What We Do In Fall

  Photo copyright Charley Freiberg 2016

The British Car Gal and I motored north last weekend, our overnight bags, jumpers and extra pairs of trainers stored in the boot with the rug, but we didn’t bring the hamper because we intended to stop at the French lady’s boulangerie for noon-time goodies and eat poutine a stone’s throw from Canada at suppertime. Turns out I could order Italian poutine : War of the Worlds.

We noticed that Nature is warring with itself up there. Last week the light changed so we know autumn is on its way; in the farther reaches of northern NH, it’s both two weeks behind us – they still have lovely green bean and squash plants and no sign of late-season tomato blight – and two weeks ahead – the swamp maples are all afire, and purple asters in full bloom.

Back home, I noticed today there’s a bronzing to the leaves on the hills, and a few still shy red leaves. I also think I saw an aster peeking out from behind the stone wall, and the night-sounds have changed,  so signs of what’s coming are here.  Not the least of the signs: last night I plugged the giant chest freezer in, putting it back to work after its summer vacation when the small chest freezer alone deals with the remnants of last summer’s freezer-burnt offerings.

Back in the dark ages, when I was a sweet young thing, engaged couples got chest freezers and pressure canners and washing machines as wedding gifts. Our freezer has traveled with us through two states and at least four abodes, and is still a work-horse. As am I, come to think of it, this time of year.

The season is late enough now that I no longer apologize to them when I yank spent vegetable plants out of the garden. I just perkily announce, “Time for the compost! New adventure!” and feel no guilt. And I look at those giant lurking zucchini batons and think: Relish = yum.

At 1 am last night when I was finally fishing the last jars out of the water-bath canner, I was saying something a tad spicier to the underfoot barkie boys as I toted up the night’s work (24 pints of zucchini relish, 14 bags of tomatoes, 6 bags of corn, and 2 ½-gallon jars of sauerkraut started) and considered whether I was too exhausted  or my feet hurt too much to stand any longer and wash up the detritus of canning and freezing before hitting my bed. Fortunately, the ever-helpful barkie boys are always ready to prewash, and a long soak in hot soapy water is the best remover of dog slobber.

From now until first frost, every day there will be tomatoes and herbs to freeze. The labor of making and canning tomato juice still looms; the shell beans are starting to look like they need shelling; and Mom wants to know when I’m going to make her some fried green tomatoes…. All this bounty becomes overwhelming just as school is about to start and I need to write a syllabus and nudge a new batch of students down the path we’ll follow together for the next few months. Clean-ups at 1 am are going to become commonplace, I fear.

My grandmother used to do all this food preservation on 3 linear feet of counter space in her very tiny kitchen. Back then, in the very dark ages, most people canned all the vegetable bounty and saved the space in the freezer (usually stored on a side porch) for meat and berries. I’ve migrated over the years into the mostly-freezer camp and fill one large and one medium chest freezer to their brims, most summers, and only can relishes, tomato juice, picallili, and a little jam. 

Freezing stuff is a little faster than canning and takes a lot less gear. But it means I can’t go down cellar and admire the endless jars of jewel-colored vegetables lining the wall shelves, as I did in my Nana’s root cellar when sent down to fetch up something for supper, and as I did all the many years I filled my own cellar shelves with jars and jars of vegetables. Mostly, I now have to go head-down/bottoms-up into the freezer and fish out what comes to hand. I’ve found that creative cooking with whatever surfaces is less taxing than the cussing involved in trying to organize and index hundreds of slippery bags of frozen food.

But when the final garden rush is over, and the world turns to hunker-down time, I do go down and fondly pat the freezers, and count and re-count the jars I’ve put up. It’s very comforting to know that when the cold winds blow and the wolves are howling at our doors, many pots of fine soup and Sunday dinners will come out of the things I’ve tucked into those freezers and onto the pantry shelves – no matter who wins the election.

Originally printed in The Concord Monitor, September 7, 2016, as “Autumn Labor.”