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Friday, August 1, 2008

The Bounteous Season

Monarch on a butterfly bush,
peaches on the porch.

All's right in the garden. (Except for a few weeds, that is. More than a few, actually. A lot, to tell the truth. But then I'm a storyteller, so who knows what the truth really is?)


Bounteous--what a great word. Liberal, generous, munificent. That describes this time of year precisely.


The gardens are laden with produce. We share easily with the pigs, assured that more will replace what we give. Friends and family leave laden with food--potatoes, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, jars of jam and jelly, fresh eggs and herbs.



Dinners are made of salads and vegetables straight from the garden. We check the corn daily to see the size of the kernels. Not yet, but soon. Peaches piled in a basket on the porch nag at my mind all day while I'm at work. Yet I know that if I can't get to them, the pigs will be seriously happy to take care of them for me.

Bounteous. Yes, that's the right word.

The end of July-beginning of August is a frenetic time. Tomatoes start to ripen in bushels, cucumbers turn into swollen bats, and we try to fend off bugs and blight so that everything produces as long as possible while we struggle to put up as much as possible in the small amounts of free time we have from work, mowing the grass and everyday household chores.

But boy do we eat good! What can be more pleasurable and flavorful than a ripe peach, juice dripping off my chin as I lean forward to keep it off my shirt?

4 comments:

  1. Oh my, those peaches look sooo good. It's been a long time since I canned any, but was just reminiscing the other day about the last time I did so with my dear MIL. She was one a one of a kind woman, near and dear to my heart, so whenever I see bushels of peaches it brings me fond memories.

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  2. mmmm....I can almost smell that bushel of ripe peaches sitting in the sun. Nothing says summer more! I have just a little garden right now, but someday plan to be able to load down any vistors with fruits and veggies just like you described...

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  3. Oh this is so the best time of the year to eat! Beautiful pictures.

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  4. Thank you, Tipper! Paula, I tihnk a garden is the very best place to find gifts. Healthy and inexpensive and usually right pretty--a good combination.

    Your month-in-law must have been a special lady, Earthheart. I wonder how many women can speak so fondly of their m-i-l? Unfortunately, I never got to really know my husband's mother as she passed away shortly after we were married.

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