A bountiful and on-going harvest

- Waiting to ripen -

The garden continues to give and give and give. I am not much of a house Frau when it comes to kitchen doings, especially canning, but thankfully we know others who are so endowed. We've been presented with good pickled okra and loaves of zucchini bread, not made by me, but coming from our own field. We're eating fresh every night and it feels like an accomplishment (though very little on my part, of the gardening) and gives us healthy nourishment.

In the cream bottle, to the left in the photo, is an Oneida spoon that was found while cultivating our little patch of land. A bit of research concluded that the pattern is from a 1948 line of implements put out by the company. My grandfather bought this property, much more than my small part, in 1941. The spoon was found around where the front of the barn, no longer with us, was located, and in an area where vehicles were parked and worked on.

I could say, oh, just a spoon, but I like to ponder how that spoon came to be in that place. The barn may not have been built until the 1950's, but that still gives a timeline that might include my grandpa possibly having his lunch in front of the barn and losing the spoon. Maybe my uncle or father dropped it. Perhaps I carried a spoon off for digging and left it behind.

Then my mind jumps to my grandma and her kitchen, where the spoon might have been pilfered from, and my memories of being there with her: the little paned windows, steamed-up during breakfast; an aluminum pitcher that sat in the fridge, full of cold water; nickels, pennies and dimes stuck in the inside of cabinet corners, to be used for stamps; the smell of lunch being made for my uncle and dad and whatever hand was working for them at the time.

As I cook squash and corn and black-eyed peas, I feel like I'm recreating a time gone past and the comfort that being in my grandma's kitchen gave me. Add in cucumbers, cantaloupes, and watermelon and you'll soon find a woman who has lost the battle with her diet. Healthy nourishment doesn't necessarily translate to skinny.