Kim Squirrell

APPLE DAY 2011

yurtkeeper — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:52:54 +0000

APPLE DAY 2011 is on Saturday the 8th of October

Please come along and support our wonderful Seasonal Celebration in its 12th year
and now held in the beautiful Bridport Community Orchard.
If you want to volunteer, bake a cake or simply want to know more please reply to this message.
Find attached a poster with all the relevant info.
If you can print it out to display in your front window/village notice board/school/car window
in fact if you can display it anywhere it would be a great help.
Please note that there is no apple ID this year (David needs the break)
But he will be holding a short apple tree surgery for anyone wanting advice in looking after their trees.

All the Best

David, Kim, Kathy, Wendy, Ella, Eva, Tom Ellie, Naimh and Reuben of TREEWISE

Apple Day 2011 A4.pdf

Away time

yurtkeeper — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:48:44 +0000

I have not been anywhere exotic..but immersed myself in drama..escaping the recording of random..self absorbed thoughts..in favour of the alpha wave narcotic that technology affords..Ah but..I have been writing poetry..

I wonder if the computer screen gives off alpha waves too..maybe I’m just an addict that moved onto the hard stuff…

But honestly I’d rather be sitting in a tree..what waves do they give off? whatever they are..can’t get enough of them..once I’m out there..I don’t want to go home..solution is I think a tree house but with my dodgy knee it will have to be no more than 4 feet off the ground.

Seeing the dawn

yurtkeeper — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:28:00 +0000

I’ve spent about 16 hours over the last 2 nights writing up a management plan for the town orchard ( I hate being a perfectionist), sending off poems to a prestigious poetry competition, and watching the odd interview with Hugh Jackman during my tea breaks. …..it was like a long haul flight with no inhouse ammusement ( although Hugh was funny). My legs were swollen and my behind aching..I had to give up when my toes started to tingle…visions of deep vein thrombosis hurried me to bed….but not before I went outside to see the dawn..all brand new and crisp with the evening primrose milky yellow..shouting..I didn’t know it was also an insomniac….

Writing again

yurtkeeper — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:38:24 +0000

I joined a group of poets..quite by accident..met them all for the first time yesterday..last month there were only 2 of us. We read work and talk poems and generally have a laugh..and it’s all spurring me on to share and seriously write or at least take writing seriously again and not rail against it as I have done………disgusted at how rarified and frivolous it is……you can see me can’t you….infant on hip…..mud at the ankles….spitting out that all Art is bo****ks ….

But now I admit reluctantly that bo****ks or not …..it is at the core of me and its hungry.

Watching

yurtkeeper — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:18:05 +0000

I went to stay with my mum and help her through the first week back in her own home. I expected it to be nerve wracking and uncomfortable living in my familiar childhood environment…..prodding all the complex memories to the forefront of my mind..and all this in the company of a recovering heart patient rather than a robust parent….. but instead it was a major learning opportunity.. I found out that I am not as fearful of illness as I used to be..well..strictly speaking I have gone through three stages now.

A child fascinated with dissection and the world of creepy crawlies and with the sole ambition to be a vet,

to the squeamish adult that won’t touch it can’t look at it .. all death is an echo of my own..

but now I’m entering the ‘ Oh that is what it looks like’ (which is something in between I think)

I believe I learned to watch over this week……always so quick to react I found myself observing and learning….about myself and my mother..seeing her not purely as she relates to me but as a woman of 75 who has gone through an overwhelmingly powerful experience and has lived to tell the tale. I realised just how much she locks in..how much she doesn’t say and how I say too much to fill the void.

I thought this evening about her mended heart and wondered if something else could be mended..if through all this I might finally begin to understand her.

Out of the mouths of teens

yurtkeeper — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:46:19 +0000

So we get into the car to go midnight shopping..well almost..lets say late night emergency supermarket dash..

the kids aren’t old enough to be left……. I like to give shopping the personal touch..and I don’t drive….. so its everyone in the car…

my little one pipes up that I’m ‘the best Mum in the world’ (he loves adventures)

then he turns to his sister..’Isn’t she Ella?’

..’No’…. came the measured reply..’I think she’s irresponsible.’

OOps. She’s right….so we pile out of the car..I make cocoa and tell stories and put them to bed…So it’s porridge for brekfast, a school dinner fo El, and tinned fish for us……we can live with that.

This made me think about the little projects I’ve been reading about on the internet where people pledge to not shop for up to a month and just use what is in the house/veg garden..maybe I should try this..or maybe it’s for people with full chest freezers who don’t know the meaning of the phrase hand to mouth.

New Project!

yurtkeeper — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:11:49 +0000

Take a look at our blog for the new growing-cooking-breadmaking project!

www.treewisekitchengarden.wordpress.com

Stories

yurtkeeper — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:41:59 +0000

I found myself telling my young son parables at bedtime..somehow..with the wrestling of a 7 year olds ego, and in his case excessive self reproach… these stories have emerged as the right stories to tell..I’m stunned..it seems my fundamentalist upbringing is seeping to the surface.

Now that sounds sinsister doesn’t it..like telltale blood stains that refuse to be removed..well I don’t exactly mean it like that…

but I did find myself reaching out for something to help him understand forgiveness..that there would always be forgiveness for mistakes..if you asked for it…….so the prodigal son appeared just waiting to be told…he loved it..so much so that tonight he asked for another Jesus story…so there followed the Good Samaritan and the Talents….you must know lots he said…..but I’m running out already…well of the ones I like…so where do I find another great teller of parables? Any ideas?

Survival Blanket

yurtkeeper — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:31:55 +0000

When we were hunter gatherers..(not that long ago) it was essential for us to, not only eat whether we were hungry or not, but to lay the extra food down as fat for the hunger that would come..so consider this: That we..the exquistely designed surviors who can store up the fat merely by looking at food..we are the reason the human race survived..the trouble is that our culture has moved on swifter than we can..so poor devils like me..once the most efficient..now suffer from the world of excess..just try telling my hunter gather genes that there is food all year round..they just don’t seem to take it in and so I have to draw on super human strength to override them..

I’m not doing too well at overriding at the moment..still..the extra layers keep me warm! All I need is another Ice Age……..but I understand we are working on that….

Sleep

yurtkeeper — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:32:39 +0000

I have spent the last few days sleeping, sleeping off the visit to the Midlands, the hospital, the life support machines…it felt like escaping..it was escaping. Today I surfaced…..went out..walked into town..felt as though I’d been away for years..I bought a beautiful crotched blanket for a pound..I must show you…..made me think I should have escaped into something more fruitful than sleep, like painting or needlework..even poetry would have done it…an elderly friend of mine became a first class cook through escaping..and then there are the long distance runners and the gardening celebrities that fled from difficulties into success..now there is a trick I should like to learn..still I’m back now..at least I think I’ll be getting up at a reasonable hour tomorrow! You know I haven’t done this sleep thing since I was 16….I read this today..I think it was Somerset Maughan said it..

It was such a lovely day

it seemed a shame to get up.