by the fellowship of a swarm. The power of all of those bees of one mind intrigues me. They are going free, anxious to be independent of the mother hive. It gives me a feeling of new inspiration; watching those offshoots, making their multiplying flight. I knew that my husband would want to know about our bee hurricane and that if he could get to them in time he might be able to retrieve these run-away honey bees. Our daughter came around the smoke house corner exclaiming, “ Mom! A swarm!”

If you want things to get exciting around our house, you detect a swarm. Mercy! Then things will start happening! I took off down towards the black raspberry patch, after my husband. His berry picking was quickly dropped when we brought him the news.

The bees were looking for an acceptable place to temporarily land. A staging spot from where they could scout for their new home. Those who have researched honeybees say that they communicate through dancing. When a bee has found a good place, she tells the other bees all about it by prancing in front of them excitingly. The other bees can tell how good of a place this bee thinks she has found by the intensity of her dance.

The bees must have found a spot that they liked ok because they began to congregate. When they get together they come to a tight little group, which the beekeepers call a cluster. This time the cluster was on the over hanging branch of the white pine which stands shading our apiary from the hot afternoon sun As a cluster, they looked like a dark vortex hanging in the shape of an old fashioned ice cream cone. It looked as if the pine tree had grown a huge pinecone. By this time my husband had gotten his ladder and he asked me hold it as he shinnied up the arbor. He placed his swarm bucket, which he carried with him, as close as he could to the swarm of bees.

I was just hoping the whole time that the trellis was good and sturdy and that he would not come crashing through it. I was reassuring myself in a conversation in my head, thinking, “ Yes he made the arbor for the Wisteria, after all, and Wisteria can pull down houses which I know he knows and so I am sure that he made it strong!”

In the next second, any concerns that I had for my spouse as he tight roped across the Wisteria arbor were put on the back burner. Because in my ear was the unmistakable song of a frantic trapped bee. I had one caught in my hair! I could hear the little bee’s song rising in intensity and frustration as she became more and more imbedded within my curly brown hair. I imagined what it was going to feel like being stung in the brain. I told my husband of my predicament hoping that he might have some good suggestions, but all he said was, “ I hate it when they do that, darn!” and, “ they like fuzzy stuff.”

I abandoned my ladder holding occupation and went towards the house. I tried flipping my hair over and upside down hoping to shake the trapped insect out of my web of hair. I found our daughter and begged her to help me get this bee out of my hair! She kept saying, “ Where Mom? Where?” as I pointed towards the spot where the bee seemed to be inching closer and closer, by the second, towards my scalp. Finally she spotted the bee and I swear she has been hanging around that beekeeping Father of hers too much, because while I had a bee about ready to sting my brain, she paused! She paused to wonder if she should kill the bee! The words that passed through her lips were, “ Well Mom I hate to kill the poor little thing.”

HONEY, I exclaimed to her with my head of hair upside down bobbling in front of her. WILL YOU JUST KILL THE BEE! It is then that she sees my frantic state and she puts two books together and claps them on the section of my hair that is vibrating with buzz. “ Well you are going to have bee parts all in your hair.” She tells me.

I am wondering if she thinks having bee parts in my hair is ANYTHING compared to having a mad bee in your hair. I could not wait to get to that part of my life where I might be worrying about bee parts in my hair! Oh and how wonderful if there were not an ice pack over a bee sting in the same picture with the bee parts. I sighed with relief when after another clang of the books the buzzing near my brain was stilled. I felt bad too, thinking if I had not been so scared maybe we could have helped the little bee weave out of the web that I had set for her. All I knew for sure was that I planned to know where a bee hat and veil were the next time I helped with a swarm!

With a grabbed blanket over my head I went out to check on Husband. He had completed his task and I held the ladder for him as he came down. Ah! We were both Ok. Actually he was radiant from having been a part of the bee convention. I think a touch of their vitality invigorates his soul. He excitedly told me that he had been able to shake the branch and had captured the queen in his bait hive. The joy in him brought a big smile to my face. Yes I Mr. Burgeaff I thought as my husband told me of his adventure, You were right, I entered into a whole new world when my spouse became a bee keeper. I entered into a world full of risks, surprises, lessons and most of all, a world full of many wonders. Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Autumn on the Way

2004-08-15T09:27:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
There is a great resistance in me to admitting that summer has passed her prime. But even through my own lips the word autumn often slips these days. For it is the autumn gold and red raspberries, which are bearing fruit now, beyond our pines. And it is the autumn peach, which softens on the tree. The sumac leaves alongside the country roads are turning red and the goldenrod is budding out. Six weeks till frost after the golden rod blooms is what my Grandma always says. The purple ironweed and the mauve colored joe pye are blooming beside the yellow tall coneflower in unmown fields. These are the blooms, which forecast autumn on these hills of mine.
I picked my last wild edible berry of the season last week in the blackberry brambles. A part of me was glad to not have to fight the nettle, the thorn and the thistle any longer but another part of me was sad. It seemed that I should perform some last rite, some ritual of departure. I wondered what part of me the brambles would most miss until I would be back next picking season. And I remembered that it was my hair that the bramble thorns were always grabbing and so I reached up to my head and plucked a single strand and ceremonially hung it upon a bramble cane. There brambles, I proclaimed, this one is free. And it was not even a grey hair that I willingly left blowing there upon the bramble cane but a bronzed brown one.

