What is the use of a Mulberry Tree?

Or: What's the diff between "Good" and "Bad" fruit trees?

A tender young weedling, with the look of a promise, was allowed to grow in my back yard about 6 summers ago. Last week, the vastly matured weedling began dropping a goodly load of succulent-looking berries, similar to blackberries. According to neighbors (the ones who have my weedling's probable momma incumbent in their yard), mulberries are a royal pain. They are a pain because: dogs eat them and get the runs; the ripened berries drop and pile up in the yard at an incredible rate, attracting bugs and beasties; they are labor-intensive to use as actual food (true).

Yeah, well.

They also, in my opinion, are terrific, fast-growing trees. If you're looking to populate your acreage fast with shade and fruits, its a really cool tree, and it gets big--its not one of those wimpy dwarf-type varieties, developed for tiny little conservative spots, easily controlled and maintained. No sirree, baby, this tree has hair on its chest. Its a REAL tree. Warts and all.

The fruit is sweet. I like it! And its really FUN to have a wild, bird-poo-sown, fruit-bearing tree growing in my yard. The birds and I are quite fond of it. I spread a cloth underneath the tree during the harvest period (in SE Michigan, mid to end June). This way, I can shake the tree and the berries fall on it while they are ripe, before they are purely smushy (ever seen the olive-gathering scene in Under the Tuscan Sun? Live the moment...). I read somewhere that the not-quite-ripe mulberries have a mildly euphoric effect. I'm experimenting with this, but have not yet confirmed it. Darn.

Another point in my good ole weedy mulberry tree's favor: I have a passion for real food, and berries from my friendly tree qualify as 'real' in my book. I watch them bloom, mess around with the bees, and fall to their fate. I handle them fondly (Nearly erotic, eh? No, wait, that would be "fondle them handily."), wash them gently, remove their annoying little stems while I devolve into a monotonous coma which could be called meditation, and freeze them for use in numerous things. Like: hopefully, someday, wine like Dad used to make; cobbler, which I haven't tried; mulberry vodka liquor, which recipe I googled from a Brit blogger (those Brits); and maybe toss them in with my resident plain yogurt for a cheap thrill.

I feel protective of my mulberry tree, partly because its an underdog, and partly because it's ilk so happily, randomly, recreates in any port/any storm. Maybe I will adopt it as one of my personal attributes to adorn my family crest, when I create one. Maybe not. We'll see how the wine turns out.

Answer: "Good" fruit trees might suggest "ease of access and processing." "Bad" might suggest "more work than seems recompensed for satisfaction." Ah, but satisfaction in food is also in the preparation, the intimacy, the affinity, of eater with eatee . Real Food Requires Persistence and Dedication. So, when in the mood for a keeper-tree, Why Not Mulberries?

"What Force Drives the Green Fuse Through the Flower?" Dylan Thomas

Check out Dylan Thomas' poem "The Force that Drives the Green Fuse Through the Flower" http://www.bigeye.com/theforce.htm . No answer, but a great poem to read a few times as I wait FEVERISHLY for planting season. There is some Force stirring right now in all those who plant, whether farmers or backyard lovers of the miracle of gardens. Myself, I'm getting pretty spiritual this time of year. Since I was three years old and taught the ropes of planting radishes on my parents' dirt farm ("dirt farm" translating roughly as a farm that produces dirt, if nothing else), I've been a believer. I know no other way. I cannot be in a yard without gauging it for plantability: how much sun it gets, what kind of soil, the possible transformations if I were to be given my head and a shovel. Maybe some yards are content to be left lulling their lives away under a blanket of grass. Maybe its part of my disastrous Christ complex to save everything that makes me want to convert yards into vegetable-and-flower-and-tree-producing entities. Maybe its my old age desire to leave something behind me of worth; and what is more worthy of leaving than a lust for planting and raising seeds? Perpetual rebirth, oh baby that is a garden. I've been reading Barbara Kingsolvers book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's one of those books I will be handing out to all my friends. It is written by a woman who loves plants and growing and food with the passion of a farmer. Farmers, who are poets in their own right, for their dreaming of the future, the potential, the realization of every growing cycle, and for their faith through weather and blight and market vagaries that life happens again and again and again. Man, right now all us gardening addicts can see is green. Future green. Baby green sprouts filling up the bare brown that we are preparing to turn over and make all nice, as we break out the shovels and the tillers and the seed catalogues. Even better, check out Kingsolver's website at http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/about%20the%20book.html for her great insights into American food culture, as she calls it. She is on a mission to save our souls from the purgatory of impersonal food. Her book describes a year of eating food that is grown in the county where they live, by themselves and others; but much more than that, it talks about remembering where food comes from (not the grocery store!!) and about respect for what we eat. Planting is, I think I speak for planters here, a personal connection with the other form of life on the planet. It is close encountering of the best kind, with the Earth Mother (yeah, I've read all of Jean Auel's Children of the Earth series celebrating the Goddess religion, way too many times). It is meditation, it is faith, it is an art. Its a great time of year.
An answer, sort of: I think the Force is Love.

