Autumn

It’s September. The best and the worst month.

I can feel fall coming. The pumpkins are big and beautiful. The garden is subsiding. The air is still hot, but with crisp cool nights.

I can feel fall passing by and am doing nothing about it. The need to harvest, to carve pumpkins, to set by supplies for the winter, it’s overwhelming. But it’s hot and still mostly summer. The contradictions leave me feeling depressed with a wistful longing for times long past.

Watching Tales from the Green Valley to satisfy my craving my son sat and joined me in the watching. He stared at the boiled partridge with dumplings they prepared from scratch, as in alive, and insisted on finding the recipe. Then as they hand spread wheat seed, covering it with a Hawthorn branch pulled by a horse he wanted to try that too.

Ah, a child who takes after me.

That is one thing that we can do. I discussed it with my farmer husband. He bequeathed us a corner of his garden that will be fallow through the year. If we wanted we could gather left over wheat seed and give it a try. We spent the morning raking and tilling a very small piece of land. Then went in search of seed. Our search is a bit late. They’ve spent the weekend up until now cleaning out the drills that planted the ‘real’ wheat crop in the last couple of weeks. He was slightly annoyed as he was trying to get work done when we came asking for scraps. But, he found a place in the seed truck where seed always hung up and needed cleaned out. Then came in search of us so we could catch it to use.

It was way more than our tiny plot needed and we kept the extra to grind over the winter. I love having home grown and ground wheat to cook with.

Then we planted. He planted. He hopes to harvest by hand next summer and use the straw for braiding rope or making baskets. Maybe together we can fill this craving I always feel.

We have put up as many vegetables as we have jars and room for. canned tomatoes, green beans, pickles beans. Frozen corn. Soon we will dig potatoes and bring in some pumpkins and store them away. Some things don’t change as much as we think. The pleasure of putting away food for winter is still strong.

I’ve begun picking a few of the pumpkins and placing them around the house. Maybe the best season of all isn’t quite us passing by.