Although autumn is stepping in the harvest is still being collected. The bees have not disappointed us, they have been very busy and we are having a wonderful honey harvest. Hubby is filling up jars with this golden elixir and cutting the honeycomb into what I have renamed
Honey Cakes.
Indeed the threat of the end of summer intensifies my enthusiasm to get more jars of preserves sealed and upon the shelves. The apple tree down in the valley begs me to pluck her fruit and preserve it into applesauce with lots of cinnamon, which I am going to do today. The elderberries have turned the color of purple-black and I have been squeezing them and boiling them into purple-red jelly.
The tomatoes and peppers are ready to be made into salsa and that autumn peach longs to be made into jam. I have much to do for autumn is peeking in my window and I must put summer away.
Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Angels Come By

2004-08-08T15:30:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

It's not always easy, loading the cab of the pickup truck with the tables, the awning, the chairs and the harvest. Then we set it all up at market only to turn around in a few hours and take it all back down and bring it home again. The folks who come by our stand are not always kind, and it is easy to dwell on the pricks to our hearts and settle there. And so there are times when we wonder if it is all worth it. Our hearts and bodies get tired, our spirits sore. That was the way we felt Saturday morning when we set out later then usual, due to last minute distractions, towards town.

When we got there a newcomer had taken the spot beside us and we were frustrated that the managers had not seen to it that we get the extra space that we had been asking for. But instead, they had let the newcomer have two spots which made us have to squeeze up into one. Although I am a lover of the outdoors I find myself dreaming of a market spot where we can leave our tables, displays and signs up permanently. A spot that doesn't change in size, and is not susceptible to storms, cold and severe heat. And so we were grumbly at seven in the morning as we squeezed into our spot and put our harvest and wares upon our tables. The tape player wouldn't work so we didn't have the music that I thought would cheer us and some of the tools that we use to set up seemed to be hiding.

And so we stumbled our way through the morning as the sun climbed into the sky. My heart went out to Hubby who was tired, overworked and wondering if we should continue setting up at market as he peeled his garlic and placed it in the baskets. Little One found one of the needed tools for me and I exclaimed with passion, " Thank God for Small Favors!" a gentleman walking by overheard me and laughed and gave me a friendly, " Amen!" and I was blessed by his understanding heart. It was not long after that when the tape player all on it's own decided to start playing and our soothing music surrounded us, drowning out somewhat the bustle of the nearby highway. The newcomer beside us was a likeable fellow and I found out that we didn't have to be squeezed up after all and that I had fretted for nothing as we ended up having plenty of space to our other side. We couldn't have ordered better weather for market day. There was no sign of rain and it was sunny without the bothersome winds which sometimes will blow over signs and displays. The day was the perfect temperature.

It ended up being a day of many profitable exchanges, not only in sales but in heart connections. After a slow start Hubby sold a good amount of honey. The highlight of my day was reached when this delightful lady who is a regular at the farm market came by our stand. She has white hair and a beautiful face, which always bears a smile. There is such a glow about her that my heart is always happy to see her. She carries a basket on her arm to put her farm market purchases in. I have noticed that often this basket is over flowing. She is a fan of my mothers slate paintings which she occasionally buys.

At one time she asked me if I also painted and I told her I was really into writing. She seemed excited to hear this and she told me that she writes, and as she left that day her advice to me was to keep a journal and to write down each day the good things that happen. I laughed with her as I asked, " Only the good?"

"Yes" , she said ,as she went on, " It is the good that we want to remember."

And so Saturday when she came by our stand I was glad to see her again. This time she surprised me when she reached into her basket and drew a book from it saying that she had something for me. It was Advice to Writers by Jon Winokur. How blessed I felt that she was giving this to me. I kept that book next to me all day. I even took it to the cafe later when we ate lunch with some fellow marketers. And in one quiet moment as the others were at the buffet I opened up the book to steal a browse through it's pages. My eyes fell upon these words.

" Write from the soul, not from some notion about what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal." Jeffrey A. Carvor

What a beautiful message to me about writing. I think I have always written from my soul. What wonderful confirmation this is to keep on doing that. And said in such an uplifting way. The soul is eternal!

How fitting that in the whole big book I should open to a page and read words that I could use two ways. If I changed just one word I could make the message say, Market from the soul, not from some notion about what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle, the soul is eternal. Yes the farm market is fickle and yes sometimes we have tried to figure out what the market people want and have gone out of our way to supply this, only to have them want something else the next week. And so I am reminded to bring to the market what comes from my soul also.
Yes the market people and the weather can be fickle for sure. But I am glad that we have hung in there. You just never know when you will have a day of perfect weather, and you never know when angels will come by.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

After I wrote this piece I went to have a little read with my new book presented to me by this wonderful lady when I picked up a book mark that she had placed in it. On one side was the Serenity Prayer which has always been special to me and on the other side of the bookmark were these words by St. Francis de Sales,
" Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you."

