The color of harvest...

The colors fell into piles leaving stark branches behind. I could almost smell the burning leaves of my childhood, now made illegal because of pollution. How I had loved to be in charge of the burning of leaves at the curb! I earned the privilege by showing how carefully I added just a few more rakefuls to the pile and didn't allow the flames to rage.

But now the only flames were in the color of maples, and their glowing cinders slowly drifted until they were slowly extinguished on the ground, getting ready with the help of the snow to merge with the loam beneath them, slowly, slowly....

And in the stillness and crispiness of it, we scurried like squirrels to bring in the last of the harvest. The light went from somber-bright to slanted to shadowy to dusky all too quickly, and we had potatoes left to dig and squash left to cut. Everyone scurried. The wheelbarrow was filled to the tipping point and run up to the porch. Boxes were topped off, then couldn't be lifted. Small arms were filled while small legs ran for the kitchen.

Frost was coming. The great white steed of the north was about to blow out his ice-breath. By morning the grass would be crunchy-white and the squash plants droopy-black.

The goats looked on, munching mouthfuls of alfalfa and timothy to keep warm with. The bacteria in their guts happily stoked up the fires of metabolism when fed such fine fodder, and they would not be cold.

But our noses reddened and we wondered where last winter's mittens had gotten to.

Gradually the dark took over, and the feeble porch light shed no glow on the garden. It was time to quit. As we moved the piles of veggies from the porch to the kitchen, we looked over our shoulders toward the darkened plot and wondered what we had abandoned....

Inside we went about our business: homework, practicing, the cooking of supper. We had turned the heat on just the day before, and we were toasty. Clumps of earth stuck to everything, squash, children, shoes. Later we spread newspapers on the floor and lined the harvest up on them. Hands on our hips, we stood in a circle and smiled, and then got back to work.

1977

Harvest

As the end of August arrived, we had a better mix of heat and cool, including a few truly chilly mornings. Maples were showing signs of turning to fall colors. And young goats were coming into heat.

Meanwhile, we were enjoying a bounty from the garden. Tomatoes were inundating us, as were zucchini. Our favorite bounty, though, came in the form of purply shiny-skinned eggplant, which we used at virtually every meal but breakfasts.

There was of course fufarah, now full of green peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and big chunks of eggplant. We also had eggplant sandwiches made of fried eggplant slices, goat cheese, and fresh-picked lettuce. But perhaps our favorite was babaganoush, a mixture of cooked eggplant and sesame tahini, mixed with lemon juice, garlic, and a bit of salt. The fact that all this sumptuous eating was for free was hard to comprehend.

Another garden treat was jerusalem artichokes. We had discovered these in the food boxes we got each week from the coop, and though it was expensive to plant them instead of eat them, we were reward by a long row of tall sunflower-like stalks with small flowers on top. And all we had to do to add a sunchoke to the meal was to dig about their roots and pull up as many as we wanted.

We had to learn a few tricks about cooking them: to saute them in oil takes a while, until they give up and soften, then brown. Before they brown, they taste like oysters, while afterward more like potatoes. They could also be steamed and eaten like potatoes, or mixed with potatoes and mashed. But our potatoes were still in the ground, and we were happy enough to cut the sunchokes in discs or strips and add them early to the pot that would sooner or later contain all the components of fufarah.

So we ate well. A slice of our beloved pure-white goat cheese went on the top of almost everything. There was never a food as glorious as our homemade whole-wheat bread toasted, a thick slice of tomato still hot from the garden added along with lettuce, the bread spread with butter or good mayonnaise, and then goat cheese in its 1x3 inch slices aligned across the top so that a knife-cut would not disturb it. It was a bit messy to eat, but accompanied by mint 'tea', it made a 100% satisfying lunch. Or we'd just eat it in hand, or crumbled into fufarah or onto a garden salad.

So harvest brought a lot of joy, and it was just beginning.

1977.

Thunder

Thunder is the sound of hope to me, of change and relief. It doesn't always work out, but usually thunder comes with rain and cooler air, blustery squally air, breathable bug-free air.

And so it was in August 1977 that with the death of my father and the unfathomable ways of my neighbor came blessed thunderstorms.

They heralded fall, and school days, and goats in heat. But more than anything, to me, they heralded hope.

I had made it through another summer, and though more hot days would visit us, they would not stay. There would be no more relentless stretches of misery.

Thunder also heralded watermelons from the garden, and a harvest of corn, which was waiting for us as we got back from the funeral.

And soon the squashes would be ready, and the potatoes big enough to dig for.

Life was good. The trials of spring and summer were yielding to the turn of the seasons, and I was filled with such optimism that I couldn't help but stand out on the porch and breathe deeply.

I searched the maples for signs of color and found tell-tale yellows dappling the abundance of green in their crowns as if the sun were shining on them.

But there was no sun. It was gone behind roiling black clouds that fulfilled the thunder's promise. I ducked back inside as huge drops soaked the porch in moments.

I shivered with delight and a welcome chill, and watched the barn disappear behind a sheet of steel that connected the silvered earth with the steely skies. The children poured in soaked and huddled with me, their puddles mingling with mine till the kitchen was flooded. The thunder rolled and rolled and rolled. The lightning smashed against us, bringing the dogs to tremble against our legs. We sighed and shivered until we were actually cold, then ran for towels and dry clothes. The thunder rolled away.

The garden leaned. The beans looked beaten, and the potato vines dashed to a pulp.

But then the sun came out, the air dried out, and the garden righted itself. It was time for harvest. Summer would no longer press against us with its thick white air and too bright yellow light. Tomorrow when the furrows were no longer filled with rain, we would reach into the ground and gather the goodness.

