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The Rebirth of Death: Natural Burial (and Build Your Own Coffin Plans)

November 1st, 2011

01 November 2011: In honor of Dia de los Muertos, I offer this post, one of my favorites, from the archives (originally posted 27 July 2010).

Hello, dear readers.  Natural burial is a subject that has been on my mind for years, and I have been pondering how best to introduce the theme on The Tangled Nest, so I was thrilled to meet “death midwife” Nora Cedarwind Young at a recent speaking engagement, and even more thrilled when she agreed to write this guest post.  There’s something for everyone here:  personal philosophy, care for the earth, and even a DIY coffin plan.  I hope you’ll share this post with your friends and dear ones as a way of inviting discussion on this essential theme–finding our way gracefully through the turning of life.  Here’s Nora…

Greetings friends! Recently I had the pleasure to meet Lyanda when she was the keynote speaker for People’s Memorial Association. I have been a fan of hers, so imagine how deeply touched  I was she asked me to be a guest author for The Tangled Nest!  I am Nora Cedarwind Young ~ Death Midwife, Green Burial Educator, Hospice Chaplain and Ceremonialist. I live and work on the Olympic Peninsula, teach nationwide and assist families remotely; but I am especially devoted to the area in which I live, Western Washington. I create and facilitate ceremonies for all of life’s passages, from birth through the grave; however, my heart truly lies in end-of-life work. My belief system, deeply grounded in the seasons and cycles of nature, has taught me that death is as certain and sacred as birth. I envision individuals and families fearlessly facing death, feeling free to extend this “time out of time” with a loved one, and knowing who to call for support. I believe in educating families that at-home-after-death-care is their legal right, and I help empower individuals and families to make educated choices around their final act–especially how small choices can create amazing change when it comes to greening our final act in this world. My dictum is “proudly reclaiming family directed choice at end-of-life.”

Procession to burial at White Eagle Memorial Preserve in Goldendale, WA

Today, the United Kingdom and Australia together host over 200 natural burial locations; in the US we have sadly, only twenty. Even more shocking is the reality that every year in the United States 22,500 cemeteries bury:

  • 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid (including formaldehyde)
  • 104,272 tons of steel for caskets & vaults (enough to build another Golden Gate Bridge!)
  • 2,700 tons of copper and bronze for more caskets
  • 30 plus million board feet of hardwoods
  • 1,636,000 tons of concrete

(Statistics compiled by Mary Woodsen, VP Pre-Posthumous Society of Ithaca, New York, and a science writer at Cornell University).

Natural grave at White Eagle Preserve

More than ever it is time for each of us on the planet to awaken our mortality and our deepest nature. We can live with heightened awareness of how we affect others and the interconnectedness of all. As we embrace the idea that we are the stewards of this beautiful earth, we welcome “womb to womb” awareness.   May we have the wisdom to return from the toxic environment

Burial with shroud at White Eagle

of institutions, consumerism and sterile buildings to the safety and sacred space of home.

Until the modern era, our formaldehyde-free bodies were laid in the ground, serving as nutrition to the earth. Embalming is often unnecessary and not required in any state under most circumstances. Metal or hardwood caskets and steel reinforced concrete grave liners are options people can choose to go without. Ask yourself; is it necessary to place your casket into a concrete and steel reinforced lined grave, simply for easy maintenance of the cemetery grounds?

We are learning it does not have to be all or nothing, simple changes will create great change. For a Natural Burial you can choose all or any part of the following:

  • A clean, unembalmed body
  • A biodegradable container such as a plain pine box or natural fiber shroud. You can go to my website and find directions of how to build your own wooden casket that serves as bookshelves until you are ready to repurpose it to be a casket!
  • A vault free grave

Some natural graveyard providers have restrictions such as no synthetic materials, jewelry or buttons. Some allow headstones; others reveal no trace that a burial site exists. Global positioning satellites can allow us to have marker free graves, while precisely locating and visiting our loved ones. Even if you are buried in a conventional cemetery and choose any part of natural burial, you lessen the ecological footprint for the planet.  You can:  avoid synthetic and non-natural materials in your container and clothing;  choose biodegradable or recycled materials, wicker, sea grass and woods like pine for caskets; choose non-virgin, organic materials and sustainable production, supporting local family business, handcrafting, and artisans; support burial goods with organic, fair trade, and eco-certifications; talk to your local cemetery provider–tell them you want Green and Natural Burial options.