Mystery In Motion

2004-08-01T10:17:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

There will be a mystery. And the mystery will be, how to rise up from the mud that you were cast from. There will be others who will try to pull you back into this mud, they will tell you that it is where you belong, but your eyes will be on the sky, and you will know in your heart that it is where you are bound to go. They will tell you that the sky is a delusion, a trick, even a deceiver. They will tell you that the light that you see is the devil out to get you. They will think that you are lost when you are finding your way. The mystery will be how you will rise from such. You will reach for the sky and you will grasp it, and maybe just maybe there will be a day when they will also wipe the mud from their eyes and you will be able to reach them with your hands and help pull them up to the sky with you, those ones who told you that it was not possible to arise from the mud that you were cast from. At times it is very very tempting to just fall back down into the mud, after all it is soft, it is warm, it is comfortable, but in your heart you know that if you lay back down into the mud that you will simply die in your sleep there. And to the ones still within the mud you will become the mystery. You are the mystery in motion.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.
Visit me at my forum: With the Seasons

No Passport Needed

2004-07-25T09:06:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
One time before I even knew what DNA was, I had a dream. There was a spaceship hovering in the sky. I wanted to go aboard, I wanted to so bad. A lady and I were looking through black bag after black garbage bag for a certain little piece of paper. I thought that all the files were loaded into these bags and we were trying to find my passport. I was looking for the passport that would let me board the space ship hovering in the sky. Then I heard a voice that filled the whole vacuum of air around me and the voice said, “The code is in your DNA.”

DNA? I didn’t know what it was; I had to look it up. That’s right I wasn’t paying attention in science class, I was daydreaming. I could remember that it was in science class that I had heard the word. I did a computer search; I found out that our DNA is our genetic code. DNA is the genetic "blueprints" of life. DNA is the part of a cell that contains and controls all of our genetic information. These genes are responsible for passing on traits from generation to generation. I read that scientists can decode the genetic markers found in our DNA to trace our ancestral roots back 10,000 years. Wow!

So my DNA is the code of my genetics. And the dream voice said that the code was in my DNA, the code to board the spaceship, how could this be? I had read that DNA was the code for what had already been written but how could it be written of what had yet to come about? But then I guess it does store information, as a babe in the mother’s womb doesn’t know that he will grow to be 6 foot tall but the code is in his DNA is already set. Wouldn’t that little babe be so happy when he is six and feeling short and wishing that he could reach those basketball hoops like the big boys, wouldn’t he be happy if a voice filled the void and told him that he was going to grow to be six feet tall, that the code was in his DNA. This makes me so happy too, to know that I will grow that tall.

The dream voice has not said so but I am suspecting that the spaceships are hovering now. We won’t waste time looking for our passports, the code is inside of us. Lets listen to it, feel how it vibrates, and allow it to sing. Lets get ready to fly , our space ship will recognize us and take us aboard. After all the code is in our DNA.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Hair in Brambles

2004-07-18T09:59:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Dr Johnson: ”Give me the town, Sir. The Countryman may be king of this holdings, yet, I tell you, Sir, he is the slave of his own acres.”
Squire Windrum: “Yes, Sir. But where will you find such willing servitude, or such happy kingship?”*

        As I set out on the porch in the rain this evening I reached a spot of restful mind. It was then that the answer came to me to just let it go. I have been tending my flowers, picking the finest of them and loving them into creations and then taking them to market. The jams and the jellies and the berries I am selling wonderfully but my flowers, well I have maybe two faithful customers who really appreciate them but beyond that most people expect flowers to just be cheap at the farm market.

        I find myself feeling resentful about this at times. One day I had the most beautiful Gladiolas for a buck a stem, and Gladiola bulbs are not cheap. I had harvested them in the bud stage, so that they would continue opening on into the next week. One stem had the power to fill a whole room with beauty. One lady came along and asked me if I would take 50cents for them. I felt like telling her that I needed to buy toilet paper on the way home. I mean what is the deal! She can’t fish out a buck to pay for my glads when she is driving a sparky van, get out of here! It is times like these that I just have to leave our booth for a while and go visiting with the other venders. I’m not going to hore my flowers anymore, I tell my friends. Hah! Can’t you see me sulking, the wounded flower artist adrift at the farm market.

        Hubby takes people better then I do sometimes, just letting it slide off himself. I have got to get better at that. So spirit got to my heart and said, “ Let the flowers go, their time will come, follow your passion, there are lessons still to be learned from the bramble patches. “ So simple, why can’t I have just seen that instead of getting all stressed out and mad at people?

        The other day as I was entering a bramble patch down the road at a friends, passing by on the road was a jogger, we waved, then he stopped and said “Trendle!” as if he knew me. I had not recognized him in bandana, sunglasses and tennis shoes but it was a fellow I know who has bought my flowers in the past. We talked for a bit and he couldn’t wait to tell me that he needed a bouquet. He pays me well, always slips in more then I ask, and he appreciates them so. As he jogged on I asked him if he preferred Sunflowers or Gladiolas and he hollered back, “Your choice, You are the artist.” and so the wounded flower artists heart was tended to. And she knew that she had been given a gift, when this John fellow jogged by when she was entering a berry patch.

