Cottage Industry

Our Little Town is bustling with activity! Kids of all ages are back in school, the squirrels are stashing walnuts as fast as they can drop from our tree, and in spite of a heat wave that’s been cooking us with temps above 100°, there’s that smell some mornings that signals autumn is on its way. And everyone knows autumn is the time of year when prairie people panic (don’t say that into a mic without a good windscreen). With the first whiff of cool northern air, we shift into overdrive; we stock the larder, smack the dust out of our parkas with a rug beater, darn our woolies, and prepare to hunker down.

Inis Meain shawl between Pretzel's unravelings.

Photo David Shaw: The Real Deal

Ray and I have been getting in some end-of-season kayaking, a chance to relax for a bit, paddle around a lake, and pretend the garden isn’t at that very moment busting out of its fence and heading for the neighbor’s cat. Feed me, Seymour.

I have three poetry manuscripts finished and out looking for publishing homes—it’s amazing what you can accomplish with TIME (retire as early as you possibly can). Ray’s been playing lots of summer gigs and continues to amaze me with his quiet (ironic for a drummer?), consistent excellence. But he still won’t play “Wipe Out” for me.

We’ve also gotten in quite a bit of domestic industry. I’m working on a crocheted Inis Meáin shawl, a traditional shawl worn layered over dresses in Ireland back in the day. Like the Fates who spin out the thread of life, our puppy Pretzel occasionally decides I’ve had my “allotment,” and he pulls my skein of yarn apart, weaves it throughout the house, and wraps it tightly around table legs. Reclaiming my yarn is a lot like a game of Twister.

Sun sugar cherries...LOTS of them.

Cherry tomato confit, of course!

Ray bought a used set of electronic drums and has been working to convert Mom’s room into a music parlor. We have the piano, drums, and a host of stringed instruments all in one place now. Mom would love that her space is filled with playing and singing.

Roasting...more...tomatoes...

We’ve lost whatever false sense of control we ever had about keeping up with our garden, but we’ve put up dozens of quarts of roasted tomatoes. We’ve eaten cucumbers and zucchini until we finally put a “FREE” table out front to “gift” our surplus. We froze gooseberries, pesto, basil, and tomato confit. We dried parsley, basil, and dill. We have a lug of peaches on deck for processing. And with this week’s heat, we’re far from done.

Someone's been in the peaches...

I can’t quite explain my joy at seeing the pantry full of home-canned bounty. We live a mile or two from the Corporate Monster store, yet we stockpile tomatoes like they’ll soon have to buoy us through an apocalypse, like we know they’ll be currency if we need to trade for beaver castor for our steel conibear traps (which we don’t have).

Good year for our gooseberry bushes!

Gooseberry "pudding" is more like a cobbler.

I think my devotion to canning, drying, and freezing a summer’s worth of stuff I couldn’t work through in my lifetime (I’ve got frozen parsley that’s probably 25 years old) is a hereditary and geographical fear of Jack Blizzard, and his ability to lock us in during winter. I read a brilliant short story once, “Winter” by Kit Reed, where two old sisters in an isolated cabin find an ingenious way to stock their larder during a blizzard. I won’t give it away, but let’s just say without my garden and my canning obsession, I could BE one of those sisters…

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve never gone hungry a day in my life, except for my teens, when I lived on sunflower seeds and Boone’s Farm, or when I’ve gone willingly down some brutally restrictive diet hole. Still, I look at my seventeen jars of pickled jalapeños (2005) and my 13 jars of wild plum jam (2007 and yes, I’ll still eat them though I won’t feed them to guests), plus the last two years’ worth of tomatoes, pickles, and peaches, and I know I won’t starve.

Did we plant that zucchini on purpose?!?

They're breaking out!

A full larder is a joyous thing...

This weekend we’ve got a granddaughter’s 10th birthday to fuss over, more tomatoes ripening in this heat, and a couple of trees to plant. But first, a night of dancing and merriment at our Little Town Watering Hole, for what we like to call our Friday night happy hour “church service”—we are fervent, faithful, and [ir]reverent about our Friday evenings with Ray’s Little Town band. Then, it’s back to the industry and welcome, Autumn!

The Boyz in the Band