Monday, July 23, 2012

Peach Monday


That's a peach dahlia from my previous garden. I'm feeling a bit antsy today, not sure what I'll do. Perhaps I'm lazy from my marathon bisque and glaze firing. See previous two posts for firing results. I may take a drive in the country or something. Oh, check out this Etsy treasury I did for peach monday.

Wild Peaches

BY ELINOR WYLIE

When the world turns completely upside down
You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,
You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.

The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.


 II

The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold;
The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
The sun, which burns from copper into brass,
Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold
Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold
Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.

Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
The spring begins before the winter’s over.
By February you may find the skins
Of garter snakes and water moccasins
Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.

III

When April pours the colors of a shell
Upon the hills, when every little creek
Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake
In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,
When strawberries go begging, and the sleek
Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak,
We shall live well — we shall live very well.

The months between the cherries and the peaches
Are brimming cornucopias which spill
Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;
Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches
We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill
Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.

IV

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There’s something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,
Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There’s something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.



That's the peach harvest from my last home. It's a whole wheel barrow full of peaches and it was a large wheel barrow at that. I only had two trees, a Red Haven and Fay Alberta. I think the Red Havens were the best tasting. They are yellow freestones which I prefer, perhaps because my grandmother always had those. I may take a trip to the nursery today and get a few fruit trees to plant here. This post is part of The Things we Find Inside, I love my Online Friends Monday Blog HopThanks for your comments.


14 comments:

  1. Hello Linda:
    What a wonderfully atmospheric poem by Elinor Wylie. Pure delight. And we can scarcely believe that your previous garden could produce an entire wheelbarrow full of peaches. What utter joy - and totally delicious too.

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  2. Beautiful pictures and a lovely poem.

    Hugs
    Elna

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  3. Beautiful dahlia!
    Thanks for the Elinor Wylie poem.
    Go enjoy a day away.

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  4. Hi Suzi, thanks, yeah I think I am over tired and am running on adrenaline energy, ha.

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  5. I love fresh peaches in my cereal or with cream, or in a pie--I guess I love them any way I can get them!

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  6. fabulous peaches...and you made me learn something, because i had to look up the word "scuppernong'!

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  7. Hi there,

    THANK YOU SO MUCH for linking up to the I Love My Online Friends Monday Hop and for sharing it on your blog.

    I have returned the follow as I promised I would.

    You are so talented, I am in awe of your creativity. Cannot wait to check out more.

    Tami
    The Things We Find Inside

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  8. Beautiful poem and pictures. The idea of enjoying the day away is great, let's all do that.

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  9. Hi! Stopping by from the mom blog hop and am now your newest follower:) Hope you can come check out Crazy Mama Drama !
    http://crazy-mama-drama.blogspot.com/
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crazy-Mama-Drama/259491484156846

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  10. Loved that poem. Speaks of a simple paradise.
    Those peaches look yummy and what a marvelous harvest.
    My tree outdid its self this year. It took 4 neighbors with 5 gallon pails to make a dent. I have a freezer full right now. It was my first bumper crop in 9 years.

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  11. Hi Jane and Lance, thanks, I can't believe two trees would produce that much either I froze some, dried some, ate some, gave some away, oh they were good.

    Hi Elna, thanks, I do love that poem, her descriptions are so vivid.

    Hi Ms. Sparrow, thanks, to me fresh are the best just eaten plain or peach cobbler. Ha.

    Hi India, thanks, yes I had to look that one up too. Ha.

    Hi Tami, thanks so much, it keeps me out of trouble to stay busy, Ha.

    Hi Lori, thanks, yes let's do that more often.

    Hi Brooke, thanks, with a name like crazy momma how can I not. Ha.

    Hi Patti, thanks, I can't believe you got such a haul with all the drought you have been in, good for you for giving it all the water it needed. A farmer told me when I lived in California that when the peaches get one inch in size to water them three times a week, that helped their size and reduced the drop rate, that and I thinned them.

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  12. There are some wonderful lines in that poem. Very dreamy, but full of earthy images.

    Your photo of the peaches in the wheelbarrow is wonderful! Love the colors.

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  13. Sometimes it takes a conscious effort to get over antsy. A few actions taken~discoveries made.

    The NJ peaches are to die for.
    ~Mary

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  14. Hi Teresa, thanks, yes lots of images are conjured in the mind by the poem.

    Hi Mary, thanks, yes conscious effort, never knew NJ had great peaches too,

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I love suggestions, questions, critiques, thanks for your comment