        I had to laugh out loud the other day when I was out in those brambles. I was thinking of last spring, and the day that I drove into town and took a part time job. I didn’t except the first place I walked into to hire me! I was just trying out applying to see how that felt! But bam, they took me up on it!

        I cried for a week, I didn’t want to go. But I felt like I had to help out more, Hubby was going through a transition, I needed to contribute. He does so much. And so I went. It was a great place but I felt so confined. Applying myself to somebody else’s schedule. They even wanted me to control my hair, pull it back tight, to keep it’s fuzziness taunt. It was a perfectly nice place; I just felt in my heart that it was not really where I was suppose to be. So after one day on the job I called in and signed out.

        I didn’t call my supervisor back when she phoned and wanted to discuss what ever the problem might have been and saying maybe we could work something out. I just didn’t think she would understand. Oh, I guess I could have gotten my way and since they had seen what a good worker I was, hah, maybe we could have made a deal that I did not have to wear my hair back tight. But it wasn’t just about my hair was it? I felt so foolish thinking it was about my hair, it was about something else but I didn’t know how to talk about it.

        So I ran away from the job and ended up out in the bramble patch. It really wasn’t planned that bramble stalking was going to become my focus of the season. We took our goods to market, the tinctures, the produce, the honey, The pollen, the flowers and the berries. It turned out that the berries are the most sought after produce. We cannot bring enough berries and jams.

        And so I found myself more and more often in the brambles. And while I am out there I think of what a lucky person I am. Some would not like to travel through nettle and thistles to get to the wild berry patch, but I find the nettle charming compared to the presence of tires on a street. Besides I know how to recognize their stingers and don’t let them get me. And the view of the sky and the clouds, the butterflies and the bees is superb. And some would not like the danger of snakes, the bite of the mosquito and the chance of getting ticks. But to me it seems these creatures are easier to understand then my own human kind, which fill the town. While I am in the blackberry thicket I wonder why picking wild berries is such a challenge. Why do they have so many thorns that grab at me? What are the thorns protecting them from? What are my thorns protecting me from? Do the bramble branches really need these thorns? Do the thorns make the berries sweeter? I do think the wild berry has something that the berries from our domestic thornless canes do not have.

Nettle and Beetles in the Berry Patch
Check out the white hairy stingers on the nettle.
        I can handle the thorns pretty well, I just pull back the right way to get loose or they do get me and I just cuss a little, after all there is no one out there to hear me. Mostly I think it is just that the thrill of the ripe berry overwhelms my fear of the elements. When my mind is on the dangling ripe berry my body becomes of secondary importance. Oftentimes there will be the most perfectly tempting berry just hanging a little over my head and I just have to reach it but as I do, a blackberry thorn grabs me by the hair. Then the decision is to drop all and detangle my hair or to just pull forward after the almost in grasp berry, and let the bramble pull. And so I let the bramble pull.

        She takes out a tuft here and a tuft there so that soon my hair is a mixed array, some of it still up in my bun and other pieces drawn out and falling, straying all around, a little like new berry cane shoots do. I had one of those live green berry runners reach out and wrap around me one day while I was picking berries. It had the thought to grow up me, as it swirled around my waist!

        The brambles take freely; soon strips of my hair hang like shadows floating in the wind upon the berry brambles behind me. I wonder how many bird nests will be cushioned next spring with that hair of mine that I left a- dangling in the berry patch in pursuit of the wild blackberry?

        When I come out of the berry patch I am sure that my hair must look like a birds nest itself. And I am certain that the next time I go to my twice a year hairdresser she will ask me if I have had my hair thinned. And so the brambles they want me to be wild and free, they have their way with me and my hairdo is opposite of the way that it would have been if I had kept that job in town. That is what made me laugh out loud that day in the berry patch.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.
*from Growing and Using Herbs Successfully (Garden Way Book) by Betty E.M. Jacobs

Nasturtiums Bring Happiness

2004-07-11T14:02:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
My sense of duty told me that I should be making up some more berry jam or jelly. It sells real well at market and has been my main avenue of earning my keep the last few weeks. But instead I was drawn to the nasturtiums that are blooming so beautifully in my annual flower garden.

Annuals have their own unique magical quality. Unlike perennials they do not set a limited amount of buds a year. With annuals the more you harvest, the more they bloom. They will give and give and give the more you take. So it is almost a shame not to collect them when they are ready. If they go to seed then they are done, they feel that they have finished their job and they go on vacation.

As I stood with the cheerful faces of the nasturtiums around my ankles I was enveloped by their charming spicy sweet scent. I don’t think anyone could stand among the nasturtiums and not admit that these flowers are very happy. This flower so knows happiness that it spills over in cheerfulness with bright blooming faces of orange, yellow, red and all shades of those colors mixed together in swirling blends. Have you ever eaten this edible beauty in a salad?

