A moment in time…

I had a lot of thoughts running through my head on the 25 minute drive into work this morning. Sometimes, my mental ramblings just bounce around in my head all day until I get them out. So, Folks, this morning, you are the lucky recipients of my morning epiphanies. I need to clean house.

I had a conversation yesterday that wandered into “What kind of person am I”  in the sense of a morning person, a night owl, etc. I had some ideas yesterday…” I am this… well, but then I am that… or maybe…” Pondering the question this morning, I came to the conclusion that I am none of these. I am a man of moments.

For while it is true that I am not a fan of leaving the comfy warmth of the bed in the morning, I love catching the first rays of the day, breathing the morning air, sipping my coffee by the light of the woodstove in the quiet before the day. I’m not necessarily keen on the idea of having to go to work every day, but I enjoy the ride in, on most days. The day is still fresh ahead of me, and although maybe I am tired from staying up late, this day is new and hasn’t been mixed with the energy of other people and events.

At the other end of the day, its the same. I wouldn’t describe myself as a night owl. In fact, if there is a lack of mental stimulation, I fall asleep pretty easily, and often early. Of course, if I’m interested in what I am doing, reading a GOOD book, blogging, painting or sketching, writing, or playing a game, I often stay up way past the point where its to my benefit.

I hate the day to end. I’ll fall asleep on the couch or chair, but wake up and resume whatever I was doing. I want to stay on the scene. Tracy and I almost always were the last ones at a party, the wee morning hour people, just so we didn’t miss anything. That’s when the best conversations happen anyway. I love staying up and watching the stars, hiking outside at night, sitting by the fire until it is all but a faint glow of dying coals. Once you find your blissful spot, it’s hard to give it up and call it a day.

Mid day, lunch time, 10 am, 3:30, Supper time, they all have moments for me. I find lately that the 3-5 in the afternoon period is my slow period. I struggle to stay awake if I’m driving. Yet it is also the most productive if I am doing deed research or AutoCAD or working out. Then I’m on fire. I don’t really have a time of day…  and while there are patterns that certain things, like falling asleep on the couch, will happen if there is a lack of interest or entertainment, given something enjoyable to do, I have boundless energy.

So all of this brings me back to my bubbling brain this morning. When I stepped outside to the go to work, I was engulfed by that beautiful autumn air. The temperature was only about 32 degrees, but the air was moist with impending rain, and full of all the Autumn aromas; rotting leaves, wood smoke, frost. Yes, even frost and impending precipitation have a delicious odor. There was a fog or misty-ness about the air, and the sun was casting an orange-pink glow over the sky. The leaves on the trees were brilliant; oranges, yellows, bright deep reds, and they were glowing, seemingly giving off their own light. I wish I had thought to snap some shots with my camera, but probably the colors were more of a feeling than a visual anyway.

  I hopped into the truck and put on a favorite tune on my IPod, Jason Mraz’ “I’m Yours” and headed down to Keene, singing as I bounced along past the beautiful scenes on our dirt road. I was wishing I had a video player to capture all of my favorite, beautiful spots along the trip, which this morning, were in their fullest glory.

My head was reeling, happy, full of thoughts and ideas and yet stunned by the beauty surrounding me and so grateful to live in such a place. My spirit was vibrating!

So yah, I suppose one way to look at it is that I was on my way to work with a long day ahead of me; I had had very little sleep, and that this morning, in concept, was not any different than what I do every other day… but for me… it was one of those moments… a space and place in time that brought me real joy and I wished I could share that moment with you; but I just can’t seem to capture the feelings, sights and senses with words.

You’ll just have to trust me.

2010 Garden Journey ~ The Harvest begins

Well, folks, here it is October 10th… 10-10-10 and I’m finally getting around to writing about the garden again. Many months ago, it seems, I was good at keeping you up to date on the high excitement of the Huntley garden. Big plans!

