Another new friend enjoys a perch in the Ancient One
It only took thirty years, but I’m grateful to finally understand that relaxation is a skill that requires cultivation and practice. My particular upbringing (and our culture), for all its privileges, left me midlife in a steady state of constant vigilance and anxiety. Meditation helped open my eyes to a different way to be, and the practice of mindfulness has opened my life to a level of contentment, acceptance, and ease I only dreamed of when I moved here thirty years ago. I still get anxious, but it doesn’t bother me as much; I still feel inclined to control things but I’m not attached to outcomes. Relaxation is so much more complicated than taking a day off and putting up my feet; however, that’s what I did today, and I really enjoyed it.
Garden Buddy brought visiting family over this morning for a short walk to the canyon, and Biko delighted them with a show eating a split tomato.Afternoon brought cool winds and thick clouds but only a few splatters of rain. Wren and I picked beans, and I consulted with my onion mentor. I was grateful to learn that I can leave these beautiful yellow onions growing in the ground til winter, and the bulbs will keep getting bigger for awhile. I’m sure I’ll use them up before the snow flies, but I’m grateful I don’t have to figure out now how or where to store them.These red onions are a rare Italian heirloom variety that will also probably keep growing their ‘torpedo’ shape for awhile longer. I pulled three of them today whose tops had bent over, thinking they’re done growing, and will use them in the first batch of salsa this weekend. I’m going to have to start picking tomatoes before they’re ripe to stay ahead of the birds, and whatever varmint ate half of the perfect tomato I was waiting just one more day to pick. It’s ok. I threw the other half over the fence for the old doe: I was so grateful to see her return to the yarden after a few days away. I’m grateful for the bounty of color, beauty, taste, and nutrition coming on daily.
I’m grateful today for grapefruit! I’m grateful for Kathy for so many reasons, for so many years, but today especially that she sent me a bag of grapefruit from the tree in her yard. Citrus trees in your yard are certainly one good reason to live in Florida. These days, between fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, and the governor, I can’t imagine ever moving back there; but I’m sure grateful for the years I lived there, and the lifelong friends I made there, a couple of lifetimes ago.
Salty Dog cocktail: 1.5 oz gin or vodka, 3 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, shaken on ice and poured into a glass whose rim has been pressed into the grapefruit and then into a dish of flaky sea salt. Yum!
I know she sent them with some misguided sense that they would provide me a healthy breakfast. Instead, I squeezed the first one into a salty dog for this evening’s cocktail. I finished the bird puzzle, and then watched the Kennedy Center Honors when other Florida friends texted to remind me they were coming on. I’m grateful for this annual televised celebration of the arts, that our president was once again in attendance after they were boycotted by the previous administration, that JFK was a staunch believer in the importance of the performing arts, and that I grew up down the road from the Kennedy Center (50 this year) and enjoyed many events there during its early years. I’m grateful for the moving performances in tribute to Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, operatic bass-baritone Justino Díaz, Motown founder Berry Gordy, and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels; and grateful for these five sublime artists. Grateful to have a TV, grateful for internet so I could stream the show, grateful, grateful… I don’t wish to break this habit.
The last of 2019’s almond crop, store-bought organic romaine and cheddar, and homemade ranch dressing: so much to be grateful for within a simple salad in deep winter. Grateful for the almond tree, that feeds bees in spring and provided pounds of fruit last year; this second crop proved the tree is not a bitter almond after all but a sweet one. This year, drought and an exceptionally hard spring freeze yielded only a handful of nuts, which I left for birds and squirrels. I still had a bag frozen from the previous summer, and thawed them out last week intending to bake or cook with them. After thawing, I slow-roasted them with a spritz of olive oil and some kosher salt, until they were crunchy, and set them on the counter to cool.
I keep snicking a few here and there over the next few days til I can get time to bake, and next thing I know, there aren’t enough left in the bowl to grind for a torte. A couple more days and all that’s left is a handful for salad. Oh well, and yum! Each crunch is a reminder of all that each almond took to get here.