In Washington State, we are fortunate to have two options for Green Burial. Other community resources are considering this change, so you need to let your local providers know you want Green Burial available in your community.  Moles Funeral Home in Ferndale has dedicated four acres for Natural Burial called The Meadow,  and White Eagle Preserve in Goldendale is a perfect model for Conservation Burial.

About Biodegradable Coffins

Biodegradable coffins, also known as green caskets, come in a multitude of styles and materials. They were designed to satisfy the growing number of individuals who prefer to have a “natural burial” instead of a traditional funeral. Cremation was long thought to be an eco-friendly option, but many people have been raising concerns about its excessive use of fossil fuels.

Biodegradable caskets can be made to bury someone in the ground or at sea. They will not harm the environment and budget-wise, they are a very cost-efficient burial option. These coffins do not use a vault — cement or otherwise — and everything, including the hardware and lining, is completely natural.

Biodegradable coffins can be made from:

  • Cardboard
  • Biodegradable plastic
  • Fair-trade-certified bamboo
  • Wood
  • Recycled paper
  • Formaldehyde-free plywood
  • Hand-woven willow or wicker

You can always consider building your own casket, or a plain pine box–have a look at these simple plans from Last Things.  You can even build a coffin that doubles as a bookshelf or an entertainment center until you are ready to repurpose it! My website has several resources and pictures for you to consider.

Simple pine casket, from Last Things

Thank you for taking into account some of the simple choices you can make that will add up to great change. When I imagine eight Olympic-sized swimming pools full of embalming fluid being buried every year in this nation it inspires me to be a change maker; I hope it will inspire you also! Join me in committing to change and to the stewardship of our planet. Join with me and choose to green your final act! All or some, the choice is yours!  Together, we are creating change we can live with! Blessed Be!

From Lyanda: Thank you, Nora, for your wise words! And thanks to the good folks at White Eagle Preserve for the beautiful photos.

For more information, and links to many many more resources, explore:

–Nora’s lovely Thresholds of Life website, and sign up for her Newsletter

–White Eagle Memorial Preserve website

–People’s Memorial Association

–I also highly recommend the documentary, A Family Undertaking

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, and to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.
~ Walt Whitman, Song to Myself

"Last View," courtesy of White Eagle

→ 14 CommentsTags: green burial, waste reduction

The Freedom Manifesto: A Tiny Review

October 12th, 2011

In my last post I mentioned one of my favorite little books, The Freedom Manifesto, by  British author, rural smallholder, and Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson. If you’re looking for some intelligent delight and fine essaying, I hope you’ll pick it up yourself.  How could you resist, with chapters like:  “Banish Anxiety; Be Carefree,” “The Tyranny of Bills and the Freedom of Simplicity,” “Reject Career and all Its Empty Promises,” “Cast Off Your Watch,” “Submit No More to the Machine, Use Your Hands,” “In Praise of Melancholy,” “Self-Important Puritans Must Die,” and “Sail Away from Rudeness and towards a New Era of Courtesy, Civility, and Grace,” among many others? And advice like:  “Be bohemian,” “Play the ukulele,” “Use a scythe,” and “Stop moaning, be merry?”  Hodgkinson grounds his counter-cultural thinking in history, philosophy, and a winning way with language.  Whenever I dip into this book, my day gets better.  Or merrier, actually.  Enjoy.

 

 

→ 6 CommentsTags: books

Backyard Camping Season Draws To A Close

October 3rd, 2011

A post from Tom:

As Lyanda has described before, for the third year in a row we’ve had our enormous family tent pitched in the back yard and slept out there most nights. I’ve probably slept in my indoor bed no more than half a dozen times since the fourth of July. Sadly, this weekend we moved back inside.

It’s been cosy on our air mattresses, piled high with quilted sleeping bags. We sleep in the comforting sound field of our small backyard waterfall, the air is cool, and the stars are visible through the mesh top of the tent, between the leaves of the cherry tree.

I love it out there, and even though the rains are starting, I’ve actually been enjoying it even more as the air has turned crisp, the days gotten shorter, and we’ve piled our tent nest higher with blankets. Still, with nighttime temperatures dropping and rain falling, it’s time to come in, enjoy the flannel sheets on our futon, and start going to bed with hot fleece rice bags at our feet.

After three months, the tent had quite an impact on our tiny little patch of lawn (of which it covers about one third). For some reason the moss was not as affected by the lack of light, and took the opportunity to spread as the grass died. I raked up the moss and gave it to the chickens, who were overjoyed.

