Defeated Again by a Simple Machine

A week or so later, and three bushels of apples still remain on my back porch. Between Martin's classes, my class, the children, doctor's appointments, etc., there just hasn't been the time.

Today, however, still wearing my robe and sans shower, I decided to tackle the apple peeler contraption my good friend Tonya lent me. Tonya's history rivals Laura Pioneer's. She raised and slaughtered her own chickens, cracked the black walnuts her parents had already pulverized with the car wheels, worked long hours in huge gardens, and today still manages a garden, a neat-as-a-pin house, and her job, children, and preserves. She had the compassion to lend me her super-duper simple apple/potato peeler, and today, after a doing silent battle with my shadow-self that doubts my ability to work simple machines, I unpacked what should have been a great time-saver.

I fiddled with the thing for a while. I even read the directions and studied the diagram. I unscrewed bolts and rescrewed them. I stuck a poor MacIntosh onto the three-tipped coring blade. I futilely turned the handle to no avail. The peeler merely massaged the skin of my apple. Finally, in exasperation, I set it aside. Yes, I admit: I have been defeated by yet another simple machine.

I do have something to show for my morning. I peeled three apples by hand, and I finally shucked the sweating bag of corn that has been slumping in a bag on my back porch, soaking up the day's sun. I braved the cheesy smell that the molding corn leaves omitted, removed the fat worms and rot, and parboiled the rest, ready for freezing. I read Elspeth a few books and Merry and I finally changed the sheets on the bed. And two days ago, instead of preparing for my night class, I finally hacked down sheaves of basil, mountained it on my table, and hung it with twine. Our sun room is beginning to near Monk Cadfael's work room in appearance, and the smell is lovely.

Oh, and Sally, another friend and friendly arborist, pointed to our Locust tree and said, "That's a black walnut."

"No!" I reassured her. "That's a locust."

"Are you SURE?" she asked. "Look at the green pods."

"Those are conkers," I reassured her again. I know this from watching Kipper the Dog.

A period followed where we waded through the high grass to study the green pods, while Sally mildly mocked my use of the word "conker" and generally insisted on the black walnut idea.

Well, I'll be jiggered, as they say.

Martin looked up the black walnut that night, and a perfect pictorial description popped up on our screen. The tree at the bottom of the hill, and my inspiration tree that grows outside my office window--they are indeed black walnut trees. I'll be a hen's niece. I feel like a cad, as if I have been calling a good friend by the wrong name for a good year without knowing it.

Which, by the way, I seem to do at regular intervals at my night class, to the blank, somewhat injured responses of my students. I think I lost most of their confidence when I called emphatically called a chap "Joe," when there has never, and will never be, anyone named Joe in my classroom.

Defeated by machines and names. Well, it could be worse, after all.

And now I need a shower and then on to apple peeling, the old fashioned way.