Although I knew that it probably wouldn’t sell as well as fruit I decided that I was going to cook these lovely edible flowers up into a jelly. I gathered the fresh blossoms and buds into my apron skirt as I wondered what color a jell of them would come out to be. Back at the kitchen I started a pot of water to boil while I washed through the blossoms. I placed all of the blossoms into a large kettle and poured the boiling water over them and then covered them with a lid and let them steep for a good ten minutes. When I took the lid off the water it looked dark amber in color. I strained the flowers through cheesecloth, keeping the juice, which I returned to the kettle on the stove. As I added sugar and pectin I watched as the liquid turned into a beautiful bronze red.

Ah! It is such a beautiful color! No artificial dyes needed. How glowing it looks in the jars when light shines through the glass. It will be nice to keep a jar of this to pull out on a snowy day in January, to hold it up to the light and remember July’s rich colors as I spread it’s spicy sweet flavor over a piece of toast.

Like I allready said I didn’t think that it would sell at market but it did pretty well. There were a few ladies that really got into my flower jelly and bought some for gifts to herb loving friends. And the conversations that the nasturtium jellies lead us into! Two sweet pea lovers met at our stand as they were buying the jelly, they were so happy to find another who loved sweet peas as intensely as they. And I learned a few sweet pea tricks as I was listening in!

Hubby was stripping his cured garlic of its outer leaves, which he had not gotten to do until we were set up. His working with the produce seemed to draw people in. We got to talking together later that it is rare these days for people to even see food in the hands of the farmer. When the food passes through the hands of the farmer and not the hands of the machine does it make the product any different? Or is it only the man that the produce has passed through that is changed? Hubby delights in his garlic, he only grows seven different kinds. All in all it was a real good market day. We even sold one of my Moms paintings.
When we left market at mid noon, Amish man Dan paid us in barter for bringing his load of corn to market in our trailer. We were happy to take the scrapings of the corn harvest left in our wagon back home to our chickens. We picked out maple syrup, cucumbers and onions. At home we sliced the cucumbers and make the onions into rings to fashion into cucumber- onion salad because we were going to Farmer Bob’s pot- luck dinner.

I mixed in the usual vinegar, water, salt, pepper and a dash of sugar but I also added some of our lime basil and chopped up some of the colorful nasturtium flowers to sprinkle in it. Not too much, I wanted people to recognize the cucumber-onion salad that that our own Grandmothers made for our family reunions when we were kids. So I kept to the familiar taste with a slight twist, and an added dash of color. It was so pretty! I find that a grand way to keep such a dish cool on the way to the pot- luck dinners is to not put the full amount of water that is called for into the mix. But at the last minute when you are dashing out your door and tucking the chilled dish into the cooler with your ice packs, then you add tiny little ice cubes to the cucumber and onion mix, this will keep it sparkling cold, just give it a stir when you pull it out to eat, the cubes will have melted into ice cold water by then.

So I am glad that I wandered off from my supposed duties the day that the nasturtium flowers enticed me. You never know where such wonderings might lead you!

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood All Rights Reserved.

Valley of Heat

2004-07-04T08:52:00.001-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

Morning comes fast on market day Saturdays. The birds are already singing before the sun has even peeked over Farmer Shaws wood lot. I always wonder about these birds, rising before the sun. Do they think it is their job to sing the sun awake? Usually I wish that they would just let me sleep a few hours longer, my body is not yet ready to rise, what makes them always so eager? Truly I am jealous of them and I wish that I had their zeal, but of course they were not up late past midnight re-cooking the Rhubarb jam that did not set, nor were they fretting over labels and putting the last flower stalks in place.

So wearily I rise from my bed and begin the day. We finish packing the pickup truck and off we go as the sun peeks through the humid mist filled July air. And like every Saturday morning we pass Amish man Dan in his carriage with his horses. Hubby pulls into McDonalds to grab a sausage burger to go and I have the sudden urge to run in to use the rest room. As I came out Amish man Dan is giving us a wave as he chuckles because he is passing us by.

Dan has brought his youngest child to market with him today. He is so cute, a tiny little tike all decked out in Amish style. Black pants and vest, dark blue shirt and an Amish hat upon his head. He cannot be over two or three. He comes to visit us and stands there with large brown eyes watching everything as I jabber to him and ask his name. Later talking with Dan I find out why the little fellow would give me no reply. For Dan informs me that he does not know English but only the German that is spoken at home. I give the little tike one of our dry erase boards to draw on, thinking he might have some fun with it. He goes back to his fathers stand and soon comes back with a word written on it. JOHN it says. So he must have understood that I was asking him his name.

As morning spins towards noon, it gets very hot. We have our awning for shade but still upon the black pavement with hardly any breeze, I feel much hotter then I did all week even out in the patch picking berries. Little John is crying and I give him an ice-cold water. My blood begins to feel as if it is curdling and Dan’s horses which are still trussed together as a team in the sun I can hardly stand to turn my eyes to. They keep trying to twist around to use their tails to flick the flies off of one another, and they stamp their feet in impatience. My heart goes out to them and little John and I am so hot, I feel as if I will faint. But I put on my smile and sale our wares, wishing that the time would come to leave. Farmer Bob helps out by playing his violin and I sing him the song that I wrote to my daughter when she was a child and we were both missing Missouri and he picks up the tune and plays it back for me.

