Blueberry Rhubarb jig

pie ~ crumble ~ cake ~ cheescake ~ muffins ~ tarts ~ cobble ~ sauce ~ wine ~ mmmm, mmm, good, and one of my favourite combinations… Strawberry Rhubarb is another winning combination. If anyone has a favourite recipe combining these things I’d love to see it… 😉

Tasty tune! I especially like the jump in the second measure. It’s fun to do, and it really catches your ear.

Funny how a tune can be associated with something totally unrelated, and it functions like a mental placemarker. There’s no reason why this particular sequence of notes should be named Blueberry Rhubarb except that ceolachan wanted it to.

We have a stand of rhubarb that came originally from my wife’s grandparent’s garden. It’s been transplanted twice as we’ve moved about, but always manages to grow back. I don’t think I’ll ever see it come up in the spring again without thinking of this tune.

cealachan, it’s a lovely tune, did you wrote it?

Yes, and I’d just baked these two fruits into a crumble when I started lilting this…

Fruit? Hmmmm? Can we really call rhubarb a fruit? It’s a stalk, member of the dock family. So, is it a vegetable, like celery? Look, a tomato is a fruit so why wouldn’t rhubarb be a vegetable? (“Please keep the comments relevant to the tune”)

;-P

C -- send me your regular e-mail address and I’ll send you my favorite Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie recipe as thanks for the help with the fling. 🙂 - z

We had a soft rain last night, with rumble and flashing. I’ve heard that lightning helps fix nitrogen, at any rate, this morning the yard is preternaturally green. A colony of Mayapple unfurls their parasols, and the wild Woodland Poppies the Trout Lilies are intensely yellow. Riots of tulips and daffodils, rhododendron, forsythia exploding like popcorn. Walked around with my four-month old baby girl in my arms. In the back corner of the garden I discovered the first tiny green rosette of rhubarb stretching after a nice long sleep.

Came back inside to dig up this tune. Our little one, not too good of a judge, loves her Dad’s fiddling.

Nice one fidkid, I’m all smiles and warm inside. Did you ever get those blueberries? I don’t know where you are, but I love all the wild types I’ve ever hunted down, North America, here on this isle, and of course in Eire. Wicklow has a lot of fine finger staining berries, and you can, if you are there at the right time and don’t eat them all, get enough for a pie… It is definitely one of my favourite unions, blueberries and rhubarb…

You’ve a nice way with painting a scene with your words…

The rhubarb’s up. Quite a bit earlier than last year, it seems.

Snow melted late this year. I wandered out, picking up twigs and detritus, almost stepped on two wrinkled, palm-sized leaves.

MUST get this into my permanent repertoire. Thank god for the dots. And you too, c. 😉

Mild winter, early spring and the rhubarb is up.

We’ve moved to a new town. Wish I could say grandmother’s rhubarb made it with us, but it didn’t. So we planted new ones, and they did well last year. Just noticed them coming up after yesterday’s rain. My little one is 7 now, playing a bit of tinwhistle and working through The Siege of Ennis. I think I’ll try to teach her this tune next.

Sweet tune, ‘c’~ tasty.;)
Nice stories and tradition too, fidkid. Good luck to your little girl on her whistle.🙂

Ditto!

We’ve lost our sources for rhubarb. I think I need to find a place to plant some for the future. Wish I was there to help with the dance, maybe the version they used to dance at ‘The Blacktown Arms’, Fermanagh/Tyrone, and with the whistle. But, I’ve no doubt she’s got a good guide in her da. You could always ask for a cutting from your grandma’s rhubarb, if the new owners have kept it going. Thanks for keeping the story going fidkid…

http://joefago.com/rhubarb.jpeg

The leaves are already the size of my palm. Gonna be a good crop this year.