The Kerf

The Kerf is an invented form, and the only information I could find regarding its history is that it’s attributed to Marie Adams. A Google search for Marie Adams came up with: Marie Adams, psychotherapist and writer; Marie Adams (on Goodreads), author of 77 books (a lot of them appear to be cookbooks); and Marie Adams (on Wikipedia), who was a gospel and R & B singer, noted for her work with Johnny Otis. Sadly, I’m pretty sure none of these ladies invented the Kerf.

This poetical form is written in four tercets, or three line verses, giving it twelve lines in total. It has a syllable count of 6-7-10 per verse, with a rhyme scheme a-b-c, a-b-c, d-e-c, d-e-c. I think a schematic would be helpful.

Schematic

xxxxxa
xxxxxxb
xxxxxxxxxc

xxxxxa
xxxxxxb
xxxxxxxxxc

xxxxxd
xxxxxxe
xxxxxxxxxc

xxxxxd
xxxxxxe
xxxxxxxxxc

You can apparently use any subject matter for your Kerf, but here’s an interesting tidbit of information. The term kerf also refers to the amount of wood removed by a saw blade and turned into sawdust. The amount of kerf depends on the thickness of the blade, and if you don’t account for the kerf, your cut will not be accurate.

I have to say, this poem was definitely harder than the ones I’ve been doing lately. But here’s a tip if you’d like to try it yourself. Choose the end word for the third line carefully, because that rhyme is carried throughout the entire poem and you don’t want to limit your choices.


nights growing cold and short
the winding down of the year
has begun, always before we would like

cool wind makes leaves cavort
around the forest menhir
the ancient sentinel almost ghostlike

in pagan times it would
be a time to celebrate
before the winter makes another strike

but folk lore of childhood
no longer has any weight
we just turn up the heat to counterstrike

Return to Lang Pioneer Village

Villages have an unmistakable charm. There is a subtle magic found in villages. The earthiness, greenery, and fragrance of flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables growing in the field is breathtakingly inimitable. Sitting in the lush green fields, while gazing at the wide blue sky, amidst the farm animals and the simple houses in the background, is a joie de vivre.
― Avijeet Das

Accounts of eating Christmas sweet potatoes baked in ashes and jackrabbit stewed with white flour dumplings are testaments to pioneer resilience and pleasure - and they help inspire my own best scratch cooking.
— Isabel Gillies

It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.
— Elizabeth Blackwell

My return to Lang Pioneer Village did not get off to a good start. I got my costume in plenty of time, and it fit perfectly. I had my apron, shoes, and stockings. I put my hair in a braid because I couldn’t find any bobby pins to put it in a bun – there were no plastic claw clips in pioneer days.

However, I forgot the address of the lady I was picking up, so I had to look it up online. This meant going through my emails to find the one from a year ago with everyone’s contact information in it.

Lang Pioneer Village is on the north side of Rice Lake. There is no easy way to get to it, you have to go out of your way to either the east or the west. I prefer taking the western route because it’s more familiar and I don’t have to pass through the cannabis corridor (a long section of highway that passes through the Alderville reservation and is littered with stores selling cannabis).

I turned left, thought I was going in the wrong direction, turned around. Then I realized I was supposed to go left, so I turned around again and we were off. Then I realized I’d forgotten the map I’d printed out. D’oh!

Somehow, I remembered just enough from last year to get us there. Whew! Then I realized I’d also forgotten the spiffy site map I’d printed out. And my big water bottle. And the glasses I need to wear when I’m doing stitchery. *sigh*

Once we were there we discovered something shocking. THERE WAS NO COFFEE! Not a drop – not for staff, not for volunteers, not for visitors. I guess they figured because it was summer people wouldn’t want anything hot to drink. They were wrong.

They were a little more concerned with authenticity this year, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures because the pockets of my apron weren’t big enough to hold my phone. And before the village opened to visitors, a woman in a ATV raced through the village dispensing mason jars for everyone to drink out of so that water bottles could be hidden away.

There was definitely a lot more going on that last year. There was a cheese shop, the spinning and yarn dyeing, a wagon ride, a display by the Peterborough Agricultural Society, broom making, weaving, a spring pole lathe demonstration, demonstration of using a washing board, and on the village green there was my group of stitchers, a rug hooking group, and a lady who was repairing and filling straw mattresses. There was also an on-going corn roast, games and crafts involving corn for the kids, dyeing demonstrations using corn and corn flowers, and freshly popped kettle corn.

