Vegetables

This morning we had 3/4 inch of rain.  It is so welcomed after long, hot, dry days.  I've watered every day, but that is just not as good a rain.  Despite the dry weather, I have an abundance of produce from my own garden and the farmers markets.  My kitchen cabinet is laden with zucchini and sunburst squash, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, tomatoes and blueberries.  The sunflowers are beginning to bloom and everywhere the bees are still working their magic on the blossoms.  I love this time of year.  The garden is so plentiful, and it makes everything look hopeful and secure.  We feed ourselves and can put some up for winter too.  It is deeply satisfying to see enough food on your cabinet, grown in your own garden, to feed the family for several meals.  It goes to something primal beyond any other work I've done to be a part of the life cycle in planting, growing and harvesting.

Midsummer's Night

It is almost dark.  The last of the color is fading from the trees and grass, and soon the whole scene will go gray and then black.  But just as dusk pulls the shade on another day, my yard is alive with the tiny golden light of the fireflies.  Dozens of lights dance from the grass to the trees and into the deep woods beyond the house.  I think  for a moment about grabbing a jar and running barefoot into the dewy grass to catch the tiny lights and keep them in the jar with holes punched in the metal lid as I did when I was a child.  One summer when my son was quite young and was very ill, I caught  a whole jar of fireflies and then turned them lose in his room.  In his illness that night, the tiny jeweled lights flying across his walls and floating over his bed eased his pain and helped him to sleep.  Tonight I just enjoy the show and wonder where these delightful insects recharge during the day.  They have no idea how many children they have thrilled with their magic lantern dances in the night.  Or how many adults still drift back to childhood just watching the fireflies of midsummer dance.

Fruitfulness

Although we have not had any rain for a month, the gardens and orchard are fruitful.  The plum tree is bearing for the first time.  The plums are not the big things one can buy at the store, but the sweetness is beyond compare.  I am so thankful that the electric company spared the plum tree when they ravaged our trees and the orchard.  I am having to beat the squirrels to the fruit; they tend to take more than their share.  But I don't want to pick the plums too soon.  They are so much better when left to ripen on the tree. 

The garden is starting to produce too.  The sugar snap peas are almost done bearing, and as the heat is beginning to set it, the vines will soon dry up.  But the green beans, squash, peppers and tomatoes are thriving in the heat.  Last year it was too hot for the beans to bloom or pollinate, but this year we have lots of young beans already on the vines.  We should have our first mess with some new potatoes this week.

Last night everything on the table came from the garden or from the local farmers.  We had a delicious meatloaf (The eggs in the meatloaf were local and the milk was regional. Only the oatmeal was from an unknown origin.)  Roasted new potatoes from the garden with onions and carrots from the farmers market.  Corn that was raised locally last summer that I shucked and froze was still yummy and fresh tasting.  The salad greens were from the garden along with the snap peas and radishes.  The carrots and tomatoes were from the farmers market.  The hamburger for the meatloaf was raised locally.  I've visited the farm, and they are happy, grass raised cows whose meat has more omega 3 than fish.  It was a lovely, tasty meal. 

That is the best part of summer.  The eating is soooo good and soooo fresh! 

Grandma's Meatloaf
1 pound of ground beef
1 package of dry onion soup
1 egg

Mix these together.

Add:  old fashioned oatmeal --- just enough to help bind the meat.  I use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup.  Mix. 
Add:  Milk until the meat is moist and everything sticks together.  Do not add too much milk; add a little at a time.  I add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup depending on how much oatmeal I have used.   The leaner the meat the more milk you may need to add.  You know you have the right amount of mile when you form a ball of meat and it is just a bit sticky. (Milk tenderizes the meat, but too much will ruin the meatloaf.)

Form the meat into a ball and place in a 9X7 oven proof pan. Press the ball into a loaf shape.  Top with catsup. (Sometimes I add green pepper slices as a topping too).  Bake at 375 degrees for about an hour.  Remove from the pan and place on a platter and let it sit for 5 minutes, then slice and enjoy.

Reading Blackberry Leaves

Some people say they can see the future in tea leaves.  I can see the future in the blackberry bushes. The blackberries are in full bloom, and some even have tiny green berries showing the promise of big juicy berries in a few weeks.  The berry patch is full of butterflies greedily sucking the blackberry nectar.  Later the birds will try to beat me to the succulent berries.  They don't know that they will have to compete with a grandson who will inhabit the patch when he is here stuffing the big black berries into his mouth.  This time of year, he begins to make his way to the patch on every visit to see if they berries are ready.  There will be enough for the grandson to eat while they are warm and juicy and for the birds and for a sugary cobbler.  Right now the berries are just a promise, but I can see the future in the blossoms.

Honeysuckle

I become intoxicated every time I go outside these days.  The honeysuckle is blooming, and the heady, intoxicating  scent is almost overpowering.  If you have never smelled drifts of wild honeysuckle, you are missing one of the loveliest scents in the world.  How can I describe the smell?  It is not as citrus as magnolia, but more so than lilac.  Perhaps it is more like a lemony rose.  The scent blocks out every other smell.  It takes you to another realm.  And this wonderful scent keeps me from pulling out all of the invasive honeysuckle vines. The vines are as bothersome and mischievous as the scent is romantic.  The vines  entwine themselves around anything- fences, trees, shrubs, buildings.  They suffocate whatever they grow on.  The sheer mass of the vines can take down a fence or a building.  The vines overpower their surroundings.  The scent is just as overpowering, but it is so sweet and so pleasant, I am willing to submit to the fragrance every spring when the honeysuckle blooms. 

Worms, Asphalt and Hay

Spring.  Nothing is predictable this year.  Several farmers in the area are cutting and baling hay already.  I've never seen them put up hay this early.  That sweet smell took me by surprise last week as I drove the back road home, and sure enough there were the tractors out in the field rolling the long rows of cut grass into large, round bales.

Another sweet smell greeted me in the last few days too. Asphalt.  Yes, the acrid bite of hot tar and the crunch of the fine pieces slapping the side of the car were beautiful.  It means that the pot holes that have plagued us all winter on the country roads are gone.  No more swerving to keep from being swallowed up by the big holes.  No more driving on the wrong side to find a bit of pavement still intact and not totally eaten away.  I had become so used to avoiding the pot holes that I find it difficult to just drive our roads normally! 

What is becoming a perennial sign of spring here is the defoliation of the pine trees.  We have an annual infestation of small worms that eat every bit of green from the pines except the new shoots at the end of the branches.  Right now the trees look ruined and dead.  They just hold out their tender green candles and hope to survive the worms.  With any luck, they will be back in full needle in a few weeks.  Right now, they are a pitiful sight.  The foresters say there is nothing we can do outside of an aerial spraying, and who would want to be coated in insecticide?

So spring continues, and I wait for the next surprises it will bring.

Vegetable Coats

Here it is the end of April and we are still bouncing back and forth between summer and winter.  The temperature at night, which has been balmy, is now flirting with freezing.  I've scraped frost off of the car windshield and had to dig out my heavier coat again.  The coats for the vegetables are less than flattering.  I keep a box of rags, and so on these near freezing nights you can find the tomato towers wrapped in old, frayed towels.  The squash plants are covered in bits of old sheets while the peppers sport an assortment of wash cloths and hand towels.  The garden looks like someone dumped the rag box on it, which I guess I did!  Although it is not beautiful, the old rags have kept the plants safe from the frost. The tomato blossoms seem to have survived, and those bundled up vegetables look beautiful to me on a frosty morning.