Tag Archives: Seasons

A Season of Salvage

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Muscadine and scuppernong grapes

There is a day each year. A day when you find yourself in the kitchen slicing the last of the season’s ripe tomatoes, a moment you have lived before, knew was in the cards. A day when the vines are still heavy with green tomatoes. A shortened day in which those green tomatoes will never fully ripen, destined instead for frying or making chowchow. How did that unstoppable summer deluge become a trickle and then a drought?

So begins fall, a chance to cherish what is passing before the weather turns to ice and snow — both too soon to dream of the fallow winter, when the cold months spoon next to the season of rebirth, that bare season, stark in its absence of greenery, when our native imagination colors in the palette of the riches to come, and too late to partake of the fresh bounty of the summer season just passed. The in-between season.

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A killing cone for chickens.

Fall is the season of salvage, of scouring the fields and paddocks for useful leftovers. In modern parlance, it is the sustainable season. A rush to harvest the last of the fruit to preserve in jams, jellies, chutneys, and wines. A time to take stock with some soul searching of Aesop’s Fables significance: Do we have enough firewood? Did we use our time well last winter, spring, summer in preparation for the next year? It is a time of movement, cattle to new pastures and forage to shelter. A time to glean the excess hens and roosters, butchering for hours to stock the larder for the gumbo and chicken and dumplings that will get us through the cold months to come.

Fall is a time of hog fattening. The cruel reward for an ability to gain 300 pounds in nine months comes with a knife wielded the week after Halloween. The bounty is delivered to us in sides of bacon, salted hams, corned shoulders, butcher’s wife pork chops, hand-seasoned breakfast sausages, headcheese, pates, and bowls of beans with ham hocks.

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Assorted lambs for winter customers.

Fall is also sheep-breeding time. As the days and nights cool, the ram has his pleasurable work cut out for him, making sure all ewes are bred. We, servant-like, make sure the ewes are conditioned for lambing, in good health, hooves trimmed, attending to their every need. Meanwhile, last winter’s lambs are grazing in their own pasture, fattening before they fall under the butcher’s sword in the remaining months of the year.

Fall is the season of coming face to face with imminent and unavoidable death. It is the fever of the dying year, the mumbled words from the patient in the bed trying to get his affairs in order, to make amends. So much to do and so little time.

It is a season of contrasts, when we eat a ripe tomato while composting the vine it grew on, feed a pregnant ewe while fattening for slaughter her year-old offspring, crush grapes and pears while sipping the wine made last year. Past, present, and future are jumbled in this most hopeful season, when we weigh the year to come to see what is left in the balance.

Like a culture that prepares for a future generation, this work is undertaken for a year not yet born.

Waking Up

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The scene we expect in another six weeks.

Winter is beginning to lose its grip. The signs are there if you are not moving too fast to see or hear.

After a Friday morning low of 16 degrees, Saturday afternoon saw the temperature pass 60. The elderberry bushes have new leaves, while the hazelnut trees are sending up fresh suckers. Bird life of all sorts, both wild and domestic, has returned to the soundscape. At the nearby farm of friends, the sound of frogs fills the evening with throaty mating calls down by the creek.

The bins of seed potatoes have all sprouted and await the day when the gardener finds sufficient energy to plant. As the days lengthen, egg production of our 20 hens has grown from nil to an even half-dozen a day. Another couple of weeks and a dozen a day will be gathered. A bit more time and our Speckled Sussex will go broody. Another three weeks and the chicks will be tumbling out of every nook and cranny of the barn.

The pasture grass is still brown from a distance. But get in close and you’ll see the green shoots beginning to peek through. The trees are barren from afar, but approach them and a different story can be read: tight buds on the plums, peaches and maples. The land is waking back up. Having replenished its energy and reformulated its plans, it is ready to give it a go for another year.

Even the humans are venturing out in minor numbers. A drive into town yesterday and we spotted the elusive modern teenager tossing hoops with a friend. We passed on the temptation to slow and observe their behavior; such rare activity of the species should not be interfered with.

A bit farther down the road, we saw a man polishing his bass boat. Since when did fishing boats become toys? When did a simple jon boat become not good enough, with some sturdy tackle, ample lures and a trot-line to check at night? Since when have we needed depth finders and a boat that costs more than a modest home? When was the quiet joy of casting for bass or bream on a still pond replaced by the sounds of the Bristol Speedway on our waters?

Jon boat vs. bass boat—perhaps that is the tale of our age and our race: a slow pace propelled by paddles or a hurried dashing to and fro.

This spring I resolve: To walk, not run, through the season. To get down close, hands in the dirt, and feel the change. To sit more on the porch with family and friends and say nothing, listening instead to the frogs by the pond or for the sound of the moon rising. To walk among the sheep at night. Stand among the fruit trees and just look. Put a plump worm on a hook, toss it into a likely sheltered spot and just wait.

It’s time to wake back up and see if we are worthy to give it a go for another year.

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Reading this weekend: The Pig: a British history by Julian Wiseman