I think my favorite was the corn grinding demonstration. The corn is first dried in a corn crib, then husked. The dried corn cob is put into this grinder and when you turn the crank the kernels are stripped from the cob. The naked cobs are set aside to be used in the fire in the smoke house, and the kernels are put into one of the two grinders (they looked like the meat grinder my mother used to have). One ground them into corn meal, the other had a coarser texture.

Lots to see and do, and save for the lack of coffee and the hardness of the chairs we were sitting on, a good time was had by all. But there are a few things I must remember for next year’s visit:

Bring a basket big enough to hide a thermos (or two!) of coffee and something to drink it out of like a tin cup or porcelain tea cup.
Re-do the pockets on my apron so they’re bigger, and lower down.
Bring a cushion to sit on.

I’m already looking forward to next year!

Shadorma Verse Form

I knew this form sounded familiar – apparently I shared this back in 2010. *sigh* However, seeing as I’ve already finished my post, and my example is totally different, I’m going ahead with it anyway.

Credit for the invention of the Shadorma is given to James Neill Northe, although I’ve also seen it cited as a Spanish form, so you can take your pick of its origins. But even those who cite it as Spanish admit to a lack of hard evidence for this. At any rate, this is a rather simple, syllable based form.

This form is a hexastich, or verse of six lines and you can have as many, or as few, verses to your poem as you wish. There is no rhyme, but the syllable count is 3-5-3-3-7-5 for a total of 26 syllables. The subject can be anything you wish.

Schematic:

xxx
xxxxx
xxx
xxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx


Like I said, pretty easy, right? If you think about it, it’s just nine more syllables than a haiku. My examples are a little on the darker side, but that’s just the way they came out.


Darkness

There is a
darkness gathering
seeping in
through the cracks
in reality and I
am sorely afraid.

The darkness
is not just in the
lack of light
but in the
soul as well, and I do not
think the candle’s flame

however
brightly it flickers
can hold back
this darkness
when the shadows of the soul
seethe and curl inside

I do not
know its source nor how
to battle
such a foe
I can only wait it out
and pray for a light.


Anxiety

It strikes me
sans any warning
taking me
unawares
stealing my breath and making
my pulse leap forward

it lingers
in spite of my best
efforts to
hold it back
I breathe, in and
out, slowly
until it is done

with any
luck, no one suspects
that I have
just had an
anxiety attack and
fought it back again.

More Summer Fun

In the summertime, when the weather is hot, you can stretch right up and touch the sky.
— Mungo Jerry

In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.
— Sarah Dessen

Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. Summer just opens the door and lets you out.
— Deb Caletti

We got off to a bit of a slow start last week, but it started to pick up as it progressed. Monday was a kind of lazy, let’s binge Netflix kind of day. And for lunch it as a Gramie’s charcuterie board kind of day.

Tuesday I spent the better part of the day with my stitchery group at a pot luck garden party. But apparently the husband and the granddaughter have plenty of fun without me. They made themselves egg salad sandwiches for lunch, and went I got home they were having a whale of a time in the pool.

As promised, we did give the papier mâché a try. The shredded paper had been soaking for a couple of days, as the instructions I’d found online said to do. We drained the bowl and squeezed as much excess water out as we could, and mixed the pulp with some glue.

Actually, that was the really fun part. Squishing the sticky mess between our fingers. However, it was also kind of clumpy, and didn’t stick very well. In other words, it was a bust.

But never fear, Gramie had a contingency plan. I’d bought a couple of craft kits earlier in the week, one of which was something called Air Modeling Clay. To be honest, it was more like Modeling Foam, but it was still a lot of fun. So much fun she even persuaded Grappy to join in.

The granddaughter modeled a lot of food, but her favorite was her hamburger, complete with cheese on top of the patty and lettuce underneath. And I believe that’s an olive stuck to the top of it:

The foam like clay was actually a little difficult to work with. It was kind of stretchy, and really didn’t like to hold its shape. But it was workable if you were persistent. The hubby chose to make a monster:

I made a cat and a, um, worm-like creature, but my favorite was my dragon:

At one point the granddaughter got a little fed up with me spending more time taking pictures than crafting. The look says it all:

And when we were finished she had an art show:

Her section is the middle, and is comprised of a taco, her hamburger, I think that’s a tiny slice of pizza in front of the burger, on the plate is a donut (with sprinkles), behind which is a banana split. She also did a really cute representation of her cat, Muffy.

Sadly, this week she has day camp all week, so all I’m needed for is picking her up. But I’m already thinking ahead to the last week of summer and I’ve started lining things up to keep us amused.

I’ve bought a second tie dye kit, this one using liquid dye. And I’ve got a couple of things I bought online coming, specifically to use the dye on. And I’d like to pick up some proper clay. If we had fun with the foamy stuff, think what we could do with real clay! And we can always make more jewelry – she hasn’t seen half of the do-dads I have to make jewelry with.