Short Paper on Cat Psychology of the Aging

Kiki is tiny, black, the strong silent type, and smart. She moved in with me after being lifted out of a trash-bin beginning, 2 years ago. Since then, she has: gained equilibrium, attained a soaking-wet weight of 8 lbs., and learned not to react defensively every time someone pets her. She has gradually come to terms with her own survival (happens regularly now), and branched out into intense analysis of my habits. Since we are pretty much in each other's face on a regular basis, it's important to us both to work it out. I confess she spends more time on it than I do. She has ascertained that I am attached to moving body parts which: dish up food, rub behind velvety little ears, and operate the laser-light penlight which boils her blood. So she studies my moves, my haunts, my reactions. She has learned a lot.

Cats like to watch what their People do, and imitate it. They might think Cats are People, or that People are Cats. Or simply understand that they're dealing with an inferior species, as Mark Twain might suggest. Kiki knows that my computer, yoga mat, pillow, and bathroom are important to me.

Kiki knows that when I sit down at my laptop in the mornings, I am going to be there a while. She has learned to walk on the "off" button. The ritual goes: she turns off computer, I lift her off and make annoyed noises, then put her on my lap while I start up again. She turns into a limp, black-velvet laprug until we're done, or until she needs to go elsewhere. Sometimes the 'elsewhere' is the window next to the computer table, where she is entirely cat-like and checks out the bird population (bird watching is an activity we do particpate in together, but she holds the upper hand).

Another activity she has singled out as Very Important to The Hand That Feeds Her is morning yoga stretches. When I pull out my old blue yoga mat, she's right on it. Lliterally. She sits approximately where my feet land when I am in the stretched-out position of the Sun Salutation. She used to nip at my feet when they shot back to her spot, but has come to realize that this is not procedure. Now, she takes up the position until she gets action, and then moves to the side of the mat, where she performs a set of daily/ hourly/ random cat ablutions. Her form of meditative stretches, I think.

When I go to the bathroom, she follows, no matter what it might rouse her from (bird-watching, naps, food). If I am showering, she loses interest quickly. If I settle myself Martin-Luther-style into reading mode on the john, she walks to the laundry hamper, stretches, scratches it up, hops on top, and checks out the adjoining shower niche for anything to curl her paw around and scat to the floor. If I fail to notice and encourage her, she wanders back out. Unlike some other cats I have known, she doesn't care to jump in the shower stall or drink from the sink faucet in emulation of brushing my teeth (which must really puzzle cats). But she always shows up to check out the action.

And what purpose would it serve to have a kitty who didn't curl up cat-like next to me for the sheer joy of having warm, breathing, proximity to another being? Kiki's preferred place to warm up after midnight is one of my pillows, next to my face. But since she has a penchant for biting when startled, we have worked out that she is only allowed on the comforter, preferably below my waist and a safe distance from nightmare-induced defensive cat attacks. If she wanders off in the night to do cat things she always returns post-dawn to wake me up. Her morning spoonful of fattening, soft kitty-food is dished out in the mornings, and she never lets me forget or slack in this area.

Kiki has a fellow cat now, Ricky. (I know, the names are close in sound, but they both discern the vowel diffs, the long "e" and the short "i"--this might be a good topic for a dissertation on human language discernment in cats). If Kiki doppelgangs/ appeals to my hostile, cynical, reserved side, Ricky is our devil.representative. He's still learning the ropes, like: don't shoot out the side door when it opens at night or youre on your own in the scary neighborhood full of evil night creatures. Like: don't ambush Kiki just because she defends her royal dispensation to occupy the comforter at night. Because I have graduated to Second Cat level, a friend bestowed me with my own Crazy Cat Lady figurine, which I proudly display on the wall. I know that the option remains open for me to be the eccentric old woman on the block with snake gourd vines dangling about the yard, numerous brick laying projects continually surfacing, and a growing population of cats.

Its good to have options as you age.