Meanwhile, adding to the list of backyard wildlife that gallivants around us as we slumber, I discovered that a mole was also quite fond of the protection the tent offered, and had created extensive burrows under there. This hole was located directly under my side of the bed! (I’m looking forward to a whole chapter on these blind backyard burrowers in Lyanda’s upcoming book on urban wildlife.)

I re-seeded the tent-killed patch of the lawn and even took the opportunity to flatten out that area a little more, hoping to finally solve the issue of Claire sliding across the tent towards us in the night. But maybe I should have just covered that area with wood chips, or pea gravel. Because next summer, as soon as the weather turns, we’re putting up the tent again!

→ 2 CommentsTags: seasons

Autumn Scenes from an Urban Smallholding

September 28th, 2011

I love the idea of a “smallholding.”  It’s a term still used in England, one I re-discovered while leafing through a favorite book the other day, The Freedom Manifesto by Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson (also love The Idler…).  A smallholding is a modest parcel of land, usually just one-family’s-worth, that supports some farming and other self-sufficiency practices, perhaps a cottage industry, and–ideally–joyful, creative family life.  “Smallholding” could easily be applied to a nicely-tended urban parcel. Here’s a bit of what’s going on at our smallholding this autumn.

This year’s cold summer didn’t deter the columnar apples.  We’re having our best harvest ever from these funny little trees, and Claire has fun going out to pick the fruit for her lunch each morning:

Remember the Bicycle Pea Trellis?  It is now surrounded by broccoli, and a few sugar pie pumpkins.  I should pick the pumpkins and cook them up, but they are so pretty and look so autumnal out there, I just can’t quite bring myself to do it yet.

In another trellising experiment, this one feeding our souls rather than our stomachs, the passion vines we planted from seed took over the corkscrew willow branches (see link above), just as I hoped they would.

A late-but-plentiful blackberry season brought plenty of foraging, jam-making, and pie:
Among our new batch of young “spring chickens,” Ethel the barred rock was the first to start laying.  They start with little tiny “beginner eggs,” very cute:

All the sunflower seeds are intended for sharing with the wild co-inhabitants of our neighborhood.  Goldfinches come through in intermittent flocks, and lots of chickadees and squirrels:

We continue our habit of sleeping outside through the summer and as far as we can into the fall before getting cold and miserable.  The last couple of stormy nights have been a bit eventful, and we’ve had to put the rainfly on (so can’t see the trees and stars), but we love it out there:

There seems to have been a bread-baking hiatus over the summer, but we’re back to our good old Deep PB&J with walnut cider bread for school lunch:

And in the “merry olde England” spirit of a smallholding, we’ve been busy making our own fun.  This summer Claire crafted a rather fancy hoop of PVC pipe decorated with colored tape, and all of us have been working on our hoopster moves:

I am writing with a light heart, but am feeling keenly that it’s no coincidence–is it?–that the call in our lives and communities to simple living coincides with a crisis in the industrial-economic-corporate complex.  We join so many who are seeking to create and re-create ways of living that make common sense, and draw out our innate enthusiasm, vitality, and delight.

Anyway–that’s a bit of what’s going on around our place.  We’d love to hear what’s happening at yours.  What are your autumn pleasures?

 

 

→ 7 CommentsTags: chickens, food, fruit trees, garden, urban farming

Squirrel on the Desk: Urban-Wild Research Gone Too Far

September 26th, 2011

I’ve talked a little about the new manuscript I’m working on–an urban bestiary.  As part of this project, I’ve been studying urban squirrels in depth.  I don’t feed birds much, but I do keep a tiny sunflower seed feeder suctioned to my study window just above the window box, which brings chickadees, nuthatches, and finches within inches of my face as I write.  I love it.  Naturally a squirrel began to visit the feeder, and I chased him away by knocking on the window.  But during the height of my squirrel study, I stopped discouraging the persistent squirrel, so as he raided the sunflower stash I could observe and sketch his habits and physical characters at great length and in amazing detail.  He also liked sipping the nectar from my window hummingbird feeder.  I got to sketch a squirrel tongue!  That was well enough, and I should have stopped there.  But though I strongly advise against such taming in my book, I rationalized that “purely for research,” I would try feeding this squirrel, who by this time I had named Worthington, unsalted peanuts through a crack in my study window.  One day I heard Claire scream from upstairs–”Worthington’s on your desk!!!”  He was sitting there, she reported, nonchalantly eating the peanuts I kept in a little bowl.  Later, Tom caught him in the act with his Canon.

