The tendril end of spring

On these last days of Spring 09, a spring I have much enjoyed, I offer a poem by DH Lawrence (well, an excerpt anyway) in praise of non-summer, pre-summer, the just-before-the-frenzied-showiness-of-summer time, in praise of this time which yet offers on occasion a little bit of shadow and sluggishness(...and peas!)

Grapes

So many fruits come from roses
From the rose of all roses
From the unfolded rose
Rose of all the world.

Admit that apples and strawberries and peaches and pears and blackberries
Are all Rosaceae
Issue of the explicit rose,
The open-countenanced, skyward-smiling rose.

What then of the vine?
Oh, what of the tendrilled vine?

Ours is the universe of the unfolded rose,
The explicit
The candid revelation.

But long ago, oh, long ago
Before the rose began to smile supreme
Before the rose of all roses, rose of all the world, was even in bud

Before the glaciers were gathered up in a bunch out of the unsettled seas and winds
Or else before they had been let down again, in Noah's flood,
There was another world, a dusky, flowerless, tendrilled world
And creatures webbed and marshy,
And on the margin, men soft-footed and pristine
Still and sensitive, and active,
Audile, tactile sensitiveness as of a tendril which orientates and reaches out,
Reaching out and grasping by an instinct more delicate
than the moon's as she feels for the tides.

Of which world, the vine was the invisible rose.
Before petals spread, before colour made its disturbance,
before eyes saw too much.
In a green, muddy, web-foot, utterly songless world
The vine was rose of all roses.
There were no poppies or carnations
Hardly a greenish lily, watery faint.
Green, dim, invisible flourishing of vines
Royally gesticulate.

Look now, even now, how it keeps its power of invisibility!...

The grape is swart, the avenues dusky and tendrilled,
subtly prehensile,
But we, as we start awake, clutch at our vistas
democratic, boulevards, tram-cars, policemen.
Give us our own back
Let us go to the soda-fountain to get sober.

Soberness, sobriety.
It is like the agonised perverseness of a child heavy
with sleep, yet fighting, fighting to keep awake;
Soberness, sobriety, with heavy eyes propped open.

Dusky are the avenues of wine
And we must cross the frontiers, though we will not
Of the lost, fern-scented world:
Take the fern-seed on our lips
Close the eyes, and go
Down the tendrilled avenues of wine and the other-world.

kids garden and more

Our members are in full swing. when we arrived this afternoon there were a few picking flowers and herbs (the herbs remain weedy, but I think we have Hannah and working share members devoted to this task next week). So, new this year, a sign to help you actually get Chez Nous, it was done by Lee, a grad student who we worked with some last year. It looks wonderful and we are psyched to have a more permanent sign (don't worry, it wasn't us who cut down that tree it is attached to, thats a whole 'nother long blog post).





Here are said flowers. The cosmos are the only thing out yet, except for the one sunflower, which I see someone got (I'm very happy it seems like people are going to come down for some flowers this year because); we have a pretty large bed of zinnias on the way, along with some bachelor buttons, statuc and maybe globe amarant if they made it through the frost. In any case, this little rain should be speeding everything along.





Here we have Ciaran hard at work in the Childrens (or Kid's) Garden. Today he put in a few cherry tomato plants and some husk cherries (pictured below), which are a child pleaser, and a Josh pleaser, a nice sweet fruit, related to tomatillos (which we are also growing for the first time this year), which have a taste that I just cant describe, and look cool.

CSA 2009 reminder!!!

Just in case you forgot!!

OPEN HEART FARM CSA 2009 starts NEXT WEEK!

That is, Monday, June 8 for members picking up in the SOUTH END at CHAMPLAIN Elementary.

Thursday, June 11 for members picking up in the NORTH END at HO Wheeler school.

Pick-ups run from 4-6:30pm. Please bring shopping bags if possible. Also, if you want to recycle plastic shopping bags, we will take them for us with the CSA or for our stand at the Shelburne Farmers Market.

BERRY CARDS will be distributed next week. Adam will be sending out emails as each batch of berries become available for picking. (Just in case you don't know: strawberries first, then blueberries towards mid-July, then raspberries late August). STRAWBERRIES are rumored to be opening "June 10th-ish."

Re: flowers and herbs. Chives, peppermint, "regular" mint, and cosmos are currently open! If you'd like to pick some, give us a call at 881-8125, as we haven't yet posted signage but we'd like to help you help yourself!

If you have any questions, please call or email us at openheartfarm@yahoo.com.

See you soon!!