July is hard ,I don’t do well with the heat, I go home with a big headache and a kink in my neck which I try to nap away. I didn’t even go out and pick the berries in the afternoon but let Hubby do it alone. Yesterday I had become boiling mad at the bugs. Bad enough the Japanese beetles with their scratchy little legs, but now a new bug that I don’t even know has come along. This one gets up into the red raspberry and ruins it. If it had been up to me, we would have burned the whole patch down yesterday. I can surely understand why people turn to poison sprays. It would be so satisfying just to watch them squirm and die. But to me it would be like throwing out the baby with the dirty bath water.

Speaking of water it is hard to believe with all the rain that we got this spring that we are in dire need of a rain now. It will rain sometime soon and I will worship it when it comes. I will stand out in it and let it soak into my skin. I will lift up my arms in praise and let the tears fall with the rain.

All night long I dreamed about Amish man Dan and little John. I dreamed that Dan had gotten robbed on his way home and when I came upon them the police had already come. Little John was in bad shape, very hot and thirsty. I talked Dan into letting me take him with me, so that I could get him home faster. But on the way home I got lost, ended up down in the Hocking Hills and it was snowing. I feared that I would drive us off the hilly roads and into a snowy ditch. All I had to give little John was water in a bottle. Finally I arrived at the Amish home, where Dan’s wife had hamburgers ready.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Berries and Market Meetings

2004-06-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood
My life seems to involve two things these days, berry picking and market going. Summer solstice passed and so they say that the length of day is shortening. But still I know that the hottest days are yet to come. As I search out the ripe black raspberry I see bumper crops of the wild blackberries turning plump and green alongside the fencerows. Soon they will glisten black and I will be plunking them into my pails. These wild berries get into your blood, or maybe they were already there, something that I inherited. I had to laugh out loud when Grandpa told me that he could never stop picking until his pail was full when I took him and Grandma some berries the other day. Hah! Does that sound like someone else you know? Oh how I wish that he were well enough to go picking with me now as we did when I was a child. Ah! But life can be bitter sweet.

Speaking of Bittersweet, the vines of them that we planted in our yard have little green buds all over them and I am thrilled that I will have the delightful orange clusters of them to cheer me this fall. The Elder bushes are taking off their lacy white dresses and putting on green berries also. The Red Raspberries are ripening in our garden. I feel married to the seasons, being so intimate with them, each berry passing ripe through my fingers. There is something that gets downloaded into me as I pass through each of their unique colors and textures, something that I can feel but cannot quite put my finger on.

How fitting that the first ripe berry makes us kneel to the ground as if in worship. They have bred plants to do many unusual things, but they have not yet bred the strawberry to grow on a bush. And so it is in knelling that we start off the berry-picking season.

So then it is a relief to not kink our bodies up bent over but to get to stand when the strawberry has finished her blushing and the black raspberry is ready. And then also it is a relief to pick the domestic red raspberries from the garden without fighting the briar and the thorn of the wild.

When I am not dreaming of picking or actually picking these fruits, then we are off to market. Every once in a while we will join a small group of the market vendors to an outing at a nearby restaurant. I have to admit that we are the most boisterous group at the restaurant. I cannot help it, sometimes I look around to see if we are disturbing anybody. Is anyone getting up and moving because of us? We get fired up, talking about farming practices that go against nature, people who don’t understand our mission, and customers who complain about our prices. We decide that we just need to educate them!

Most of us live without health insurance, air conditioners, or two bathroom houses. We believe in living simply, our main mission is not about making money. Sure, we would like to have enough money, but we are not out to rob peoples pockets dry as some people try to think. There might be produce cheaper down at the nearby grocery store but where did it come from? What has it been sprayed with? Herbicides? Insecticides? Were sustainable agricultural methods used to produce it?

Unlike the big farmers we do not get subsidized for anything. I read in the newspaper today that they are paying farmers to plant grasses and trees alongside river and creek banks to help lower the amount of toxic chemicals that flow from the fields into our waterways. This surely is a good thing, but we do not have to get paid by the government to do the right thing, keeping in harmony with nature is what we are all about. It is what we believe in! We humans have pushed this good earth to her limit; it is time to look at what we are doing and how we are bringing food from her.

As we discuss these things at our gatherings on Wednesday evenings we sometimes get a little loud with our passionate feelings. But those who wait on us do not seem to mind; they even keep a big table open for us, just in case we show up after market. I am feeling a kinship with these fellow tenders of the earth that I have not felt with a group of people in a long time except for the group that gathers here at the WhiteFeather forum. June is almost over and I must go and once again put on my long pants because the ripe glistening berry beckons still.

The Lull Turned Lush

2004-06-20T13:12:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

"We're not simple laborers or traditional farmers. We're refugees of a dying Industrial Age. We recognize the roots and origins of our modern urban culture, and we are here today to raise the voices of battered agricultural lands, to repair the damage to our soils, our families, our communities, and our culture. As such, we are worthy citizens." James Donaldson

Our strawberries were now a thing of the past and there was a lull before our red raspberries would be ready for picking. I felt a little down, it had been so much fun passing out samples at market of our strawberry jam, and hearing everyone’s, “Oh yums!” as they tasted it. It seemed that ninety percent of those who tried a sampling bought a jar. And so it disappeared as soon as I could make it and bring it in. It is a wonderful feeling at market when you have something that practically sells itself. What would I have to do now? Of course we had Hubby’s honey and my flowers but I wished for a fruit. Fruit is the hot item at the farmers market.

