Saturday, March 16, 2013

The answer...

What is the question? Well it is the question that bugged the ancient Egyptians terribly, in fact they even deified a bug that rolled around a ball of dung for goodness sake!
The question is; "Where does the sun go when we can't see it?"I do strain to see the similarity of said dung and the sun but it made sense to the Egyptians I guess.
Now you can tell me the earth is round yadda yadda, but my answer is much more palatable, edible in fact. The sun sleeps in the fruits we grow and every morning a little bit stays behind!
Do you like that explanation for the wonderful colour in my latest crop of persimmons? (Don't ask me what happens in winter, some things just have to be taken on faith). I have been enjoying the crop, trying to draw it in Adobe Illustrator (#&*#) and just admiring the colour. I finally went back to my most enjoyable option and did an etegami.
The persimmon tree is in the front garden and almost every day when it is in fruit someone asks what it is. Some people don't like the slippery texture of the ripe fruit but the Chinese lady who serves us dinner every Thursday night at the local club didn't hesitate when I offered  her a share.
We have had bumper crops this year of grapes and mangoes. The grapes are the old Isabella type,which have a delicious intense musky flavour but many are put off by the hard skins and the seeds. It is funny that all of my friends, when they eat the grapes,  say "My grandma grew  these and I love the memories they bring back". My grandma grew them as well.
The mangoes have survived because I bagged the fruit (sometimes in a fairly unorthodox way by putting our odd socks on them..a funny sight but it worked) the fruit bats and fruit fly left them alone so it is mangoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner but I never tire of them.
Winter is when the citrus fruit comes in but this year is not so good for them, you win some you lose some.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you for your kind words on my blog- it means a lot. x

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  2. What a wonderful garden you have! I have to rummage my refrigerator if I want to draw fruit. Your persimmon etegami is a perfect match with the words. I like the slippery-ripe stage of persimmons for eating raw, and I let them ripen to the squishy over-ripe stage for baking. But I have a Japanese friend who only eats them in the still-crunchy stage, and she's taught me to appreciate that texture too.

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  3. I wonder what sort of persimmon you have. And the image of the sun stored inside the fruit -- in fact all those little suns having from a tree is such a beautiful one. Your etegami is a perfect match as Debbie says!

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  4. Juicy edible suns..so beautiful, on your tree and in your radiant etegami!

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  5. Mangoes! I do envy you. We have persimmons but ours are still very green. They do seem like little balls of sunshine when they're orange ... I love that little four-leaf hanger on them which you have drawn so perfectly. And when the leaves turn red you must paint them again!
    Adobe Illustrator is good for vector graphics but I don't think it is any good for fine arts. Photoshop is better. What most illustrators I know do, is draw by hand, then scan that in and add layers of colours in Photoshop. What I do now is paint separate bits by hand and assemble them in Photoshop... they look hand painted still, but you can resize things and move them around and get rid of blots and re-use painted backgrounds.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Gay for the good advice about Adobe. Sadly the leaves on the persimmon don't colour up as much here but we do have great fruit

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