I hope this week goes quickly. I’m kind of looking forward to my final week of crafting with the granddaughter.

Oriental Octet

The Oriental Octet was created by James R. Gray. Once again, my research failed to come up with much information about the form itself, and a search of the name of its creator gave me the choice of a Professor of Philosophy, or a Scottish educator, poet, and linguist who died in 1830. So you can take your pick. :-)

This poem is written as an octastich, or eight lines, which explains the Octet part of the name. And like most oriental poetry, it has lines of either five or seven syllable in the specific pattern of 5-7-5-7-7-5-7-5.

Schematic:

xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxx

The Oriental Octet is unrhymed (thank goodness!), and should be written about nature. I have to admit that I really like the oriental forms, with their five/seven syllable counts. Even the invented ones.


Summer symphony -
the burbling of the fountain
accompanied by
whispers of the trees above
creating a sweet music,
causing the ferns to
dance while the earthbound lilies
only nod in time.


The squirrel races
up one tree and down again
always in a rush
leaping to a tree branch to
chitter angrily at the
cat that is sitting
between him and the feeder
newly filled with seed.

Summer Fun

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.
— Regina Brett

Everything good, everything magical, happens between the months of June and August.
— Jenny Han

Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That's why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The daughter and granddaughter visited a sunflower farm last weekend, and surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers. I love flowers – it made my heart do a happy dance.

Last week was a shorter week of babysitting – I had Monday off because it was a holiday. And unfortunately, the weather wasn’t much improved, so most of our activities were indoors, except for Wednesday.

Wednesday, my sister (who lives in Hamilton) came down for the day, bringing with her her daughter (my niece) and granddaughter (my great-niece). There’s about a 3 year age difference between the granddaughter and the great-niece, but they got along pretty well. Mostly.

One of the things they got along with was playing in the pool:

The granddaughter, as I’ve mentioned before, swims like a fish. The great-niece . . . not so much. She wasn’t very comfortable in the pool – she’s only had a couple of swimming lessons – and she’s never been as comfortable in the water as the granddaughter. But then again, who is? LOL

We have several flotation devices – the giant unicorn pictured above, pool noodles, pool noodle chairs, and a couple of inner-tube like donuts – but the only one the great-niece felt comfortable trying out was the inflated target for the water darts game:

My sister wanted to check out my gardens while she was here. There wasn’t much to see really, but I did point out the reason I didn’t have any green beans yet. I’ve been invaded:

That is a Japanese beetle, which has been the scourge of home gardeners everywhere this year. They’re part of the scarab family of beetle, and kind of pretty, but they’re also relentless. You see the way they turn leaves into skeletons.

Their favorite plants seem to be roses and string beans, although they don’t seem to care for tomatoes, peppers, or lettuce. And their grubs will attack the roots of many plants too.

As for the rest of my vegetable garden. Well, you can sort of see the carrots, struggling for space, and half a row of lettuce, but I defy you to pick out the tomato plants from among the beans:

I planted what I thought were bush beans at the back of the garden, and planted my tomatoes in front of them. By the time I discovered that they were pole beans, it was too late, they’d already tethered themselves to the tomato cages and were taking over. *sigh*

The single cherry tomato plant I have was planted at the edge of the garden, so it seems to be doing well, but the rest of my tomatoes? Who knows. I’ve been able to poke through the bean plants enough to see that I’ve got a few green tomatoes, but whether they’ll ripen or not while hidden away is anyone’s guess.

Other highlights from my gardens included the pond garden:

And the coleus that have taken over Kelsey Park:

Up on the deck we have a yellow rose that was originally a miniature rose that I bought a couple of years ago, kept in the house until it was all but dead, and then stuck outside to see what would happen to it.

And last but not least is the deck pot that the hubby fills with flowers for me every mother’s day. This year’s batch apparently really likes the wet weather we’ve been having:

Glad someone does!

Lyrette Verse Form

The Lyrette is a fairly simple form, created by Dr. Israel Newman. It’s a heptastich, which means it has seven lines. It does not rhyme, but there’s a strict syllable count: 2-3-4-5-4-3-2 respectively. Each line should end with a strong word.

And that’s pretty much all I could find out about it, or its creator. The searches for the form just kept coming up with the same information, and a search for the creator led to more poetry by him, and a rather lengthy article he wrote called "The Physiology of Consciousness and Its Relation to Poetry."