What a terrible squirrel!  I am no longer feeding Worthington…

The main reason I advise against the time-honored tradition of taming squirrels is that bold squirrels, habituated to being hand-fed by humans, can frighten some people and children in our neighborhoods, increasing perceived human-wild conflict.  It’s also a good way to get a squirrel-bite.  Though they are relatively uncommon, nearly 100% of squirrel bites that do occur happen during an attempt at hand-feeding.  Squirrels do not bite the hand that feeds them out of aggression, but in error.  Think about it–squirrels are prey animals, and like many prey animals (robins, snipe, rabbits, mice…), their eyes are on the sides of their head, providing good peripheral vision (to see the hawk or coyote swooping in from behind), but poor binocular vision.  A squirrel’s vision is at it’s worst when attempting to focus on something right in front of its nose.  And have you looked at a peanut?  They look very much like a human finger, right down to the “knuckle” in the middle of the shell.

→ 5 CommentsTags: urban nature

Off the Shelf: Cookbook of the Month

September 3rd, 2011

I confess to having a slight cookbook addiction, one I have no intention of giving up. I keep cookbooks by my bed and read them like novels.  My kitchen bookshelves are overflowing, and whenever someone wants to buy me something for my birthday, somehow I just can’t keep from asking for a cookbook.  My cookbooks runneth over.  (The cookbooks pictured above are not mine, as my phtographer is on a temporary hiatus…Thank you Flickr user “megabeth,”–we actually have many of the same books!) I spend time with every one–drooling, reading I (love cookbooks that tell me more about bread, olives, life in Paris…), marking the pages with the most inviting recipes, possessing every intention of trying that fabulous-looking Crostini with Marinated Escarole and Carmelized Shallots. But do I cook from these books?  Well sure, maybe one or two recipes.  I have a couple of books, like Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Eveyone that I use constantly.  But I also have a shameful number of cookbooks from which I have not managed to make a single thing.  Not one.  And it’s not because there aren’t beautiful recipes to try, or because I don’t want or intend to use them, but because I just haven’t gotten it together to do break out of my ruts and give them a whirl.

I’ve decided to try an experiment.  Every month I’m going to make one of the gorgeous, underused books on my cookbook shelf my “go to” cookbook for that month.  It doesn’t mean I’ll cook every single thing all month form that book, but I’ll make good use of it.  Whenever I’m seeking inspiration for breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or cocktail time, I’ll go to that book first and see what I can find.  At the end of the month, I’ll post a review here, and by that time, I hope, at least a few of the recipes in the book will have moved into the regular rotation.  Think of all that unmined treasure!  I really can’t wait to dig in.  I am sure lots of you all are in the same boat.  Who wants to go to their own shelf, pull off a book, and join my experiment?

→ 13 CommentsTags: books, recipes

The Roofer’s Birdhouse

August 14th, 2011

A few weeks ago we had a new roof put on (alas–now we are on a serious fiscal austerity program!).  Our roof is complicated, and the job took several days to complete.  One day while the roofers were here and I was out walking to escape the noise, I discovered a voice message on my phone.  It was from the owner of the roofing company, and said, “Hi Lyanda, we found a nest full of baby birds in the cornice, and wonder what we should do?”

The nest they found in a corner of our roof is made almost entirely of mosses, refuse, and chicken feathers from our backyard.

Then a second message: “Well, we made a house for the little birds so they wouldn’t die in the sun, and put it on your house, close to where the nest was.  It’s not a very good house because we didn’t have proper materials, so I’m sorry about that.”  I smiled at the thoughtfulness of the roofers, and wondered just how horrible this ramshackle birdhouse was going to be.  But when I got home, this is what I found:

How cute is that?  It is neatly made with a leather hinge to open the box, and a perch for the parent birds.  Here’s a photo the roofers took while transferring the nest:

How good of them to take time out of the hot day, and their busy job to take care of these birds.  The nestlings are, of course, House Sparrows, sometimes called English Sparrows, an introduced species, an urban invasive, and one of the most ecologically despised of all North American birds.  Bluebird advocates in particular hate the sparrows for attacking bluebirds and evicting them from their nests, and recommend lethal control for the sparrows.  One intrepid elder in the movement catches them in a live trap, then cuts their heads off with her kitchen scissors.

