We had our first pickup at our local CSA the other day: Dandelion
greens, lettuce, collards, arugula, bok choy.
And we got to pick a pint of strawberries which we ate—still warm—right
in the field.
In my own garden, my peas are up; several varieties of beans
and cucumbers, too. The carrots are just
starting to put in an appearance and yesterday, I planted an Egyptian Walking
onion my friend brought me from her garden.
My strawberries are ripening, but, despite the fence I’ve
got around the garden, the rabbits have found a way to reach them, to steal the
succulent red berries and leave the empty stem dangling from the vine.
It looks as though strawberries won’t be available—to my family at
least—from our backyard garden this year.
Nor will there be picking at the farm down the street: The unseasonably
warm weather followed by torrential rains rotted the berries in the field. And so, I watch a second farm for strawberry
season to begin there.
* *
*
On a recent college tour, V told us that if she could go
back in time, she’d go to the 1920s and be a flapper. There was no question as to where in time my
husband would travel: He’d surely be a Colonist. But when I was younger, I wanted to go back in
time and live completely off the land. I remember being about seven, sitting in the dark
cool forest on the bank of the river, cupping water into my mouth with both
hands. But then, my mother would call me
for dinner. I’d have to pick up the river—a
container of tap water and—and check the forest floor—the green carpeting—for spills
before fully coming back to the present.
My parents eventually sold that house and bought forty acres with real
woods and a clear stream and my wish to go back to simpler times only strengthened.
I always thought I was the only one who wanted to go back; who had this yearning for the old
times. But after attending a Colonial reenactment
last weekend, after watching people dressed in costume speaking passionately
about history, trying to live according to the old ways if only for one afternoon a week, I realized I wasn’t alone.
And I wonder…what is it about our present lives that
dissatisfies us so much that we long to go back to more difficult times?
* *
*
I’m getting tired of using my vacuum; passively running a
hose over the upholstery while it haphazardly decides whether to pick up dust
and dog hair and popcorn kernels. When
my sisters and I cleaned house with our mom on Saturday mornings, tag-teaming a
room at a time, we used a whisk broom to tackle stairs and couches.
And I like the idea of using my own energy rather than
fossil fuel to clean a room. So I went looking
for my own whisk broom to bring a little of the past back into my life.
I tried Home Depot.
No luck.
I looked in Target.
Nothing there.
Two grocery stores.
Nope.
In each store, there were rows of bottles filled with liquid,
blue…green…yellow…orange. There were
fancy brooms and mops. There were
brushes of all sorts. But there were no
whisk brooms to be found.
Finally, in my Lehman’s catalogue, I found whisk brooms,
Amish-made.
I ordered two.
And now I settle in to wait for the arrival of my Amish
whisk brooms with as much anticipation as I wait for strawberry season to begin.
Labels: Community, Gardening, Growing up