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It might not be photography that I’ve been up to the past two weeks, but I’ve still been creating – as in applesauce from our backyard tree,apple crisp, apple pie, blackberry jam from the wild bushes around town, marinara from our tomatoes, zucchini bread – yup you guessed it – from our zucchinis, and Jed just finished making blackberry ice-cream – wanna come over for a bite?!

I spent last week helping my sister on her farm in western Maine, relaxing in between doing whatever she needed us to do; when I returned home late on Friday, I knew I had a long weekend of ‘work’ cut out for me, too, as our apples were ready (we harvest our types earlier here in California Bay Area), and the tomatoes were ‘coming in’ as they say. So on Saturday, I jumped in. It’s been a lot of fun even though it’s work. While I worked on making the stuff, my mind was working on new ideas for business, new book ideas, etc. A good friend of mine, Dewitt Jones used to speak about ‘making tortillas’ – the act of slapping the dough back and forth in your hands, and laying them out on the machine to get baked, as a repetitive action that allowed you to think about other things, in a more relaxed way. It works, I’m here to tell you. If you want to solve a problem, or open your mind, just do something else that is repetitive. It takes the intensity, i.e. the ‘edge’ off your thoughts and then things begin to flow…I had some good ideas pop up when I least expected it while sterilizing jars, stirring the berries or peeling the apples.

Now, I’m back to work – the other work – of photography business stuff. But looking at the above ‘bounty’, I’m glad I did it (and I may do more!) When the vines are dried and shriveled, and the apple tree’s lost it’s leaves, I’ll be sitting by a warm fire eating apple sauce or apple pie, or having blackberry jam on my morning toast, and thinking about how wonderful it is to have a taste of summer all year long…

 

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