I myself would never consider lethal control for a bird that has already been born, especially one that has made itself part of my household, invited or not.  I DO think we should remove nests and eggs of House Sparrows and starlings when we find them, and cover any inviting crevices.  The birds will attempt to re-nest several times after their nests/eggs are removed, but we can do our best.  Once the young are with us, though, they provide a good opportunity for the study of fledgling birds and parental care, as I wrote in a previous post.  Ecological disastrousness aside, the House Sparrow is an interesting bird with relatively complex social behavior, and both the male and female are devoted parents.  We can study them closely without worrying about disturbance as we might with a more sensitive, native species.

Claire studies a House Sparrow chick before returning it to its nest. Adult birds will not abandon young that have been handled by humans.

Curiously, while writing this post, a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk turned up on the wire beyond my study window.  He looks skinny, and autumn is a difficult, hungry time for hatch-year hawks.  Cooper’s are accipiters–bird eating hawks. Maybe he’ll catch one of the House Sparrows!

Meanwhile, I love our roofers.  What an inspiration to see such thoughtful care for wild things, even House Sparrows, even on a hot busy day, 20 feet off the ground.

P.S.  Alfa Roofing also did a great job on our roof!

 

→ 24 CommentsTags: birds, urban nature

A Cool Coop: Caring for Chickens in the Heat

August 4th, 2011

Well, we’ve finally had a few sunny days in Seattle, and even though it hasn’t hit 80 degrees yet, I’ve noticed the chickens are seeking shade, and panting a little–nothing to worry about.  But in much of the country it’s a great deal hotter, and I’ve been receiving questions from folks about caring for urban chickens in strong heat.

Chickens need a little extra attention in the heat, just as they do in the extreme cold, but they’ll be completely fine as long as a few simple needs are met. Like all birds, chickens can regulate their body temperature with some efficiency. Remember that birds have a higher body temperature than humans, so they don’t have to shed heat as soon as we do when temperatures rise.  They don’t have sweat glands, so when they do need to cool, chickens will pant, and maybe flutter the flap of skin beneath their chin–a spot with lots of tiny blood vessels, so heat is exchanged quickly.  Sometimes chickens will lift their feathers to air their skin.   These behaviors might make your hens look as if they are about to keel over from heat exhaustion, but they are perfectly normal things for hot chickens to be doing.

To keep summer chickens happy and healthy:

–Make double-sure they have constant access to shade.

–Give them fresh cool water every single day (even if you are usually too lazy to do it daily, as I sometimes am…). Not only is cool water refreshing to the chickens and good for their bodies, but any potentially harmful bacteria in the water grows more quickly and easily in the heat.

–If you normally keep water in the coop, consider it leaving it in a shady spot in the run/yard, so they will see it more often, and be reminded to drink.

–Make sure the nesting area is well ventilated.  Open all doors and windows, and if it’s stiflingly hot, consider wetting down the outside walls and roof with a hose to provide evaporative cooling.

–Make sure the girls have plenty of dry, loose dirt for dusting their feathers, which they like to do more often in the heat.  This helps cool their skin, comfort them, and as always, keeps parasites at bay.  Plus they are so darn cute, happily digging and dusting.

–Chickens do not like to have water sprayed on them, but if temperatures are very high, and the chickens seem worrisomely stressed, go ahead and give adult chickens a light misting with the garden hose.  If you leave a low sprinkler in a corner for awhile, they might even explore it and play in it on their own.

May all humans and chickens enjoy the relaxed beauty of the season!

→ 2 CommentsTags: chickens, seasons, urban farming

Urban Chicken Retirement: What to do when older chickens stop laying?

July 26th, 2011

Saying goodbye to Marigold, our favorite Buff Orpington ever.

We were a host once again this year for Seattle Tilth’s Chicken Coop and Urban Farm Tour, and one of the main questions would-be chicken keepers voiced was what to do with older chickens after they stop laying, or slow way down?  The numbers vary by breed and individual, but most chickens lay really well the first year, slow a bit in the winter the second year, then taper off after that, laying very little after year three or maybe four.  But these same chickens will live to be six years old, or more (and even if your chickens lay longer than this–all will outlive their laying days).  What happens after that?  This is a question worth pondering before you commit to urban chicken-keeping.  Few of us have the space to keep all those chickens while adding new ones to the flock, and feeding them can be expensive when you don’t get fresh eggs in return for all that organic chicken food.  We interact closely with our chickens, and are too attached to them to either eat them (Claire and I don’t eat meat, anyway) or donate them to the boa constrictor exhibit at our local zoo (which is an option…).  So we are fortunate to have an uncle who lives in rural Maple Valley, and allows our older chickens to roam his fields in idyllic chicken retirement.  Recently we moved our young girls, Adelaide, Ophelia, and Ethel into the big coop, and the “old girls”–Chrysanthemum, Buttercup, Marigold, and Esmeralda–went to “live in the country.”  Our sadness at saying goodbye to these sweet hens was tempered by their evident happiness in the freedom of their new home.

