CITY SLICKER FARMING!

I grew a pear! Yes—singular. One pear! It’s exciting coz it’s my first pear. It’s also telling as it’s only … one pear! Such is city slicker farming! Here is the pear—which I should bronze as it not only is my first but possibly my last—along with some house grapes.

I’m also growing honeydew melons—but they’re smaller than my fist. Again, such is city slicker farming! Which is to say, here’s another update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below. Note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.


SUMMER/FALL CITY SLICKER HARVEST
1 peach (doesn’t really count because while it’s the first fully formed peach we’ve mustered, it wasn’t edible. But it’s our first!)
1 pear (our first!)
3 canteloupes (our first!)
8 honeydews (our firsts! City slickers that we are, we initially thought this was ripening watermelon. Harvested it (ooh: I love claiming I “harvest” anything!) Didn’t know what they are until we cut into one and tasted. They’re tiny, though: the size of my fist. But still good miniatures!)
23 bunches of house grapes
19 black figs
139 green figs
27 heirloom tomatoes
25 plum tomatoes
13 jalapenos
29 cucumbers
4 lemon cucumbers (we didn’t plant these this season; they’re last season’s which seeded themselves)
8 strawberries
8 sprigs of mint
7 sprigs of basil
35 yellow squash
14 eggplant
18 zucchini
5 bell peppers
0 plums for the season (because the birds et ‘em all!)


PUBLICATIONS
* THE COLLECTED POEMS OF LUCILLE CLIFTON 1965-2010, Edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser (have never really paid attention to her work until this volume. And now I’m a fan. Deeply and satisfyingly intellectual. Worthwhile life-poems-life…!)

A VOICE HEARS YOU FROM MYSTERIOUS PLACES, audio-video CD collaboration of poems, visual art and sound by Barry Schwabsky (voice and poems, except for one translation of a Paul Eluard poem) and Marianne Nowottny (gorgeous, lyrical, evocative!) With a very on-point introduction by Kenneth Goldsmith!

MAY APPLE DEEP, poems by Michael Sikkema (fabulous po-mo pastoral. Philosophical music)

THE COUNTRY ROAD, poems by James Laughlin (there are many moments of pleasure in this collection—a type of pleasure specifically afforded by age’s wisdom)

* TRISM, poems by Rebecca Loudon (high energy!)

IT CAN BE SOLVED BY WALKING, poems and photographs by Jennifer Wallace (a lotta love in these lyrics. Appreciated the Author’s Note which revealed how the poem takes over the poet)

* PUERTO RICO, poems by Alejandro Ventura (interesting to see how the interest in visual art enlivens the theme—of course I empathize with this approach)

* THE PINK, poems by Jared Schickling (challenging, then rewarding)

COLEMAN HAWKINS ORNETTE HAWKINGS, poems by Norma Cole

* THE BODY DOUBLE: A LONG POEM by Jared Harel

* POETS’ GUIDE TO AMERICA, poems by John F. Buckley & Martin Ott

* BURDEN OF SOLACE, poems by Teneice Durrant Delgado

* GREEN IS FOR WORLD, poems by Juliana Leslie

SLEEPS WITH KNIVES, poems by Laramie Harlow

THE ARCADIA PROJECT: NORTH AMERICAN POSTMODERN PASTORAL, Edited by Joshua Corey and G.C. Waldrep

SERGEANT REX: THE UNBREAKABLE BOND BETWEEN A MARINE AND HIS MILITARY WORKING DOG, memoir by Mike Dowling

THE PROFESSIONALS, novel by Owen Laukkanen

MARINE ONE, novel by James W. Huston


WINES
2004 Samuel’s Gorge McLaren Vale shiraz
2010 The Top Carneros pinot noir
2006 Titus cabernet
2008 Rudd Crossroads
2006 Wegeler Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling Auslese
2005 Trevor Jones shiraz Barossa Valley
2002 Chablis Grand Cru Valmur Domaine William Fevre
2004 Chablis Premier Grand Cru Fourcharme Domaine William Fevre
2010 Saintsbury chardonnay
1990 Ch. Haut-Marbuzet—moi birthday wine! Photo below of restaurant where the hubby and Michael brought me this weekend: a local favorite: FARMSTEAD. I had heirloom tomato soup and prime rib. Yum.

To paraphrase noted poet-author Bino A. Realuyo's wish for me today, "Happy Merry Birdie!!" to Moi!