Red Admiral butterfly pollinating almonds in May.
Ripe almonds in September.
I tried the “tarp under the tree whack it with a broom” method of harvesting, but it felt all wrong, smacking the limbs of the living tree, so after a few whacks I gathered the sheet and went back to snapping individual nuts or handfuls off the twigs. Over the course of a few weeks, I harvested several bowls full and enjoyed sitting outside processing them. Most I used before I harvested the next batch, and I saved the last in the freezer.
Shelling commences.Layers peeled away reveal milky raw kernels inside the shells inside the hulls.They were a bit soft after a year in the freezer, but with some oil, salt, and heat they crisped right up, good as new.
So, today I’m grateful for almonds in winter, and grateful for this trip down memory lane. I’m grateful for Philip, who among other demonstrations of friendship delivers groceries, grateful he’s survived Covid to once again bring cheddar cheese and greens, grateful for the growers and pickers of organic romaine, the makers of cheese, all the people all along the trail of ways these foods get to the store, drivers, road maintainers, all the conditions that make it happen that Philip can buy lettuce in December….
Stellar by moonlight. Grateful, as always, for my good dog, who always gets last bite of everything.
One of my best friends this summer has been the peach tree.
With James and the Giant Peach entrained early in life, there has always been something special to me about peaches, and this tree itself holds such meaning. Maybe that story is also why I love bugs and all other living creatures. That story, and “Are You My Mother?”
One of the first fruit trees I planted here, over the graves of a dog and a cat, I planted in memory of a woman I loved, Daryl Ann. She died of breast cancer twelve years ago, and lives in my heart for all time. So it’s a special tree, the peach tree.
It took a few years before it made more than a few peaches, and even since has only produced a bounty of peaches once before. This year, against the freeze odds, it made so many! I thinned, as I’ve been taught to do, a few weeks after the tree itself shed almost half its first flush of tiny green fruits. I’ve paid particular attention to it since then, nurturing with extra food and water, watching the growth and ripening of fruits closely, monitoring it daily for the past month in order to catch the most peaches as ripe as possible before the birds get them all.
On cold snowy days in spring, hot sunny days in summer, the oppressive smoky days of high fire season, cooler ripening days, I’ve spent time with the peach tree, dusting early for aphids before they could cripple early leaves, thinning, communing, watering, weeding around, photographing; generally keeping company with the peach tree, hanging out with and appreciating it.
early summer
mid-summer
A month of smoke from wildfires
and finally, ripening!
Cocktails with the peach tree before first harvest
This summer’s first peach harvest, about a third of what was on the tree. I watched and waited every day, until after a big wind I saw a couple of peaches on the ground. That evening I picked every peach that would let go easily.
Plenty of peaches left, growing brighter every day.
The August Manhattan includes a dash of peach bitters in addition to the regular Angostura and the secret ingredient, and is garnished with chunks of fresh peach.
We made a peach pie with the last frozen peaches from two years ago, in anticipation of a fresh harvest. Thawed slightly sitting out, or 20 seconds or so in the microwave, the peels slip off easily and flesh pops right off the pit. Thanks, cuz, for taking pictures!
Silicone mat (thanks, neighbor!) makes crust rolling easy.
The second harvest from the tree, a bowl to share and a bowl to keep.
And STILL peaches ripening on the tree, irresistible after a light rain. Altogether I picked three big bowls, and a few in between, always only pulling those that gave up easily.
An early sign that I’d better get the last of them off the tree…
… and after birds, just a picked-clean pit. I did leave a couple of dozen on purpose for the birds, including one with a perfect view from the patio, so I could catch someone in the act.
Last peaches, gifts for birds, glowing in the August sunset.
… the best part of the August Manhattan.
The peach tree finally at rest after a fruitful season.