I put in a green manure cover crop way back at the end of March, unheard of that early here in New Hampshire. Just around the beginning of May, everything was going according to plan; the cover crop was big and green, so I mowed, and roto-tilled the plants into the soil and waited a week to let the plants break down. Then it rained. Every weekend and mid week for at least a month. Finally, around July 4th weekend, I got the garden planted. Only a month late. Then it never rained again.  The driest summer in a long time.

So here we are harvest time. The almanac says that we can expect a killing frost in these parts somewhere around my birthday (September 17th), and when I was a kid, that was the norm. The last few years, it has been much later… a temporary hidden blessing from the whole global warming thing. Every cloud has a silver lining kind of thing. The garden is still alive and growing. The killing frost predicted for last night never came, although it was 35 degrees out this morning. Tonight is supposed to be another cold one.

Throughout the summer, we ate a lot of veggies from the garden, especially lettuces and summer squashes. As is the pattern, by August, I loathed zucchini. And the damn things just kept coming. We sort of stopped picking them and so we eventually got some thigh sized cucurbits that were useless for anything except tossing onto the bank for the chickens to peck at. At least our feathered friends were thankful for the bountiful harvest they received every few afternoons.

My cucumber/pole bean teepee followed the same course. We had fresh cucumbers galore all summer, in salads, with salt/and vinegar, with salt and lime, with ranch dip as raw veggies in lunch boxes. Maybe we should take up the art of pickling… next year.  I like the natural version using whey instead of salt and vinegar. It makes the pickles healthy, with live cultures, just like yogurt, and they still taste great. Yup, next summer.

We never did get more than a couple jalapenos and 1 poblano pepper. The plants themselves are mammoth. I’ve never had such luxurious pepper plants; and they all had loads of blossoms, just no fruit. I’ve been told that that’s a function of a too fertile soil, that peppers prefer a tougher life…who knows. Anyone?  Any advice?

I had some heirloom plum tomatoes that seemed to be following the same path, except that there were loads of green tomatoes all summer, just nothing red. Then a few weeks ago, they ALL starting turning red. They are thick and meaty and sweet, with few seeds, grown for sauces/salsas. I’m still picking them, although puppy Tessa found a hidden way into the garden and has spent afternoons also harvesting them. Who knew puppies loved tomatoes.

Our kidney beans and turtle beans are ready and Grace & I have been picking those and drying them in the oven.  We haven’t gotten very far yet, and we already have filled a shopping bag with beans for soups and chilly. That idea paid off!  We eat beans several times a week.

 

We also have a lot of sweet little carrots, also an heirloom variety, and Swiss Chard and Kale. I made a Caldo Verde soup this morning, which will simmer all day, and used our own carrots and later I’ll add the kale. It’s gonna be good! Beets and rutabagas also look like they will be harvestable soon.

Last but not least, we grew a few pumpkins. I put in three kinds, little pie pumpkins, little hull-less seed pumpkins and a French variety. Its an heirloom also… Musque de Provence.

We didn’t get a lot of the ones that I planted, but we did get some weird hybrid gourd-ish things all over the yard and in the compost pile. Seeds from some bygone garden or compost. We do have one giant French pumpkin. It looks like the ones you see in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast movie. Huge lobes, not very tall, and flat on the bottom.

It’s funny, but the whole summer just seemed to come and go, like the garden. We were travelling through Spring 2010 with big plans, exciting ideas, optimism for all the summer events, and then… Boom… October was here. For me, it’s like we slept through Summer. If you follow me at all, you'll know that’s not quite true… we did a lot of things and I was very busy with home projects and family fun; it just seems to have gone by so fast, like the garden.

I also realized this summer how much that I really love to plan the garden, buy the seeds, plant the garden and watch it grow.

I love to see how my plan turned out. I like mixing flowers and herbs into the beds and seeing all  the different textures, colors shapes and sizes of the plants. It’s like a big soily canvas with leafy, living paints.

We are just not that good at harvesting! At the end of the summer, when it’s time to pick things,we are tired of the garden and on to new stuff, like Autumn activities.

But I guess that's one of the reasons, that I love living in New Hampshire. By the time you are tired of the season; it changes!