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”
Author is a smart mommy, especially for such a young one. Very sad about the other kitten, but how sweet that she trusts the Shush sisters to help keep this one safe. I am curious now about the Daisy procedure. You have to dry her up? What will you do without her milk in the winter? How often does she have to be bred? Will you explain it one day?
I can tell you right now. A cow will milk comfortably for 8 months for a year, usually she would be already bred but I want her to calve in the early spring this time and every time after that so we are waiting and i am milking her longer. . She will be bred in June by the vet, hopefully she will catch, then after 4 or 5 months more I will dry her up so she can have a nice fat healthy calf. Then we will breed her again. To have milk there must be a calf. So in a perfect world we will only be without milk for about 4 or so months and she will have the last half of each pregnancy loafing about being pregnant. And yes, without the milk we will be in a state of hiatus.. c
I’m late, and far behind today, but I couldn’t let this one pass by without a comment…Such a beautiful post, c – missing kitten and all.
I’ve heard that mulberry makes a good medicinal tea, but at this moment, I’ve no clue if you use the bark, leaves, fruit, or a combination. Wonky, overstuffed brain…
No tree-planting here this year, but I have 7 little lowbush (wild) blueberry bushes!
Blue berries! perfect. I heard that they like coffee grounds and already mine are perking up! c
A lovely post today, Celi! I don’t often drink tea, but when I do I order it by the potful, oolong, usually. I drink it down from top to bottom because it is too good to waste. I read your blog entries the same way… because I don’t get here often enough and I don’t want to miss a single bit.
Poor little kitten. Have you ever read “Cat Heaven” by Cynthia Rylant? It is a children’s book, but it speaks to the adult audience just as well. I love her writing and her illustration style!
Oh excellent thank you, i shall find it and read it.. I have kids i can pass it on to! c
Good then! It is a wonderful book to share. 🙂
Celia, I feel so honored to have a weeping mulberry tree planted for my sweet Arthur. I’ve never seen a weeping mulberry tree, which makes it all the more touching to me and memorable. And like the others who have written earlier, I too love this blog and read without fail, vicariously living the life I think I wish I had. Reading your blog is a peak into an alternative universe. It isn’t Eden–the loss of the newborn kitten, a case in point–but it’s close–thanks to who you are.
you are most welcome, i am making the labels this afternoon and Arthur shall have his name on a tree!.. c
Good evening, c, and wishes of peacefulness to all the farmy. I hope to slip back into my pen next week but I have to admit that my recent trip to Denmark has left me a bit worn at the edges. I usually love spring but there’s a melancholy about it this year. Perhaps I need a tonic. 🙂
Don’t forget to add a wee nip of gin to your tonic!! I wondered where you were.. time to relax now darling girl, house renovations on top of all those desperate days of funerals and mourning is a bit much, You have had quite a year, I bet you have roses coming out in your garden, time to drag out a chair and a book and sit next to them for a while (with your Tonic!) .. heaps of love, take care.. celi
I hope to enjoy the garden tomorrow. Temps reaching into 20C predicted. My garden needs some help after my being away for 10 days. And Mr Misky is suffering with shingles. Too much stress is our undoing right now. And Peter-the-Painter returns on Tuesday – tea, white, 3 sugars by the bucket load for him. Don’t know how anyone can drink tea that sweet.
Oh god shingles are awful, i had that once in a particularly stressful period of my life, I cannot tell you.. that pain was just dreadful. BUt it never came back.. thank god, piles of water .. poor fellow,
Celi, among many other things – like synesthete, farmer, horticulturalist, breeder, bee-keeper, writer,to name only a few of your occupations and talents – you are a poet…
It’s a sunny day here, gloriously drenched as we’ve been having downpours of tropical proportions – tanks all full, grass growing and birds singing!
I have never seen myself ass a poet, i think i am too verbose, too many words.. But the sounds of rain drenching my poor parched home land would turn me into one! thank you for that.. c
Sorry to hear about the little kitty, so sad; I hope mama manages to rear the remaining one.
You have a wonderful way with words Celi – you make us feel that we are all a part of your little farmy, and it’s true that we do get to know one another through our comments.
Good luck with the tree planting. I have a poinciana tree in my yard and it reminds me so much of you and your little farmy – it’s wide growing habit providing deep shade from he hot sun – just like you, protecting and caring for the farmy!
I feel honoured to be part of the Fellowship of the Farmy,
Hi Celi
Sad about the missing kitty but Mother Nature is always the one in charge…we must respect Her ways. Your yellow Magnolia is so bright and beautiful…I have a lovely white Dogwood tree outside my kitchen window…2 birdhouses there both have families now. Lots of rain here…ready for sunny to arrive tomorrow 🙂
very wise words, we have to nod to mother nature and let things move on from there.. thank you nancy.. c
I was thinking of you as I puttered in my backyard today. Been a bit cold and rainy all week, and while it hasn’t been great for the veggies, which want more heat to grow, it’s been a boon to the weeds. Of course it has! Anyway, I was sort of getting ornery, because there were so many weeds, but then it’s just my tiny backyard, I thought, not Miss C’s big farm! So I soldiered on. So sorry to hear about Author’s little kitten. My friend’s cat has gone missing, and I wonder if it is the season for that or something. Carry on, carry on.
Green, green grass and blooms…beautiful yellows in the daily view. Sorry to hear of the loss of a kitty, C.
PS Celi, thought I must mention TEA! I wrote a blog last night about tea, and this morning I read your blog, and all the comments about TEA !
Didn’t want you to think I was poaching ideas from your lovely blog !!!
Like you would poach.. in fact i would be thrilled to bits.. my mother was an artist and she always wished someone would want one of her paintings so much they would steal it!! We all love tea.. I must pop over and read yours, i have been very remiss in visiting lately! c
Oh Celi, you are such a darling, and your mother sounds like one too… would love to have known her!
Tea is up on the next post!
I was going to write about making a cuppa in Food for Gourmets, and the thing took off, as you will see if you have the chance to get there!!! V
Oh, oh, oh: I knew you had a fabulous memory but did not realize its endless limits! And there I go oft coming on still with sleep in my eyes [am slow in the mornings 🙂 !] and typing with never a second thought that my ‘secrets’ may come back as a petard a year or two down the track 🙂 ! Oh, I like my tea black or green, no sugar or milk but love a squeeze of lemon! And that yellow magnolia is just priceless . . . and do feel sad that Author now has just the one bub: may that one survive! Beautiful send, Celi!!
Isn’t it interesting how important that first drink is. I have mugs of tea in the morning which often get cold between chores. Chai tea is a smooth ending to my day and coffee for lunch – so much caffeine 😦 no 🙂 . We have a large mulberry in the chook pen which is losing leaf now – autumn – but gives the chookies protection from the sun and the eagles which float on the thermals on our ridge. Joy
What beautiful words you have wrapped around all of us, in multi-layered fragrance. Sad to hear of the kitten going, but that is nature’s way and as you say sadness is in there with the joy. the yellow magnolia is dancing in her frilly dress. I missed somewhere down the line your intention with the tree plantings. It looks a special project.
Celi, would you believe I have a tree to plant in my garden for you; its a Japenese black oak I’ve grown from seed, two years old now……needs to be liberated from its drainpipe.
OMG: what a brilliant idea! Thank you so much ‘Le Petit Potager’ . . . there is this self-seeded jacaranda for which I just may have developed a patch thru’ ‘death’ of a loved one! Wow: never thought of that 🙂 !