The Amish down the road were selling the last of their strawberries for 2 dollars a quart! I was tempted to go and buy some and make it up into jam to have something to take the following week. I would still make a profit after processing them at that price. But alas there is more to life than the pursuit of the mighty dollar. If making money were all that we were about, we would be driving to work for somebody else. I have told our customers that our jams and jellies are made from fruit grown without herbicides or pesticides. It wouldn’t be right to sell them something that I could not put that guarantee behind. So I threw that temptation behind me.

Was there anything that could follow the much-loved strawberry? The rhubarb was still being asked for at market but she begged me not to pick her lovely ruby stalks anymore but to give her a time of rest. Our lettuce and radishes did not bring in much income, and we do need to pay the bills. Knowing that the creative force is always with us I threw a prayer to the universe for an answer to what I would take to market and then went about my daily duties.

Then a few days later it happened, I got my answer. Hubby walked into the door after a visit to his apiary (bee hives) up at Farmer Shaws and thrust before me a handful of wild black raspberries. Yes! Wild black raspberries! That was what I was presented by Hubby, by the universe, by God, by Merlin who laughs at my impatience as he says, “ See you are provided for!” I immediately called up the Shaws and told Becky that I was asking for permission to pick something again and before I even told her what, she was telling me to pick away. Oh! How wonderful to have such kindhearted farmers for neighbors who let me gather with delight the wild things that grow beside the woods and in their hedgerows!

So we found the buckets and dressed ourselves in long pants with long sleeves on our arms and set out for the brambles. Oh! It had been years since I had stalked the wild black raspberry! Why, it had been before we moved here! Where we used to live, there was wilder, unclaimed country where one could ramble and find the bushes. But here closer to a city, there seemed to be a shortage of spots for the brambles to spread.
But behind the apiary in Farmer Shaws untamed back yard, on top of an old wood pile that had never been burnt and was beginning to rot, the vines had spread unencumbered and they were full of green, red and black berries. The black ones just dying to be plunked into our pails, Plunk, plunk, plunk, oh how I love that sound and the way it soon changes to a soft thud, as the buckets get filled with glistening black berries.

Now, there is something that you might not know about me. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to wild berry picking. Once I get started it is the only thing on my mind for days and days. When I close my eyes to go to sleep at night I see the red ones beckoning me as my dream hand reaches out to pluck the black one beside it. Hubby once asked me if I have ever consulted with a counselor about this, and I told him no I never talked to them about berries. He came back with, “ Well don’t, or I might never see you again!”

I usually think of Hubby as the strong one, he works longer and with less breaks then I do. But when it comes to picking berries in the wild patch he will be the first one to tell you that I have more endurance then he does. The first day we went out he was ready to stop picking before I was. It has been that way all my life; I have always left everyone behind in the berry patch. With wild berry mettle beating in my heart and the adrenaline raceing through my body, I cannot stop until the last berry is picked.

Every day for a week we have been going back to pluck these berries which continue to ripen in the June heat. Oh sure, we fight mosquitoes and have to watch out for snakes. The nettle tries to sting us and the poison hemlock is a danger. Our legs and arms are all snagged up despite our long sleeves and jeans. My fingers are stained a dark purple, but there is a passion in my heart that is fulfilled when I am in the wild berry patch. I always feel so thankful when I am out there! Thankful for the breeze that cools my sweaty brow. Thankful that I have everything that I need, if I am thirsty I can eat some berries; if I am hungry I can eat more berries. So thankful for these free for the taking, grown by God wild berries. And I am oh so thankful that nobody else has found and claimed this particular berry patch!

But with this wild berry obsessive nature of mine, Farmers Shaw’s patch was not quite big enough to fulfill the desire which had been sparked within me. My mind, eyes and legs searched through the surrounding countryside trying to locate another patch, to no avail. That is until I was taking care of my neighbor’s dog down the road and collecting her mail for her while she was away. It was then that my eye spied a red berry on a bank. Soon I was scurrying up this bank and finding another awesome berry patch on the hill. My neighbor came back and I got her permission to pick away. I swore her to silence. Made her promise not to tell anyone else about this patch but to keep it our secret. Because you know the old saying, “ Finders keepers, losers weepers!” Well I might be weeping if anyone else finds that patch after I have already worn down paths through its grabbing briars to make the picking easier. And after I have dreamed all those red berries into turning black and glistening and plunking them softly into my pail. And of course I will award her for this silence, now that I know that she prefers black raspberry jam.

Our customers at market love my fresh made wild black raspberry jam and jelly as much as they did the strawberry. They are buying it as fast as we can bring it in. Isn’t it wonderful how God is with us, and how we are given what we need, just enough to keep our sales going. I wasn’t given a whole acre of wild berries to pick because God knows I would pick until I had heat stroke if that was the case. We have been given just enough, just enough to stain my fingers purple and to fill my heart with joy.
Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.

