Kitty’s new place: the smell, the copper drain ring in the kitchen sink, the freezer box suspended within the refrigerator all remind me of Gran’s second-floor apartment. All of those motionless Sunday afternoons hearing invisible traffic, bells, and wind.
Sign outside her window
FORD (blue
LINCOLN (white
MERCURY (red
just like our place in Prairie Depot, Ohio
~*~
A fine salad Kitty created tonight
Pieces of homegrown
watermelon
cantaloupe
peaches
~*~
One of every five commercial apples in the U.S. was grown in Yakima County. Peaches, pears, plums, apricots, and cherries were also valued fruit harvests. They play a major role in my Nearly Canaan novel.
Irrigation had come a long way from the ditches used in orchards in this circa 1913 Webster & Stevens glass negative photograph via Wikimedia Commons.
Orchard labels from Yakima in a Chris Light photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Lithograph label from California Historical Society collection …
~*~
13:IX:77
Pickers began on the apples this morning
seis y media
first the Goldens: the reds come off later
man with a limp
carries the ladder
~*~
14:IX
Ordered new car yesterday, Subaru
Legs for Kitty’s loom finally arrived after a long wait: it’s now “grown up”
Mention of Kitty taking the Greyhound to Ellensburg …
~*~
Where did I hope to be at 30? And how close am I?
Where have I been? What dreams and teachings have I forgotten?
A dusty novel manuscript, an unopened violin case, a holy title I seldom use — and all of these chains to Maya
~*~
28:IX
apples, gone from the orchard
at least around the house
prop sticks stacked between the rows
ladders, folded
sweet smell of bins
awaiting the straddle buggy
She’s in a bummer today. Not a single good word till I got mad and screamed and left the house and mowed the lawn.
Our orchard shack cleaned, inside and out, everything back in place and straight. TV moved from the meditation room [living room] to the bedroom. Good vibes back, our home is home.
~*~
3:X:77
[Desert reality}:
How strange that dew should be a sign of autumn!
This ink has an odor I now associate with Mr. Weiner’s junior high school art classes and later with my high school art class wash room.
Overheard: Yeah, Fort Lewis is a wild place. Kids go in, find live grenades. Fort Carson, too — stretches almost from Colorado Springs to Boulder. They wanted to expand it but faced a vote.
~*~
10:X:77
Called Subaru, told our car’s on the way, probably off the boat on Friday. Last boatload, they couldn’t get our five-speed, though it was promised, per the salesman.
The mail had a letter to Mrs. James Hodson from Mom Moran …
~*~
Later in month:
Sharon P from Kitty’s Ohio Northern days showed up in the Central State art building, wants to be an actress, just got a divorce. Seems Kitty really dumped on my in her journal the night before, can’t figure out why we’re married, “Most people need each other but we don’t,” ignoring the joys of shared freedoms. So Sharon’s husband had come in and asked why not, I’d say they were never married. And now she’s coming to visit us in the orchard?
~*~
From Spiralbound Cascadia with commentary.
Jnana's Red Barn 