Arriving at Uncle Joe's farm.

First wondering wander in more space than they've ever seen.

Settling right in to idyllic retirement.

Couldn't resist this photo: Buttercup in the buttercups.

New friends.

We’re very fortunate that for our elder-hens, “going to live in the country” is not a euphemism.  But not everyone has an Uncle Joe.  How do you humanely handle aging chickens in your urban coop?

→ 48 CommentsTags: chickens, urban farming

Backyard Harvest: Cherry Oh, Cherry Oh, Baby!

July 17th, 2011

We’re on the road for a week and away from connectivity. Before leaving, we picked a giant bin of tasty backyard cherries from our tree, and we’ve been happily spitting the pits out the car window as we ramble. Which prompts a re-posting of this great Tangled Nest entry written by Tom in the summer of 2009 (when the cherries came more than two weeks earlier – this post was dated June 29th 2009, while this week our cherries are just coming to full ripeness as we head into the second half of July!)

I was leaning way off the top of the ladder, swaying with the cherry tree in a light breeze as I reached for a cluster of ripe fruits just beyond my grasp, when the UB40 song popped into my head.

“Cherry oh, Cherry oh, baby.
Don’t you know I’m in love with you
If you don’t believe it’s true,
What else is there for me to do?”

As the cherries fell into my basket, UB40 was soon joined by a list of other cherry touchstones. Neneh Cherry. And the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. And a vague memory of a Don Cherry from Canadian hockey broadcasting, and maybe one from jazz? Oh and Cherry Coke, and Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, and didn’t Cherry Lane Music publish Elvis?

Cherry oh, cherry oh, baby.

Cherry oh, cherry oh, baby.

The cherry tree in the corner of our back yard is exploding with fruit this year. It is by far the best crop we’ve had in the five years we’ve been in this house (apparently it’s a bumper crop all over the state). I love cherries, look forward to them every summer, and am happy to graze on them from a bowl within arm’s reach, pretty much continuously, throughout the few wonderful weeks when Washington’s cherries pop onto the market.

Life at the Tangled Nest is a bowl of cherries.

Life these days at the Tangled Nest is a bowl of cherries.

Claire and I have been having so many pit-spitting contests that the yard and garden paths are littered with pits and Lyanda finally put her foot down and insisted we use a pit bowl. We grumblingly comply when she is looking, though I feel pretty strongly that the restriction-free spitting of cherry pits and watermelon seeds is one of the great joys of summer.

Cherry Garcia. Erma Bombeck’s “If life is a bowl of cherries…” book. The cherry symbols on slot machines. Cherry bombs. As we enjoy lunch on the patio, we pit our pop-culture cherry knowledge against each other. Lyanda remembers Agent Cooper’s fondness for cherry pie, but my own Twin Peaks cherry memory stems more from Audrey Horne. Wow.

Say, wasn’t there a glam rock anthem, “Cherry Pie?” I can almost sing it, it’s there on the edge of my too-full pop culture memory bank, I picture red bikinis and big haired rockers in spandex, but it takes coming off the patio to the internet to remind me that it was a Warrant song, and to push “Cherry oh, baby” out of my head, replaced by even more inane lyrics (“Taste so good, make a grown man cry, sweet cherry pie”) and cheesy guitar riffs.

And then in that way that only the internet can, Warrant videos on YouTube lead to discovering that a band called Wild Cherry recorded the classic song “Play That Funky Music,” and it’s just a hop, skip, and Google jump from there to discovering that cherry tattoos are very, very popular. Lots and lots of cherry tattoos.

CherryTats

Mmmm, cherries. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what these nice folks are trying to express with their ink, but just like the slot machine cherries, I’m going to posit that it has something to do with getting lucky.

Cherries_150-0780We’re not sure what variety our cherries are. They are a textured light red color even when fully ripe, and plenty tasty but not overwhelmingly sweet (which makes them all the better for eating one after another after another all day long without stopping). If you have any thought on the variety, let us know. If you need a sample, stop on by, we have plenty.

(And we’d love your help in brainstorming more PG-rated cherry cultural references).

Originally Posted June 29, 2009.

 

→ 16 CommentsTags: fruit trees