there were rainbows that day

[asakiyume]

Rainbows
The ninja girl and I were walking home along train tracks, enjoying the between-worlds of the iron road. Far, far away, we heard a sound like a train coming.

Very soon, much nearer, a train whistle.

We piled off the tracks. She crouched at the edge of the gravel; I took a step back and down into a marshy spot amid goldenrod and asters, and we watched, eyes not much higher than wheel level, as a freight train rushed past.

From that line of sight I can confirm that lying between the rails should be quite survivable, as the bodies of the cars are quite high. Not that I recommend trying.

The ninja girl and I were reminiscing about walks between worlds that we took in England, when the ninja girl was only six and seven years old. "Do you remember," I asked, "When we walked along footpaths through fields and woods, to get to the festival in Netherbury? I really did feel like we were coming out of faery and crashing a human celebration."

"I remember it was a very long walk, and we found a pheasant feather," she said.

"Do you remember going to the Stoke Abbott street fair and getting your face painted so beautifully?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "there were rainbows that day."

Rainbows, plural.

I didn't remember about the rainbows.

Then we remembered how, while we were living in England, she took it into her head to help our neighbors with the morning milking. (They had a herd of dairy cows.) Without telling anyone her plan, she got out of bed, pulled on clothes, climbed over a tumbledown spot in a stone wall, and walked into their dairy barn, announcing that she was there to help. The wife let her hose down the floor.

wild Concord grapes

You can get drunk on the scent of Concord grapes, I'm sure. And probably somewhere someone will try to charge you for it, like the greedy tempura shop owner who tried to charge the poor student for flavoring his rice with the scent of the tempura.

Here is something else you can do with wild Concord grapes: Make a pie.

you take the skins off but...


you save them (they're on the left), and after the pulp is cooked and the seeds strained out, you add them back in


finished pie (not quite enough pie crust for the top)


delicious


wonderful research tool

A site that will give you high and low tide, predicted fish activity, and sunrise and sunset and moonrise and moonset, for coastal locations all around the United States. It's tides4fishing.com

So now I can know exactly when the houses in Mermaids Hands are floating and when they're resting on the mudflats. I know what moon M-- is looking at and whether she's getting up in the dark or daylight--all thanks to one site.

Comments

[sovay]

And probably somewhere someone will try to charge you for it, like the greedy tempura shop owner who tried to charge the poor student for flavoring his rice with the scent of the tempura.

You will pay them back with the coins of light minted by the shadows of grape-leaves, moving on the vines, on your hands as you hold them out. The sound they make, falling and ringing, is their slip-skin sweetness, sharp as foxes on your tongue.

A site that will give you high and low tide, predicted fish activity, and sunrise and sunset and moonrise and moonset, for coastal locations all around the United States.

I did not know that existed. Man, there goes my time.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Man, there goes my time

Right? And it's predictive. When will high tide fall on, oh, July 12, 2015, in Gloucester?

you can find out!

with the coins of light minted by the shadows of grape-leaves,

Most precious coins

sharp as foxes on your tongue

Mmmmmm!

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Ordinary rainbows or really weird red ones?

I have a song called Endless Summer in my collection. What's the one you're listening to like?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I suspect just ordinary ones! I'd never seen an all-red rainbow until you posted yours.

The Jezabels' "Endless Summer" sounds like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvCr1UAcPc4).

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

I've never seen them either.

Interesting, it reminds me of Feathermerchants, actually. The one I have is guitar noise, a bit like Blue Skies and Paign, actually.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I expanded the last scene of The Child in his Sword with tides and things. Decided to write it backwards, since forwards was turning out to be a non-starter. Starting with chapter 99.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

. Decided to write it backwards, since forwards was turning out to be a non-starter. Starting with chapter 99.

I like your problem solving!

The healing angel was telling us about THE POWER OF HIPPOPOTAMUSES--like, that they can drag lions into the water and drown them and can crunch alligators in half. I then told the healing angel that you had invented hippothalassi.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

What are hippothalassi, sea hippopotami?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yes! Cool, right? But I don't know anything about them--you'll have to get cucumberseed to tell you more.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

What lovely memories!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

They are some especially precious ones :-)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

PIE.

PIE PIE PIE.

Also, I like the rainbows story very much.

I saw a half-rainbow the other day, though there wasn't any rain: I left the grocery parking lot and there it was, half a rainbow, cut off as if someone had taken a knife to it.

Maybe they were harvesting it for rainbow pie.

PIE.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Rainbow pie--a tasty and colorful treat.

I saw a double rainbow at the gas station one day last month. I had to call the attention of the woman next to me, filling up her tank, to it (them), because: So. beautiful.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Cool site! I've looked before for tide tables, and they've been surprisingly difficult to find!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

When I found it, I knew I had hit a jackpot. I go there *all the time* now.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

There have to be rainbows or the world is not all it should be.

You may be amused that my niece, when small, described the light on a patch of oily water in the gutter as a: 'dead rainbow' :o)

The pie looks wonderful.

When did you live hereabouts?

