Georgetown Horticultural Society Friends

Greetings to our Georgetown Horticultural Society friends!

Here is the solution for the puzzle in our ad in your delightful 2016/17 Yearbook:

and hey... thanks for playing along!

Digging

by Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it. 

D E F Gs of Foodie Figures of Speech

Pepper your language with these expressions your grandparents used... people will wonder, but it will be delicious fun!

Different kettle of fish
If something is a different kettle of fish, it is very different from the other things referenced. 

Duck soup
(USA) If something is duck soup, it is very easy. 

Easy as pie
If something is easy as pie, it is very easy indeed. 

Easy peasy
(UK) If something is easy peasy, it is very easy indeed. ('Easy peasy, lemon squeezy' is also used.) 

Eat humble pie
If someone apologises and shows a lot of contrition for something they have done, they eat humble pie. 

Eat someone alive
If you eat someone alive, you defeat or beat them comprehensively. 

Egg on your face
If someone has egg on their face, they are made to look foolish or embarrassed. 

Fall off the turnip truck
(USA) If someone has just fallen off the turnip truck, they are uninformed, naive and gullible. (Often used in the negative) 

Fine words butter no parsnips
This idiom means that it's easy to talk, but talk is not action. 

Finger in the pie
If you have a finger in the pie, you have an interest in something.

Food for thought
If something is food for thought, it is worth thinking about or considering seriously. 

Forbidden fruit
Something enjoyable that is illegal or immoral is forbidden fruit. 

From soup to nuts
If you do something from soup to nuts, you do it from the beginning right to the very end. 

Full of beans 
If someone's full of beans, they are very energetic. 

Glutton for punishment
If a person is described as a glutton for punishment, he happily accepts jobs and tasks that most people would try to get out of. 

Go fry an egg
(USA) This is used to tell someone to go away and leave you alone. 

Gone pear-shaped
(UK) If things have gone pear-shaped they have either gone wrong or produced an unexpected and unwanted result. 

Good egg
A person who can be relied on is a good egg. Bad egg is the opposite. 

Grain of salt
If you should take something with a grain of salt, you shouldn't accept it as true without looking more carefully at it. ('pinch of salt' is an alternative) 

Gravy train
If someone is on the gravy train, they have found and easy way to make lots of money. 

Why Does Foodstuffs Carry Toys for Just 2 Months of the Year?

Good question. 

We've been doing this for several years now and the best reason we can give you is this - just as the making and sharing of simple food from our past gives us joy - so does the finding and sharing of such uncomplicated fun. Much as we'd like to we can't take time out for toys all year long - we're mostly about health and specialty foods - but the time many of us take for indulging this sort of soft spot is at Christmas holiday time. 

So go ahead - put a giant rainbow spring in the middle of the table, plug in the lava lamp, wind up the 'roo-in-a-box, call everyone to dinner with a "ting" on the triangle and have a big fun family get-together with lots of good food and wonderful silliness.

Harvest Time

by Pauline Johnson

Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain, 
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain, 

Wearied of pleasuring weeks away, 
Summer is lying asleep to-day,-- 

Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers 
And the smoke of the far-off prairie fires; 

Yellow her hair as the goldenrod, 
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod; 

Purple her eyes as the mists that dream 
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream; 

But over their depths the lashes sweep, 
For Summer is lying to-day asleep. 

The north wind kisses her rosy mouth, 
His rival frowns in the far-off south, 

And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek, 
And Summer awakes for one short week,-- 

Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain, 
Then sleeps and dreams for a year again. 

Emily Pauline Johnson (known in Mohawk as Tekahionwake –pronounced: dageh-eeon-wageh, literally: 'double-life') (10 March 1861 – 7 March 1913), popularly known as E. Pauline Johnson or just Pauline Johnson, was a Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century. Johnson was notable for her poems and performances that celebrated her First Nations heritage; her father was a Mohawk chief of mixed ancestry, and her mother an English immigrant. One such poem is the frequently anthologized "The Song My Paddle Sings".

Her poetry was published in Canada, the United States and Great Britain. Johnson was one of a generation of widely read writers who began to define a Canadian literature. While her literary reputation declined after her death, since the later 20th century, there has been renewed interest in her life and works.       ~  taken from Wikipedia