Fall already! Harvest season. Although that nomenclature “harvest time” doesn’t really make sense to me, as we have been harvesting since February, when we tapped our maple trees.
But yes, this is when the field crops of corn and beans and whatever is grown in your part of the northern hemisphere, are brought in. It is also certainly the time when life slows down. Although I am loathe to admit it, a few weeks existed this past summer when I was just too crazy busy and tired. Hauling hundreds of pounds of cucumbers every week will do that to you! Now is the time to stop and appreciate – and to reflect upon another year almost gone by, another growing season complete.
And to consider that I turned 64 this summer. How did that happen? How on earth could I possibly be 64?! Although of course, many feel the same way at 40 or 50. My father, God rest his soul, wouldn’t believe me when I reminded him he was 90. In his somewhat disoriented mind he was generally convinced he had just left school.
No getting around it though – 64 implies something big. No more denying that very, very soon I will be a for sure “senior citizen.” Yikes! No denying either that I was quite aware this summer that all this physical work took a toll on me. It isn’t as easy as it once was. Aging is a reality that must be confronted.
And so, right now, I give thanks for another season of being able to do what I love. In so many ways it IS pretty amazing. I am especially struck by this every time I visit our cellar for one reason or another.
Trust me, our cellar isn’t pretty. It is definitely not a finished basement. As we live in the midst of farm fields, at some time every fall it is visited by mice – at times in the past those visitors included black snakes and even a ground hog. When we moved here we despaired over the cellar. It was truly a mess. But over the years, through concerted effort it has been painted and brightened and lots of shelves and better electrical outlets installed. The spring rains have been diverted (although we still get nervous around times of heavy rain).
I so appreciate our cellar, and of late have been giving tours (which gives my dear husband fits). Why would I invite people to a 150-year-old hole in the ground? Into what our dear young Japanese friend termed “the Harry Potter cave?!!”
Primarily because I so appreciate the bounty I store there. One side holds lots of wine finished and in-process. Under grow lights in the winter are pots of herbs, spikes, extra spider plants, and all my overwintering geraniums. I have crates of canna, gladiola, and dahlia bulbs ready for planting again next year, and amaryllis just repotted.
The other side holds over two-dozen-dozen jars of canned food, processed through our kitchen the previous couple of years. Tomato products, various salsas, numerous forms of pickles, green beans, corn, and beets are ready to be used. Next to them sit jars of apples, pears, peaches, cherries and berries. Several kinds of jam and fruit butters. Canned chicken, broth, soup share space with bean, tomato and vegie soup for quick meals. Juices and cordials are near our jars of honey and maple syrup. On the floor are crates of Irish potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes. I have a tub of onions and braids of garlic.
I look at this bountiful harvest and am overwhelmingly grateful. It is astonishing to me, even after 40 years of this work, that we have this abundance of goodness. And it is all stored in this most innocuous of places, which took us so many years to appreciate.
This gratitude, I have come to understand, is an advantage of living 64 years. Understanding a bit more every year about the beauty and goodness that can hide in the most unexpected of places. Learning to look for that, to see a bit deeper.
As I get older I also see now that even those parts of myself that I tried so hard to ignore or overlook, those aspects of my history I would rather forget – play an incredibly important role. They provide important food for me upon which to reflect, and which need not be rejected, but should be integrated into my life. They, as much the more easily recognized gifts and credentials of my past years, truly are foundational for my future life. After all, in able for us to live the physical life we wish to live here at Lilac Woods farm, this dingy and cobwebby cellar is as important as are the insulated and well-painted walls above it!
What a thought – and what a thought that it is this place holding the harvest now. It is down those stairs into the deep I must travel to find nourishment for the journey ahead. Yep, it’s not always easy to make that trip and to descend into the depths. Sometimes, almost always to at least some extent, it is darn hard! And yet, what a waste it would be to ignore the opportunities for growth that are stored there.
I wonder, what potential positives hide in your own cellar? What harvest might you reap via a willingness to visit there, and to befriend and perhaps eventually to love what you find? I can only imagine all the wonderful directions that journey might take!
