As you know I call you the Fellowship of the Farmy because you have become a strong flavourful scent in the air floating up across the grassy fields. I say scent because I smell things differently from other people, I can see what I smell as though it is a bar code, (believe me this is not always a good thing, imagine being in a check out at Target and smelling where someone has been, what they ate.. and how recently they bathed) so to be described as a scent means I can see you in a multidimensional way. Every scent is like a rock formation, there are stratas, layered one on top of the other. If you turn this strata vertically you have a bar code, and I see smells in that code. I guess this is what blogging is. What the inter net is. You are the words in my day. Layers of knowledge and loving and care. It is hard to describe really. A scented hand in mine.
Last night I was sitting at my kitchen table surrounded in the detritus of the day, the asparagus harvest waiting to be graded, the eggs waiting to the washed, bread rising, waiting for someone to walk in the door so I could trap them into churning the cream into butter and thinking about writing to you. What words I would use. You are my words.
I worked in an old folks home once. Well, more than once actually but in this particular place there were 220 beds. It sprawled along under huge trees with 5 wings. And I knew how every single one of the residents had their tea. Tea is very important drink in New Zealand hospitals and homes. Coffee is for early morning – tea is for all the rest. I was a very lowly aide, dressed in pink, I would have been about 18 in the place I am remembering , and at 9.30 every morning I would load a trolley with two enormous tin tea pots, (that I refilled four times from the various outpost kitchens) so heavy at the beginning of each round that I would grunt when I picked them up.(I was actually pregnant with my first son at the time so that may have accounted for the grunt but at the time I blamed my skinny arms).
I would push the trolley through the entire home from the hospital wing to the residential wings and dole out cups of tea and sandwiches (cookies in the afternoon – though in NZ we call them biscuits). I knew how every single person had their tea (strong, weak, black, white, one sugar, two sugars, no you are not allowed three darling it will rot your fake teeth), and not only that but I also knew how much tea they wanted in their cup, half, a third (just drink the top half honey).The top of the pot of last when it is really strong. I only tell you this so that you will know that I read every single one of your comments on the blog, on face book, email and I feel like I am beginning to know you. Even though I do not get back to the computer in time to answer every single one I do read them and I feel that I getting to know how you have your tea. And I do remember. I do remember. And from these memories of you I am choose your tree. It may take a few years, to find the tree that is right for you but I will do it.
We have three more trees for the Fellowship Forest, these will be planted a little close to the house. Weeping Mulberries. Here is a pic of them in the winter. I promise to prune yours properly!
One will be for Equus she has a cat called Arthur. Equus, your Weeping Mulberry will be in the garden on the West side. Equus is from Chicago and has a tree in her garden that is so big and so beautiful and all encompassing that there is no room for another in her garden.
The other mulberry will be planted on the South Side and this is for Mandala and Mr M. I shall prune this one into a particularly wild and free form because this is how I perceive Mandala to be.
The third weeping Mulberry will be planted just before Sophie’s Garden, so this one will be in your daily view. This one is for Sam and his half blind cat Bug! This tree will have a special branch for cats to sit in and hide.
John is home from work today so he will be digging holes and we will be planting your trees. It is damp and cool … perfect planting weather. I will take shots for you.
Sad news on the farmy kitten front. One of Author’s kitten has vanished. In fact unbeknownst to me he was gone when I posted his picture yesterday. This is where we all climb into my time machine. How this blog works takes some head twisting sometimes. Every time I post, the pictures are from previous 24 hours. There are no exceptions to this. So when I posted yesterday morning with pictures taken the day before of the tiny kittens, I was under the impression that all was well in the barn, but now that I think about it there had been a lot of cat- howling in the night (the night before last) and Kupa (the peacock) yelling Shut-up Shut up! Still, it was a surprise when, at the milking yesterday morning, Author appeared with a kitten dangling from her mouth and laid it down beside the pig pen gate before running over to drink some warm milk. She has slept with the pigs in the past, so I am sure she thought it was a safe place to lay her surviving baby. When I had finished the milking, I went up to her nest, where she had been with two kittens the night before … nothing.
She is insisted on keeping her kitten on the ground level with the pigs so I gave her a box, outside of their pen, in a dark corner and she was settled there all day yesterday.
In a minute I will get all my farm clothes on and go out to the barn and see how everyone fared but for the moment all we have is the last 24 hours, the scent of new grass, and crushed freshly pruned lavender and animals on pasture and cats in the barn and trees waiting in the garden for their planting. Life is never still. Sad comes with the joy of this life. You all know that now. My darling Fellowship.
