Honeyberry Bonanza

Here's how it all began...

"How many honeyberries would it take to make a batch of wine?" said my friends who were at the time overwhelmed by masses of honeyberries hanging from their tall, overladen honeyberry bushes.

"I'd need about 15 pounds," I said. "What are honeyberries anyhow?"

So, here's what I learned about honeyberries from my friends. They bloom really early and the blossoms are quite frost hardy. The berries arrive early in the season, make good jam and are pretty tart.  They're purple, elongated globes with very small seeds and we have millions of them!!!

I also looked them up on Wikipedia and learned that their Latin name is Lonicera caerulea and that honeyberries are a honeysuckle deciduous shrub native throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere (in other words, home sweet home).

A few days later my friends arrived with a pail of honeyberries.  "These are for you to do whatever you want," they said.  "We'll bring you some more for wine in a day or two."  And they did - three more pails, each weighing 7 pounds!  Wow! Thank-you to my good friends! So I put 15 pounds in the freezer (freezing the fruit helps extract the juice) and the rest in a big pot on the stove.

Now "honeyberry" is a bit of a misnomer because honey is not the first thing that strikes your mind when you pop one in your mouth.  They have a grape-like texture and a bit of a bite. But additional sugar, a little more than I use for rhubarb juice (which is 1 cup/litre for a concentrate that with added water makes 2 litres of very refreshing juice - a summer time favourite here), and the result was yummmmmy!  I strained off the pulp and bottled the juice for syrup, but the pulp still looked pretty good so I decided to try for fruit leather.  I simmered the pulp for a short time with some added honey, pressed it into a thin (less than 1/4 inch) layer on 2 cookie sheets on top of some parchment paper, and baked it for hours and hours at the lowest setting on my oven (170F).  I finally decided it was never going to lose its stickiness so I took it out, left it on the parchment, cut it into strips, and rolled up my leather.  Talk about delicious!  I'm storing it in the fridge, since I have no idea how long it will keep, and giving pieces to everyone that comes by.

Now I'm torn. I was planning on getting another black current bush for my berry garden but honeyberries may be a better choice. The black currents have been sporadic producers and I haven't had a lot of luck with them (ahhh but I love black current jam!).  It may be time to dig up and replace some non or poor producers in my berry garden. Next year....

Will be making the wine soon and when it's done, if it's tasty, I'll share the recipe.

Suspect Ancestry

We were relaxing at a BBQ after a long hot day in the sun. Our neighbor's little girl was trying hard not to stare at my bare feet and green toes, but not succeeding very well.

I smiled and said, "They're Hobbit feet. You know Hobbits? Like in 'The Lord of the Rings', Hobbit feet, short, square, green."

"Naa," her Dad said, "they're not Hobbit feet. Hobbits have longer toes, and their feet are hairy and really big compared to the size of their body. You definitely don't have Hobbit feet. But they are pretty weird ones."

"Girl Hobbits are different," I said, "no hair, green, smaller."

"Ahh, come on, you're not a Hobbit!".

"No, you're right, I'm not, but my great grandmother was," I said, "so I'm part. I got the feet from her I guess."

The little girl listened to all this, eyes wide, taking it all in. It's not everyone who gets to meet someone who's part Hobbit. In the end I did own up to the truth. I admitted my toes were grass stained from walking behind the mower. Nevertheless I wouldn't be surprised if she still thinks my great grandma was a Hobbit.

Barn Swallow Luck

They say having a barn swallow nest above your door is good luck. I guess I must be lucky!
The day after I took this pic these babies left the nest. Until they got good at flying they perched on my Christmas lights and waited for mom and dad to feed them. Now a new nest is being built above my front window for the next batch of babies to hatch.

A Series of Questions

When will we ever learn?

What ever happened to unbiased media reporting? 

When did news reporting become headline grabbing sensationalism? 

How can a person trust the news when it is so obviously slanted? 

How can politicians in any country be trusted when they jump to convenient conclusions prior to getting the facts? 

How can blame for any act of terror be placed on the country that supplied the weapons when every major country in the world profits from the sale of armaments? 

Why must countries meddle in the politics of other countries, taking both overt and covert action to further their own agenda? 

Why can't an embargo be placed on the arms dealers who supply weapons of war to anyone who will pay? 

Why can't we realize that there's more than one side to every story, not just the side that promotes our own economy or ideology? 

Why do we promote endless war? 

When will we understand that God isn't on any country's side? 

How often have we discovered, years later, that we supported the wrong side of a conflict?

Must history always repeat itself?

Why can't we figure out that violence begets violence, that nothing will ever be solved by violence? 

Is there any hope for the future of the human race? 

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn???? 

Earth's Lament

I wrote this poem while sitting in a parking lot staring at pavement waiting for my husband.

                         Earth's Lament

I am the earth and I need to breathe,

Feel the wind through my grasses and the leaves of my trees,

Wake fresh in the morning with the dew on my chest,

Wrinkle, roll and stretch from the east to the west,

Bathe in the rain and bask in the sun,

Shine in the moonlight when my workday is done.

I am the earth and I must see the sky,

Deprive me of this, I'll get sick, I could die.

You cover me in black, build parking lots and roads,

Reshape my body for your diamonds and gold,

Draw out fluids from deep within my bowels,

Mine my skin, plug my veins, make air and water foul.

You harvest my forests and the rains fail to come;

You puzzle on this but when all's said and done

You don't change your ways or notice me crying,

I must be renewed!  I am sick, I am dying!

I am the earth and I need to breathe,

Feel the wind through my grasses and the leaves of my trees,

Wake fresh in the morning with the dew on my chest,

Wrinkle, roll and stretch from the east to the west,

Bathe in the rain and bask in the sun,

Shine in the moonlight when my workday is done.

I am the earth and I must see the sky,

Please remember these things, I don't want to die.

by Mary Lynn Tipton