Little kids are always asking what my favorite this and that are and I always answer with a long list. I have a really hard time choosing. Today I decided I’m ready to commit to the blackberry. It is my favorite fruit. I am putting it above the fig, strawberry, Cortland apple, apricot, and plum.
I have every intention of getting some work done on this vacation but it is Tuesday afternoon and I can’t bring myself to pick up the phone. Elisa has gotten sick and is upstairs sleeping. Everyone else has left for the afternoon to swim in a secret pond. Now would be a good time. The house is quiet. Maybe too quiet.
Maybe I should wait until after I sit in the sun for a few minutes with lemonade and my book.
Do you see what I’m up against?
I was sitting in the kitchen with sweat slowly trickling down my back and thought how ironic it was that while working in the garden I mostly think of winter. As I pick beans, I think, four people, twenty beans apiece, 250 -500 meals to get us through the cold months. One box should be ten meals. Another nine boxes in the freezer would be nice. Two minutes to steam. Then the cold bath with the ice cubes (lucky beans). They will be good with potatoes a few months from now.
Billy called me to come outside and I hesitated. I was just about to start working on this blog post and write about how the ideal of living in the moment may be a myth. But he said, “write it later when it is cooler, there is a breeze right now.”
Quite a strong breeze stirred up. We mostly stayed dry even with two girls and a sprinkler in our midst.
Under the trees I read a very nice letter from Billy’s sister. It included the wedding announcement of Frida Berrigan. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that after all these years she hasn’t strayed far from the girl I knew in Baltimore and I had to laugh because she still reminds me of my sister. I don’t usually read the wedding section of the NYTimes’s so I have nothing to compare. Are they always so lovely? How often is a bride quoted saying about her love, “This is the person I want to struggle with”? Because we all do struggle in our search for truth. Reading about the $10 suit the groom wore was a breath of fresh air.
Mostly today I am thinking of my dear friend Beth who is having her birthday in Afghanistan. I miss her. There is no getting around that. She knows as well as anyone what it means to plan for the next season.
dutchhillfarm 