Our reward was a upon us. My hope was fulfilled.

1977.

Turning points

The next days were full of turmoil and turning points.

We took care of the neighbors' goats while they were away. I went over and got my instructions, and then for the next three days I followed those instructions. But when Nancy got back she accused me of stealing half a bag of their feed. And no thank yous.

I got a call from my mother. My father wasn't doing well. As soon as they gave him a treatment - draining his belly of excess fluid - he deteriorated again. And each treatment left him without energy. Back in the winter the doctor had said that if he had one more drink it would kill him and he never had another, though he continued to smoke. It looked like it might already be too late.

The last days of July sweated themselves away with mosquito-y milkings at night and fly-hazed chores in the morning. Milk filled the fridge and the freezer, and on the counter the new wheels of cheese tended to mold in the unrelenting 90-degree temperatures and over-abundant humidities.

Then the call came. My father was in the hospital. The last treatment had been too rough on him. I needed to go home.

I left by train that night, and prayed the peculiar prayer that he would die before I got there: I was too afraid to see him weakened and dying. Lifelong friends were to pick me up at the Stamford station and take me straight to the hospital. When I got there he was alive, and I did see him. He was comatose.

His arms were bruised. Propped up, he half-lay under the white sheets. Mercifully he had no tubes: he hadn't wanted them back a few years before when he made those kinds of decisions, calmly, unconcernedly, in happier days. He had wanted nothing extraordinary and he had nothing extraordinary now.

I drove home my mother and my sister, who had come, and talked about this and that. I slept fitfully in the heat with the big old window fan blowing on me, the same as had kept me sane in the miserable summer days of my childhood. I consumed quantities of cold water and thought of my father with no tubes. How thirsty he must be! When morning came, we drove back to the hospital.

My sister had come in some days before, and together we visited and held vigil. My sister was a few months pregnant. Her enthusiasm about having a third child was under control. Her bump made me envious, and also hopeful that someday we too might have another child.

But we were there to be with my father, and I was not content to turn my back on him. I went to his bedside and talked to the unconscious familiar and unfamiliar face.

He responded with a grunt.

So I talked some more. And I asked him if he wanted some water.

He nodded vigorously, so I used a straw to dribble an inch or two of water at a time into his dry mouth. He scared me by choking on it, so I asked if he wanted more. He nodded earnestly.

So all afternoon I dribbled the life-giving water into his eager mounth and talked to him. He didn't say anything, but expressed his interest with small nods, all the while receiving the next inch of water eagerly.

He knew I was there, and I wondered if that worried him. We had a deep communion during those hours. I was able to give him that life-sustaining potion, water. Or love.

The next day I needed to hurry back to take care of family and farm. I was there a day when the call came: he had died. My mother and sister had opted not to go early to the hospital the morning after I left, and a few hours into the day they received the dreaded call. It was August 19, 1977. My father was dead at age 68 of liver disease. And kidney failure due to dehydration.

I ran next door and asked Nancy if she could take care of the goats while we went home for the funeral. She refused.

I got on the phone and could find no one home. All were on vacation. I begged Nancy.

Finally she relented. I thanked her and we piled in the car for the three-hour drive to Connecticut and the intense days ahead.

Dog days

The heat of July was upon us. It was steamy from morning to night and through to the next morning. The sun was high in the sky and cooked any creature that ventured out. The goats lay prostrate in the shade of the barn, moving from the west side in the morning to the east side in the afternoon. 

And the dogs and cats lay as flat as they could on the kitchen floor, or under the shade of an apple tree if they were one of the outdoor cats.

The people hid in dark corners with their library books and drank gallons of water, or they sat on the basement steps where somewhat cooler air could be found.

The mosquitos filled the twilight evening and stirred up the steam with their buzzing. We had to put winter jackets on to milk so we wouldn't be eaten alive and drained of every drop of our overheated blood. Only our hands stuck out into the buggy air - there was no other way to milk. The goats' tender udders were covered with bites, and as soon as their heads were freed from the milk stand headholder, they whipped around and bit at the new welts.

By the next morning, with the overnight temperatures finally lowering to the high 80s and the sun rising early and sizzling, a new generation of flies was out waiting for us in the barn. We had to cover the milk pail with a paper towel to keep them out, and while we milked they buzzed our ears and bit our necks. We had hung fly tape above the milk room and in several other places in the barn, and each strip was soon blackened with fly bodies, but with no breeze - and there was no breeze - a black cloud hung stationary and nastily around us.

We waited through the days and hoped for a thunder storm that might signal a change of weather but at least would cool us a bit. Heat lightning flashed above the trees from some distant luckier town but never came closer no matter how long we looked at it and longed for it.

Day after day the heat hung on us, unstoppable in its flow from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of Maine. No mountains rose in between to stop it.

But two young creatures roused themselves at the end of each day, even in the persistant heat, and shook off their lethargy. The beagle boys were ready for their nightly hunt, and who knew what raccoon or neighbor cat was waiting for them! Their eager noses began to twitch at sunset, and by dark, when we were all dashing in from the barn with our itchy hands and full buckets, they were ready for their nightly run.

Off they went, only the white tips of their tails visible, and then only their yodels audible. 

When they came back, called in at the last minute before we went to bed, their bellies heaving and their tongues heavy, we made sure they had a bucketload of water each. They flopped down and went to sleep, their legs still running the woods. 

And we flopped down on top of the sheets and spreadeagled and tried to think comfortable thoughts. Soon the sun was up again, the buzzing began, and we searched the sky for clouds. And there were none. The dogs slept...