Market Storm

2004-06-13T08:53:00.000-05:00

by Trendle Ellwood

I have done quite a bit of bragging about how much I love to experience a thunderstorm. Well, I need to revise that a bit. I do love thunderstorms as long as I am viewing them from the safety of our own front porch.

There was a chance of a storm when we set up for market Wednesday evening. But when is there not a chance of a storm in our humid Ohio Junes? We went ahead and unfolded our awning and spread our tables, as did the other homesteaders. Soon we were busy selling our goods. I was passing out samples of our freshly made strawberry jam, which then sold it’s self. As I looked up and down the market row, I could see that the whole place was packed with people visiting the stands.

Mary the Coffee Café lady hollered at us that she had heard on the radio that the storm was 13 miles away. We all remained optimists, this threatening cloud would do like many a June cloud does, just sprinkle us a little then go on. Surely all these people would not be here sampling and buying if a storm were about to break loose.

Wrong! Suddenly we were getting dumped on with what seemed like bucketfuls of water from the sky, and the thunder and lightning were clanging and slashing through the air. I was gathering up our goods by taking the four corners of the tablecloths and drawing them together then throwing them into the back of the cab of the pickup truck in big scoops. People were gathered under our awning for what little protection it provided. I looked around me and saw that the other homesteaders were all doing the same flurried dance that I was.

We were soaking wet and wondering if the storm was going to ease or get worse. I could see the other homesteaders holding unto their awnings to keep them from blowing across the parking lot. Hubby lowered the storm facing side of our awning as a brace against the breaking wind. My thoughts were torn; here we had people hiding under our awning, now turned lean to, but yet what a risk we were taking holding unto metal poles in a thunderstorm! Swishing by our feet was at least four inches of water as the rain pelted down turning the pavement that we stood upon, into a rushing riverbed. I had the strangest feeling in my gut as I witnessed one of Amish man Dan’s angel food cakes swirling past us in this stream.

I kneeled down and stroked the cheek of the little girl who stood trembling beside me as we offered to help her and her mother to their car. With no idea if the storm was going to cease or get worse we made the decision to get our broken awning into our pickup trucks cab. The people ran through the lightning to their vehicles as we gathered up the rest of our stuff. Mary and some of the other homesteaders were helping us; we were all silly with stress, giggling in the rain like a bunch of crazies.

Just as we about got everything loaded up the storm seemed to lose intensity and the sky showed signs of clearing. Already wet to our bones we stood in the remaining rain as the homesteaders who had not retreated gathered to share stories. We decided if anyone had been able to video tape the scene of us all caught in that storm that it would have won us all some big bucks on the Funniest Home Videos Show.

The storm passed on as the last remaining raindrops came down. Most of the homesteaders packed up and left but there was still an hour left of market time so a few of us decided to remain. We spread out our tablecloths to dry and plopped our produce back upon the tables. We did continue to sell as more patrons arrived after the storm.

One fellow who had probably been in a local bar getting soaked in a different kind of way during the storm came by and I watched as he messed with Amish man Dan. Then he came over to our stand. He kept looking at my flowers, which were still beautiful with their blossoms of light blue and white Hydrangeas and pink and red Sweet Williams. He kept looking at them and exclaiming, “seven dollars!” “ Seven dollars!”

I was trying to figure out if he thought they were cheap or what as I wrung the water from my skirt. Then he told me that he would buy one for four dollars but seven! That was the final straw! Couldn’t this man even see that I had just stood here through a thunderstorm with my very life at risk! And now he wanted to dicker with me about the price of my flowers! Now folks I don’t know if this is what Jesus would have done, I doubt it, but I ended up telling this fellow to go pick his own! Amish man Dan got a big kick out of this and bent over in a big belly laugh. Meanwhile Hubby was warming up his fist in case it would be needed if his wife got herself into deep water. Deep water, hah!

All in all we were glad that we stayed as some of our favorite customers came by. One of Hubby’s honey fans bought five jars to take with her on a trip to England. She just loooooves our honey she told us. The breeze left over from the storm helped dry our clothing and a group of us decided to go out to eat at the Mexican restaurant afterwards. We must have been the most boisterous bunch at the place as we shifted our stress into laughter with storm reminiscing.

Brian, one of the homesteaders who is a bit on the ornery side had viewed the storm as a chance for a wet t-shirt contest as he checked out the drenched females. I kept my thick apron on until my shirt dried! The fellows at the restaurant decided that they were going to get back at Brian and next Saturday at Market he is going to be called forward for a special award. Brian is going to be presented with a wet t-shirt trophy for himself! I cannot wait to see the look on his face at that moment.

Am I sorry? Am I sorry that sometimes our way of making a living leaves us drenched to the bone? A big resounding no! No, because we are free, free to flow like the June storms. And although we may be baked by the sun and plastered by the rain at times, our souls are living and growing. And we are working for something that we believe in, the bounty that we produce with love from our little spot on earth. But I must say, the next time that a big ole storm sweeps down with it’s free heart, I do hope that I am not out in it but safe at home on our front porch.

Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.