I’ve very strongly felt the gathering darkness this Michaelmas season. It feels like humanity’s darkest shadows are swirling in the winds of change – Fear, Greed, False Virtue, Revenge. In my heart it reminds me of the dark times that still live in the ancestral echoes in my cells – times when the ancestors were…
Tag: Fall
The Best Pumpkin Dish Ever
It’s amazing what comes from one tiny seed, one small spark of life given at the end of the season, a hope for the next one, waiting in darkness until the light and rain call forth the potential. And the patience of those seeds that wait for years, maybe centuries, for that moment to unfurl. …
Thrifty Leftover Turkey Pie With Garden Vegetables
Cold weather and busy days. There’s so much I’d like to get done before the new year, but the short days run by so quickly, and I’m left wondering to myself how it’s so easy to stay up so late knitting by the fire when the nights are so long. There are lettuce and collard…
Building A Garden
I love, more than anything else about gardening, watching the garden grow. Even before the uncertainty of putting small seeds into earth, and waiting, there is the dreaming, where long straight rows of vigorous vegetables grow in the fertile imagination. I’ve tried different gardening methods over my seasons of gardening in the past 10 years, …
All-Raw Eggnog
There was a raccoon raid on the chicken coop last night. We had seen the scoundrel lurking around the barn earlier in the evening, and in retrospect we should have dispatched him then. But everyone was tired and chilled, and Ethan felt really ill. Much later, long after the restless teenager had ceased to flick…
Dried And Frozen Persimmon Treats
Glowing orange and as sweet as candy, the cultivated persimmons are ripe and abundant right now. They are one of the delicious treats early fall has to offer, along with sweet potatoes, roselle, and pumpkins. These cultivated persimmons seem huge and mild compared to the wild persimmons we have already enjoyed. This was the first year we…
Hurricane Days
This season always brings uncertainty and shifts in weather, and with that, the hurricanes. Here in the North and the middle of the peninsula, we are usually sheltered from the worst of the winds that devastate the coasts. The last really intense hurricane season I’ve experienced was the fall and late…
Sam’s Shrimp And Roselle Leaf Curry
Roselle is a large, beautiful hibiscus relative that bears fleshy red calyxes that can be cooked or dried and made into sauces, jellies, desserts, tea, etc. It is also called the Florida Cranberry for it’s cranberry-like flavor. I have almost always grown roselle in my garden. It becomes a large, beautiful plant, over my…
Wild Persimmon Tartlettes
The wild persimmons are ripe, hanging from the fall-tattered branches like small ornaments. Wild persimmons are, at best, a gamble. They are rather like how my brother’s girlfriend once described my mother’s cooking – either really good, or really bad. It all depends on the particular tree. Some trees bear fruit that will…
Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkin seeds are easily the most delicious part of a pumpkin. It took me awhile to realize that it was well worth the trouble of separating the seeds from the stringy pulp. Before that, I gave the seeds to the pigs or goats, who were very happy to eat them. This is also…
Turning The Season
This time of the year, the summer seems to hang over everything like a thick, sweat-drenched blanket. Still, in the midst of it there are suddenly magical moments that I come on by surprise, like clouds of yellow butterflies mud puddling on the fresh cow pies that rise up in a bright whirl around…
