Do you sometimes hum a tune as you go about your daily chores and projects? While cleaning the house, while weeding the garden or canning or making pickles? Our connection to the land, whether it be on a full-size farm or in a modest backyard garden, inspires a tune in spite of us. Even if it is silent, it manifests in the form of a peaceful new rhythm in the body. It begins at the fingertips, perhaps, as you gently lower the canning jars into the water bath or as you turn the vise on the cider press.

Summer is a time for picnics and carefree meals shared under the sun, with the tablecloth dancing in the wind at each corner of an abundantly garnished table. If you send the children to camp for a week or so, they return full of stories and memories that will last a lifetime. They also return with fun, silly campfire songs they will repeat over and over in the days to come.

If you are all grown up (while remaining a child at heart, of course), you have surely heard the many versions of Jack & Jill went up the hill. How about Mary had a little lamb? Mary had a little lamb, she also had a bear. I saw her little lamb, but I never saw her …. Ha! I can see the smirks on your faces. You made up your own lyrics, didn’t you? And you still remember every word. Go ahead. Giggle away. It’s good for you.

Here are a couple of silly songs about cider, slightly edited I admit. We must have a sense of decorum after all, must we not? But I know they will make you smile.

I have a theory. The rich taste and pure nourishment of fresh produce, even apples turned to cider, relax the mind and enhance our connections with others, because the garden itself is a community. Thus, as we partake of the garden, so do we embrace community. Once consumed, the harvest sings through our voice. The garden is not burdened by the worries of the world, so it inspires silly songs. This is how it laughs. This is how it reminds us to laugh.

Sipping cider through a straw

The prettiest girl I ever saw was sipping cider through a straw
The prettiest girl I ever saw was sipping cider through a straw
I asked her if she’d teach me how to sip some cider through a straw
First cheek to cheek, then jaw to jaw, we sipped that cider through a straw
And now and then that straw did slip and we’d sip cider lip to lip
Now forty-nine kids all call me “pa” from sipping cider through a straw
The moral of this little joke is don’t sip cider, sip a Coke!
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I am a cider drinker

When the moon shines on the cow shed and we’re rollin’ in the hay
All the cows are out there grazing and the milk is on its way.
I am a cider drinker, I drinks it all of the day
I am a cider drinker, it soothes all me troubles away
Oh arr oh arr aay, oh arr oh arr aay.
It’s so cosy in the kitchen with the smell of rabbit stew
When the breeze blows ‘cross the farmyard, you can smell the cow sheds too.
I am a cider drinker, I drinks it all of the day
I am a cider drinker, it soothes all me troubles away
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