Have a lovely day.
your scenty friend celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
102 responses to “Weeping Mulberries for the Forest of the Fellowship”
Ceclia,
You have a magical way with words.
Thank you for starting my day off sunny and bright by sharing your stories with me.
You warm my soul and make me smile.
Enjoy your trees. 🙂
~ Carol
morning carol, i love that you and I both live on pot holey dirt roads.. c
that yellow magnolia is beautiful. i’ve never seen a yellow one before. i love the weeping mulberries and your birds will too! that is so sad about the kitten but it is survival of the fittest after all. i too have a very keen sense of smell. sometimes it is a good thing but many times it is awful especially when i run into people wearing too much perfume! have a good planting day. i have been going out before sunrise to organize things and then i plant as soon as the sun starts to come up.
I know what you mean about the perfume, after the teenager leaves in the morning I have to open all the windows, his cologne is like a purple cloud. c
They look quite good all tangled up… Do they produce berries? We had a huge mulberry in the garden when I was small and IMHO the fruit is an acquired taste – it was a prolific berry producer and made quite a mess 😉
John tried to make wine from our mulberries once, hardly any natural sugar in there at all, total waste of time!.. c
It’s such a shame because the berries are so big and juicy, but I don’t like the taste at all. Nice looking trees anyway 🙂
Your tree idea is so lovely, and I’m sorry to hear bout the loss of the kitten 😦
Lovely story about your old folks and their tea. When we first moved to Skye, I worked with old folk and learned very rapidly that a Scotsman must have the sweetest tooth in the world! So many sugars in one wee cup!
Sorry about the wee kitten but hopefully the remaining one will be safe with mum and shush sisters near by. Enjoy your tree-planting!
Christine
I don;t know how they can drink it that sweet.. but I am a milk and no sugar girl, my mum had black tea so weak they would not even charge her for it in the tea rooms!! we always poured the left overs from her cup straight into the maidenhair fern, it was an enormous plant! c
What a lovely way to connect with the Fellowship of the Farmy!! I am sorry I haven’t been very active in the community… need to catch up on sleep these days!!… but I do think of you and your wonderful family. Have a lovely weekend, Celi!
Never feel that you should or have to comment, I know how that feels, just be here when you can and that is wonderful! I know you are out there.. c
Oh that is sad for Author…could it have been stolen be some fiend on the search for food for its young. Some animals have no morals when it comes to food source…..
Your words are like that of a poet…they come together like a small stream trickling along on its way..beautiful.
I thank you so much for allowing me to be part of your Fellowship..it is such an honour.
I think if I had a tree it would have to be mad,, scatty, impulsive, determined and yet have a heart of gold….my favourite is lilac..mauve lilac!
I know them as biscuits as well (cookies) …what a wonderful dedicated tea lady you were..fantastic..
Oh Lilacs are delicious, especially out here as they bloom nice and early! c
Magnificent magnolia and the mulberries soon will be, with all your tender care. I’m so sorry about the kitten. Our terrapin has also gone walkabout – he liked to bask on the wall behind the pond, and we think he must have fallen off and been disoriented enough to walk into the field below the garden. We’ve looked everywhere, without luck, and can only hope he’s found the river at the bottom of that field.
Tea: SOOO important. For us, “builders’ tea, ie very strong and only a dash of milk. I didn’t like tea at all until I left home – my Mum used to make milky nat’s pee, ie very weak.
Have a great weekend and enjoy the tree planting.
