Food processing frenzy!

August! I hope it will not be too redundant for me to quote (from memory, so I don’t vouch for the accuracy) from Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer, where she described one character’s garden as being like a reverse baby bird, incessantly opening its mouth and giving, giving, giving. Our gardens are not large, but some things did well. Especially Roma tomatoes, which also tend to come all at once. This is keeping Janelle hopping as she puts away salsa, tomato sauce, plain old diced tomatoes, and hopefully a little tomato juice for the winter in various and sundry quarts and pints. Additionally, she has been up to her elbows today in [purchased, not home grown] sweet corn for the freezer. She also set a new record for our family for applesauce, canning a grand total of seventy quarts in one day (Janelle says she can’t claim to have done it alone—Kali was a great “cranker”, sticking with it all day). Some folks (as it happens, their names are Dick and Marlene Benner) not too far from us obviously went on some kind of Paulared apple tree planting frenzy a few decades back and have kept the ground mowed, but cannot use all of the apples, especially in the face of this year’s bumper crop. We were quite pleased to be of assistance in keeping a couple of bushels from going to waste. We probably got no more than 1/20^th of what was there.

You may have noticed that I did not include myself in the food processing team in the above commentary. No, we have not suddenly decided to sternly enforce traditional characterizations of gender roles in our home…I’ve still been busy building the addition. I’m insulating the roof currently, and it feels encouraging to be at that stage. The siding is finished (thanks to Dad Benner’s good help) minus a few spots that need paint and caulk some time, and (thanks to Ethan’s good help) the slate is laid on the porches, so I can turn my attention inward. Of course, what I’d like to be doing is turning my attention further inward…helping out with the slicing and dicing and spicing going on in the back room. All the same I am enjoying making lots of visible progress and I feel good about the quality. I also have enjoyed being able to work with family and friends a little more recently. For me there is nothing quite like working jointly for providing comfortable, yet quality time spent together. We are going to enjoy living in that room, and we are coming within striking distance of the end of the project. Some of you have generously banded together, in honor of our September birthdays (but really in honor of your graciousness) to help us pay for having the drywall hung and finished by professionals. This will advance our project’s finish date by probably at least a month, and for that we are simply grateful.

Of course, the biggest event of August was Kali’s very favorite holiday of the year: her birthday! She’s now 4 whole years old, if you can believe that. Coincidently, a brood of chicks that we volunteered to hatch for our neighbor and great friend Samuel Johnson were due to enter the world on that very same day. So Janelle and I “hatched” the idea of throwing a very modest drop-in party for Kali that day, inviting some little friends (and big friends) to come and see a few miracles in progress. The incubator and an aquarium housing the dry chicks were fairly popular spots in a fairly full house. The adults might have been a little bored and cramped, but the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, and Kali, while clearly feeling somewhat overwhelmed with the activity at the time, seems to be looking back on it fondly.

We are all looking forward eagerly around here to the first breaths of autumn air, and tonight may be the night! We haven’t had a 55 degree night for a few months, but that’s what they are calling for, so the windows have been cracked open and the a/c is off. We plan to sleep well, with the sounds of katydids and screech owls in our ears. Speaking of katydids, how about a poem? I wrote this one the other day purely for a literary exercise, but ended up liking it. Don’t take it to mean that I have actually cut any hayfields recently or ever, because, regretfully, I have not. Still, I hope you will find enjoyment in it as I find enjoyment in sharing it with you:

Today I Cut the Field

Today I cut the field

for hay;

the grass leaves laying

flat upon their stubble,

stems in loose

array

await tomorrow’s session

with the sun.

I’ve laid my tool

aside

aligned my body

with the ground

and now my aching

ankles roll and pop;

I’ll not restrict them!

boots and hot

socks stripped away.

Soon evening insects will take up their

crucial toil,

seek out their own

with only sound;

And I will labor

home upon my thighs

and eat

tomatoes while

sighs from the katydids echo the

cadence of the scythe.

While I’m at it, how about another, this one in response to the experience of collecting the aforementioned apples:

Hot Tip: Free Apples!

We turn in the lane, spot the trees, pull aside, apply

the brakes, the engine stops, we’re out and moving: got to

get these apples fast; we only have an hour until dark.

The ladder’s off the roof, the metal tubs are

on the ground, she takes one left I take one right she

sorts through what is lying in the grass I

strip the branches clean.

Picking fast the first

few minutes are a blur I’ve

eyes for only apples—leaves and twigs are in then

out of view—but not

for long…I soon

Slow down my heart, begin to

hear the apples clunking on the metal, see

my daughter give one to my lover in

the waning light. I’m

breathing deeper now.

Buckles releasing, belts

falling away, we had stepped

out into this evening

but it

took a while for my

mind to leave the car and

join us in the orchard.

Well, thanks for being interested enough in our lives to have read this far. We sometimes wonder if you all actually read these letters, but we occasionally catch indications that indeed you do, so we keep writing them. And please don’t take the fact that we send them to a whole list at once to mean that we aren’t interested in what’s going on in each of your particular lives. I’ll even confess to being embarrassingly interested in the weather at your place, and especially as that affects your gardens’ success or lack thereof. So write or call whenever you want about whatever you want. We love hearing from each of you! With love, Jason for the whole Myers-Benner family