As you'll be aware, with us being an island nation, the tide tables are very much part of our lives here and to be found pretty much everywhere. We're a people fixated by weather and tides.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I loved listening to the shipping bulletin when we were over there :-)

Your niece was so right! What a perfect identification for that beautiful but ominous sheen on oily water!

We lived for 15 months with my husband's parents in Dorset. It was a wonderful experience.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Rainbows sound very appropriate for a day spent walking between worlds. But what was the reason you separated the skins from the grapes?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think you separate the seeds from the skins so that when you mash the cooked pulp through a sieve to remove the seeds, you wouldn't also remove the skins. In other words, you want the skins in, but not the seeds. If you cook everything together, you have no easy way of removing *just* the seeds. If you cook only the pulp, then you can remove the seeds--and then put the skins back in. The skins then add their flavor and color, and they get good and soft while the pie is baking, so the final consistency is very nice.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see! I didn't think of using a sieve to remove the seeds. I guess that must save a lot of time.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It's definitely better than trying to pick the seeds out one by one! Plus, when the pulp is cooked, only the bare seed remains, whereas if you try to separate the seeds out when it's all raw, a lot of the pulp sticks to the seeds.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Trader Joe's is selling "seedless" hybrid Concord-Thomsons (they ain't, but the seeds are more timid) and my immediate impulse was to elevate them to piehood, but Nicole had never heard of grape pie. (My grandmother makes it in autumn because of the stubborn grapevines everyone has in MA. My great-grandfather planted them back in the Forties and now they are formidable, and the space underneath the vines is larded with old verdigris-colored boilers and half a Ford Fairlane with creatures living in the seats. I mean, it's all of a Ford Fairlane, but the front and back met sorry ends and wherever the engine block of a Fairlane was, it isn't there any more. Family legend, which is dubiously reliable, places the blame on my grandfather, who was growing "Mary Dewana" in among his father's Christmas tree rows and didn't know how to smoke the harvest and then drive a car.)

Long story short: you have provided proof of pie. All the best people do it, I can say.

Also, proof of rainbows. Thank you for sharing that.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Selkie, this story of the Ford Fairlane! It is wonderful, and it ought to be illustrated with pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations! I love everything about it.

If I can find my time turner, I will try to make you a picture.

And the pie is so worth it--but find yourself some genuine, seedful, wild Concord grapes, because balancing on a guardrail and hoping you don't fall into the poison ivy, and reaching up to pick the high-hanging fruit while the foxes at your feet glower with jealousy--that makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me I should share the recipe--which was just something I grabbed off the Internet. I used this: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/concord-grape-pie-i/

[selidor]

Oh, milking. Cows make me so happy. The early-morning tinge of milking sheds, constantly being cleaned, and the ssssh of water on concrete, and the silhouettes of cows in their long patient lines going toward the shed across the paddocks. /now very homesick

"May your home be filled with pie-scent" sounds like a rather good autumnal blessing.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Did you grow up with milk cows?

They would let my in-laws have jugs of raw milk. It was wonderful: cream on top, of course. So much of living there was like stepping back in time.

[selidor]

My home province is lush lush green with a saturation I've never seen elsewhere, as though someone took green and split it in special viridian prisms. The primary industry is dairy, mostly Friesians; I didn't grow up on a farm (though we housesat farm houses a few times), but a lot of my schoolmates did.

[ruralwriter.livejournal.com]

Concord grape pie!

I love pie. All pies (well, except for pumpkin, which is not a thing that ever shall exist within my world).

I love Concord grapes.

I have never known about the existence of grape pie! I did not know such a thing could be done! I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA! I picked just a few bunches of Concord grapes recently on the Appalachian Trail (and kept them...but I don't know if I have enough...). I AM INTRIGUED!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The recipe I used was so simple--it was virtually the first thing I found when I googled. It's here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/concord-grape-pie-i/

You do need a fair amount of grapes, but just go riding down country lanes and wait to smell that grape smell, and you'll be able to pick more!

[dudeshoes.livejournal.com]

I will be passing along the tide info to the clam diggers in my family. Thanks!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Very welcome! It's a very handy site.

(PS, blogged a C&B article next entry)

[88greenthumb.livejournal.com]

"The wife let her hose down the floor." Was Ninja Girl disappointed?

I don't think I've ever had Wild Concord Grape Pie but it looks Yummy!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think she was delighted to use the hose! (The actual milking involves milking machines--it's not hand milking--and I think it's a little intimidating)

It is a very yummy pie, and if you were here, I would give you a piece ♥

[88greenthumb.livejournal.com]

Not only would I love a piece of that pie, but also, would love to go along to pick the wild grapes and then make the pie with you.♥...Someday...

[tltrent.livejournal.com]

Concord grape pie? Sooo heavenly-sounding. So many fond memories of dodging wasps under my grandparents' grape arbor to get at the wild sweet taste.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I can just see you in the dappled shade, enjoying the wild fruit!

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I made stuffed grape leaves with leaves from my vines last weekend. It's late in the season for it, but they turned out just fine. Delicious, in fact.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

There's something so wonderfully fragrant even about the leaves, isn't there! I *know* they must have been delicious.