On this past Saturday, Tim spent some time with his siblings on their childhood home, a farm site near New Ulm, Minnesota. He found that apple trees he and they planted there when Julia was a baby had set fruit this year and borne a good crop. Wily as Odysseus, he took the pillowcase that usually protects his (always at hand) Go board and filled it two-thirds full of fresh-picked apples.

On Sunday, Tim, Julia, and I collaborated on peeling, coring, and processing the apples into chunky sauce to freeze, adding cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, but no sugar.

IMG_7534 I hope that the little video Tim took on my phone can be viewed here!

Thank goodness for the “Apple Master” (or, as I call it, the “Apple Lathe.”) With Julia’s expertise and our determination and teamwork, we were all done in about an hour.

Here is the final result! Wish you could smell the heavenly scent of lightly cooked apple!

LESLIE

Great Blue Heron at Lunch near Clayton, GA (photo: Karla Schultz)

I am quite thrilled to be reading from Cloud Song in beautiful Winona, Minnesota on Tuesday, September 4, 2018 at 7:00 p.m., as part of their First Tuesdays Laureate Writers Series sponsored by the River Arts Alliance!

Tim and I were recently in Winona to listen as the 2018 Maria W. Faust winning sonnets were read. They were quite exceptional and inspiring, as you can see.  Afterward, we went to the Blue Heron for lunch–perhaps the best egg salad sandwich I’ve ever eaten. While there, I snapped a few photos. Afterwards, I asked my fabulously talented sister, Karla, if she had any photographs of blue herons from her part of the country (the wild areas of Georgia and Florida), and she sent a number of excellent “captures.” I have mixed them up with scenes of the wildlife (!) of Winona, visitors to Winona, and even a couple from our nearby Lyman Lakes. See if you can tell which is which!

If you are free on September 4 and in the mood for create coffee and poetry, please join us at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse.

Outside the Coffeehouse, An Anything-But-Blue Heron

Self-Portrait with the Blue Heron’s Blue Heron

Thank you, Karla! 

LESLIE

Blue Heron on the Carleton Campus

Blue Heron at Lyman Lakes