Nearly Mid-October, on this very early morning, woke with a start. Baskets of tomatoes are waiting in my mud room. Thought I should get up and start processing them before it's too late.
Still dark outside, and as I was washing, peeling and slicing tomatoes,I could hear frog song. In a couple of days, there will be the first hard frost and the gardens will turn inward and everything will become very quiet and still. I wish this were true in all aspects of my life, but it isn't. I'm around a lot daily busyness.
An infantry of glass jars full of tomato sauce or assorted jams are lined up on my dining room table. Soon they will march into the cupboard for safe keeping. But, right now, I'm admiring them. What happiness they will bring in the weeks to come. Nothing better than this.
The work this year has been long and hard. Soon, very soon, we will be closing things up for the upcoming winter. Have been seeing a lot of woolly caterpillars, with wide bands of black and tan.
I wonder if we're going to have a cold, snowy winter. Last year was harsh.
It's warm this morning. Not like the first days of October, when we had some raw weather.
So much so, we built fires in the wood stoves to take the chill out of our farmhouse. We usually wait until the last possible moment to crank up the furnace.
Last weekend, was very different. Warm, gorgeous blue lake sky days. Spent several of those days taking another pass in the garden, harvesting carrots, potatoes, acorn squash, tomatoes,
hubbard squash, beets. We put by a lot of squash and tomatoes. My granddaughter was here and we had a wonderful time shucking dry beans together. Beautiful black and white beans.
I have another batch, drying. I think they're mostly cranberry beans. I love these too.
Timing is everything. So far, we've been on time. I can smell the tomatoes simmering on the stove. Soon,this batch will become a thick, velvety tomato soup with white beans.
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Publishing News: Currently I have poems up at The Apple Valley Review and Untitled Country Review; recent acceptances in Tar River Poetry, L.E.S. Review, & The Prose Poem Project.
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Michael Meyerhofer read last night at St. John Fisher College and will read tonight at LiftBridge Bookstore in Brockport. I really enjoyed his work. Looking forward to spend a bit more time with him this weekend at the Just Poets Retreat at The Gell Center in the Bristol Mountains.
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