Porcupine in the apple tree!
There is nothing so wonderful as a slice of home-made sourdough bread, toasted ‘til dry but not brown, with some excellent unfiltered olive oil poured over it, sliced tomatoes from our own garden atop the oil, a sprinkling of winter or summer savory leaves, and salt with a little pepper: heaven. There is nothing so wonderful as that, unless it’s a peach from your own tree; or, a wonderful new discovery every fall, a pear from your own tree. Pair that pear (!) with a little locally smoked ham, but save the last bites of pear to fill your mouth and soul with its full pearness, which is unlike any pear you’ll ever buy in a grocery store.
There’s nothing so wonderful as those three things, unless it’s the fall golden raspberries in your own patch, ripening in front of your eyes, that you do battle with the slow-moving wasps who are also feasting on them, in order to get your fair share of juicy sweet nuggets. There’s nothing so wonderful as plump fall raspberries, unless it’s the zucchini relish you make from the recipe Nan used to use, from the giant zucchinis and peppers and onions that you grew in your own garden, and that will sustain your spirit and delight your friends through the long winter. There’s nothing so wonderful as those two things, unless it’s the ripe cucumber pickles you also make with Nan’s recipe, redolent with cloves and cinnamon, in the years the cucumbers get away from you in their fecundity and turn yellow on the vine. There’s nothing so wonderful as those things, unless it’s the gleaming jars of relish and pickles and the garnet-colored jars of pickled beets, also fragrant with spices and cloves, also made from your own garden harvest, lining the shelves in the cellar.
Helenium
There’s nothing so wonderful as tomatoes and bread, olive oil and salt, savory and peaches, pears and raspberries, shining jars of pickles and relish – and don’t forget the dilly beans you made with your own garlic and dill and beans, and the curried summer squash pickles in their orange turmeric-y sauce , and the pesto frozen in small containers in the chest freezer that will envelope you with memories of your abundant summer basil on a cold night in January when you pull it out and mix it in pasta and shave excellent local cheese over all – unless it’s the most amazing musk melon harvested from your own garden at the tentative end of a summer season when it stays warm enough just long enough to ripen the most amazing-tasting melons you’ve ever tasted and will never taste in one from the grocery store. Gramp used to put salt and pepper on his store-bought cantaloup; I just let the natural juices from my real melons run down my chin and arms, then lick it off. Twice, ‘cause it’s sticky.
There’s nothing so wonderful, when so busy one can barely think straight, as to say, to heck with it, I’m taking a day off and - maybe even two. And going to a bookstore. And buying books that I don’t, at this point in time, have time to read. But there they are, stacked up next to the bed, and that’s a very good feeling – something surely wonderful’s waiting for me.
Fall anemone
There’s nothing so wonderful as, on OCTOBER 10, for heaven’s sake, a month after our usual frost date, going out to the garden and gathering the last pears (to finish ripening on the kitchen counter), lima beans --- lima beans! Never ever have I been able to grow limas that actually podded and produced beans in 65 years of gardening! --- and a zucchini, and tomatoes, and fava beans, and a leek and onion that got left behind, and string beans, and scarlet runner beans, and – basil, wonder of wonders – and pull some carrots and a couple of the parsnips the chipmunks haven’t yet devastated, and make Sunday soup with it all.
And even though today happens to be overcast and chilly, tomorrow’s supposed to be warmer. The cats are in the garden hunting and eating catnip; the chickadees are snacking on the now seed-heavy sunflowers; the trees are a glorious blaze of scarlet and maroon and yellows and oranges all around the back 40, and it’s a lovely day. The morning glories – no idea where they came from, they aren’t where I planted some – are in full jungle glory, tripping me up and keeping me from traveling down many of my garden paths. Everything is growing slower, ripening slower, except for the few cool-weather-loving plants, but yet, everything is still ripening, even a melon that’s nestled in close to one of the compost bins.
Fall delphinium
And today is also our 40th wedding anniversary, and you know what? We still love each other and are still glad to be married. And that’s pretty darn wonderful and amazing, also. Maybe even more amazing than pink and speckled lima beans ripening in NH in October!
herondragonwrites.blogspot.com
10 October 2021
All photos Deb Marshall
Beautiful "weed"