Love,
ViV
Oh I was just talking about my mums tea too! hers was desperately weak, she wanted to be able to see the bottom of her sup or it was too strong! She was always the first pour! c
Aaww, sad about the kitty. Would be interesting to hear how you picture the non blogging types 🙂 Are the Bees attracted to the yellow Magnolia – it is stunning. Laura
Oh it not about other blogs really, our impressions of each other on the farmy pages are purely from the comments and often your interactions with each other too, we dash our comments out quickly, hardly editing or thinking terribly much. I think our comments (and relies for that matter) are more of our real selves.. I always imagine lines of jacarandas when I think of you, those great heady flashing blooms .. (influenced by the SA but also your steadfastness and intelligence) but I fear I cannot grow the Jacaranda here, not enough heat and barrenness!! But I should look into it, you never know! c
This is weird …. you have me pegged – I live in Jacaranda city of SA and I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it!! When I was very little and had to move with my parents my granny took me out for afternoon tea and we picked up an acorn (English Oak) it duly grew and was planted in my parents garden, and it was called Laura’s oak as I used prevent the pruners etc. When I finally bought my own place (small townhouse) my Dad arrived with a growing acorn from original tree and planted it in my garden – Dads Oak 🙂 It is a huge tree now (28 yrs later) and I still go there to chat to my (now late) Dad sometimes. Laura
What a perfectly brilliant oak story, they take so long to grow and almost are a legasy in themselves. I am going to be buying three lovely strong bare root oaks for down the back, as soon as they start to bud the grower will let me have them.. i do look forward to that.. c
Planting trees is such a wonderful activity – productive, hopeful of the future, creating such a long time of beauty and other products like medicines, fruit, bird food or habitat. They are just wonderful. Being a Permaculture Designer, I’m always looking for multiple uses for everything in the garden. Mulberries are wonderful trees – they grow wild here in NE Georgia. But usually they get so tall competing for sunlight that the birds and squirrels get all the fruit. I had never heard of a weeping mulberry so I would greatly like to know more about them. Perhaps they would have a better chance of providing the people inhabitants of goodies as well as the wild ones.
D
We also have the large fruiting mulberries, they are on the other side of the barn, and the sheep and chickens eat the fallen fruit. These ones do not fruit and are much smaller, they have these great glossy leaves and pruned properly they can be very architectural in the winter. I am always looking for trees that we can plant in closer to the house, to draw water away from the walls and shade our windows.. How wonderful to be a Permaculture Designer,you will have accumulated some excellent knowledge. c
You have such a beautiful soul Cecilia! A lovely post. Thank you for a bright start to my day. I worked in a nursing home when I was 18 too, and wore the pink with white stockings and white shoes that had to be polished nightly. It was the hardest job I ever loved. Also made me realized that nursing was NOT in my future!
Poor kitten! I guess it was not to be.
If I were to add a tree to the Fellowship it would be a maple. (A sugar maple, if those even grow out there!)
I adore maples and yes the sugar maples do grow out here, I especially love them for their autumn colour! Excellent choice Maggie, we will both be in our gardens today it is an excellent outside day here.. c
you have no idea how i enjoy reading every post of this blog. i adore the way you plant pictures in my head – only with words. i hope nothing happened to the kitten. when we lost our last cat (gurke) i tried imagining him being happy on the fields somewhere. and maybe he is… we will never know.
Morning Cat. There is a part of life we are unable to control and this kind of thing is such a part and you are very right, the only thing we can do is think postively.. have a lovely evening..c
oh and i read that you should not wash eggs. not sure if there is something to it but just in case: http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2011/10/eggs-to-wash-or-not-to-wash.html
If you saw the eggs i brought in yesterday you would beg for them to be washed, it was wet and my chickens are REAL free range, they were covered in layers of filth from one chicken after the other climbing into the laying box. Usually I don’t. Did you know that in the US there is a LAW that you have to wash eggs for sale… and they are battery hens, not one speck of dirt on those eggs at all.. this is why those eggs have to be refrigerated. c
i guess there are times when washing them is unavoidable 😉 well that is weird that you Have to wash them… but then there are soo many things that dont make sense and still are like that. like GMO food not being labeled or the EU trying to unify all seeds or dictating shapes for vegetables… weird, weird world.
OMG!! You lucky girl; you’re a synesthete! (Fr. Wikipedia for who’s curious: synaesthesia: a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.” The yellow blooms are beautiful and make me taste something akin to lemon curd. Prayers for the kitten.
Oh lemon curd, i must make some soon, i love that stuff!! morning charlotte. I have a lovely tree coming for you.. c
Most days I read your post aloud to that person who completes me. This morning I woke at an ungodly hour (for me). Made my French press coffee and quietly went to The Farmy. Just as well Lar was still asleep. I prefer to shed my tears in private. Your words evoked such strong emotions today. Simpatico is rare and wondrous . How fortunate are those who share The Fellowship of the Farmy. V.
Morning darling Virginia, I am the grateful one .. and love to be read with coffee, i hope the tears were good ones… love love.. c
They were tears of delight and happiness. Of all the millions and millions of blogs out there I am so thankful I found yours … or at least I think I did. It feels like you have always been in my life. Too many coincidences to be otherwise. Have a happy sunny weekend Celi. V.
Bless your lovely generous heart honey, c