Schematic:

xx
xxx
xxxx
xxxxx
xxxx
xxx
xx

The subject matter is purely at the discretion of the poet. There was no mention as to whether this should be kept to a single verse or can be multiple verses – I saw examples of both in my searches, and one which seemed to be a double Lyrette. Guess which example I decided to try? :-)


I wish
upon a
falling star, up
high in the night sky,
watching as it
continues
until
gone.
But
wishes
are foolish
in this day and
age, because we all
know they do not
stand a chance
in this
world.

Crafts ‘N Such

Work done by you with unconditional love and pure devotion goes straight in the category of divine and immortal craft.
— Seema Brain Openers

Crafting is like meditation, it allows you to focus your mind and release your stress.
— Unknown

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
— Maya Angelou

My son-in-law’s shift changed last week, so I had the pleasure of my granddaughter’s company. The weather turned cool and rainy, so we didn’t use the pool once. But who needs a pool to have a good time?

We started by making some jewelry. I have a large supply of jewelry supplies, and the granddaughter was more than happy to help me use some up. ;-) First up, we have her jewelry:

Two necklaces and a . . . um . . . decoration to hang on stuff. LOL The pink and blue necklace was the most difficult of all the pieces we made. Not because it was hard to do, on the contrary, the beads were strung on wire so it was pretty easy to do. Except I had the idea of using seed beads as spacers between the larger beads, but they were too small. Then I thought to use bugle beads, but the holes in the larger beads were so big that the smaller beads slipped right into them. Third time was the charm though and I found a larger glass bead that worked fine.

You might notice the granddaughter really liked the mermaid scale charms. She made a necklace with just the charm on it, and put one on either end of her decoration. And then she decided her mom needed mermaid scale earrings to go with the necklace we made her.

I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I made myself a mermaid scale necklace to go with my earrings.

I like the fact that all the mermaid scale charms are different, although we were able to find a matching pair for the earrings. I still have a few of them left – we’ll have to figure out something different to do with them.

Next we tried a craft that I promised her in the spring we’d do in the summer. The dreaded tie dye. Well, it wasn’t nearly as messy as I thought it would be, and we didn’t have to take everything outside to do it.

The kit I got used powdered dye and ice. You basically tie up whatever you’re dyeing, sprinkle the powder over it, and then cover it with ice. Weird, or what? I was kind of skeptical that it would work. But it did. sort of.

Of the two items we dyed, I think the back pack turned out best. We actually had four colours in the kit, but because I figured we should use all of the powder, the dark dye kind of took right over. Oh, well. Better luck next time.

I have to admit, it pays to have a vivid imagination. When we weren’t doing crafts or watching TV, the granddaughter was happy to invent her own games. Like “store,” where she set up a table and was selling cats and cat toys.

Only one of the cats pictured is a real cat. The beauty of her set-up was that it was our stuff we were buying, and we had to give it back when the store closed. And she got to keep the money. LOL

She also set up a restaurant in the living room, but that was strictly for the squishmallows to enjoy. And, apparently, Khaos, who helped herself.

There was also a brief real estate game, where she took pillows from the living room upstairs and re-decorated the bedrooms to become condos. There was one for each of us, and they included a free cat. Fortunately, we never got around to discussing prices.

We also enjoyed a girls road trip to the Michaels Craft store in Peterborough, and while we were there, we naturally had to stop at Spirit Halloween, which just opened in the mall.

The granddaughter was a little disappointed that they didn’t have much in the way of Stranger Things merchandise (her current obsession – she wants to be a demigorgon for Halloween), but they did have a lot of Beetlejuice stuff (a close second).

All in all, we had a fun-filled week. We’ll have to see if we can do as well this week.

Waltmarie Verse Form

Today’s form, the Waltmarie, was invented by Candace Kubinec and is named after poets Walter J. Wojtanik and Marie Elena Good.

This simple poem is ten lines in total. The odd numbered lines can be as long as you wish, but the even numbered lines are only two syllables, and actually form their own mini-poem when read separately.

That’s it. There are no other rules governing this form. You can make it rhyme if you want, but it’s not necessary and I’ve only seen a couple of examples that that do so. And you can make it about whatever you wish, there are no restrictions or limits on the subject of your poem.

I had so much fun with this one that I did two of them. Here’s a tip for writing your own Waltmarie – it helps if you start with the two syllable lines and then fill in the rest of the poem.


I close my eyes and try to sleep but
my dreams
elude me, and my inner thoughts
scatter
I don’t know what is wrong
and I
think that maybe if only I could
run to
dreamland, I might be able to
catch them.


The soft summer breeze is like
music
to my ears; an invisible orchestra
plays and
if you look carefully you can almost see
faeries
in the garden, amongst the flowers, as they
dance and
twirl in an ecstatic, joyous
revel.