After Apple Picking (Frost)-- I can relate!

Wow, what a busy weekend in the kitchen. I'm surprised I didn't dream about peeling pears and apples, or chopping tomatoes, or baking bread. And G picked another three baskets of pears and apples for me to work through, probably next weekend. I have to get more freezer containers. And G found that we have a small harvest of Asian pears-- I honestly didn't think the tree produced anything, but there were about ten small fruits hiding among the leaves (they are gold colored). What a pleasant surprise. I won't be cooking those-- just for eating, and they will be a delight.

That said, I had a dismal night of busy stress dreams, so coffee is my best friend. I hope there are no more hiccups involved in my field trip situation today, and that tomorrow's trip goes well. Maybe then I'll sleep? Who knows.

That all said, it is Monday, 39 degrees, and harvesting is going apace. I have papers done and grades to enter. It's a new week. 

I sure hope that your day goes well. I will try to think of something smart-ish to share tomorrow. For today, here's a favorite Frost poem that sums up my weekend, titled "After Apple Picking"--

Have a great day, 

C

After Apple-Picking

By Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.