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| Our bar wood benches and tables stowed away for winter |
Season: n 1: suitable or natural time or occasion: 2: a period of the year associated with some phase or activity of agriculture (as growth or harvesting) Season vb 1: to make palatable by adding salt or condiment 2: to make fit by experience
Considering what might be the last fine day in 2021, yesterday we stowed away the pavilion furniture inside my former gift shop—one of many outdoor projects we aim to complete before snow flies.
Since
April, we’ve hefted mulch, compost, and garden waste which conditioned our
bodies for this ritual of putting summer to bed.
I confess, lifting
and stacking eleven barn wood tables and twenty-two benches claims every bit of
our physical and mental fortitude. Yet, in the exercise of this annual task the
past eight years, we’ve mastered a pattern for maximum space economy.
Our procession of
preserving our belongings began last month when I parked my golf cart inside the
pavilion’s storage room. For the first winter in twelve years, she won’t be
left out in the cold.
Betsy,
my Club Car, hasn’t seen a golfer since I purchased her as my garden buddy—my
back and step saver to and from beehives, and up and down hills from gardens to
burn piles.
Now
Betsy rests amongst harvest baskets, coolers, bins of hot and cold cups, and
other acquisitions.
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| Betsy, my golf cart, with garden companions |
“Rain.”
“Better
plant my garlic,” I said and fetched my buckets of compost and oak leaves.
On
my knees with trowel in hand, I mused at the brevity of summer’s companionship with
friends, flora, and honeybees.
The
sun on my shoulders and the sore spot between, I tamped soil and oak leaves above
forty-two garlic cloves. At last, I sat back on the heels of my chicken boots.
“Finished! Praise God!”
Oh yes, I’m
surfeited of gardens. Their needs to meet my needs: beauty, fragrance, food.
Indeed,
homegrown garlic waits in our basement on the shelf with canned tomatoes, peach
butter and jam, and currant compote. Squash and asparagus soup and raspberries
fill our freezer.
God
is good. Faithful.
This is why we
gather with family and friends to give thanks. Why we will soon find our bottles
of sage and allspice in our spice racks.
For our hearts
praise God in seed time and harvest for our land, food, and liberty.
Glad and
exhausted, I carried my empty buckets, swinging by my sides in synchronization
of the seasons, to the greenhouse.
Come suppertime, hungry
with plates of barbequed pulled pork and roasted garlic, red potatoes, and
broccoli before us, rain fell fast and hard.
Dear Reader, if
you know the meaning of the Yiddish word “verklempt”, you grasp my emotional
condition. If you grow food and are over seventy years old, you’ve been there and
will be again.
Yes, I slept well
last night.
