Here it is. August again. In the thumb of Michigan, for a girl with overzealous spring planting ambitions, it is the moment of overwhelming abundance. I harvested enough green beans today for 10 people all at once, or 2 for people over a few months. Fabulous. I chopped some beets and apples into some cabbage with salt and spices to ferment for a few days into sauerkraut. The basket of tomatoes was too heavy for me to carry. The peppers, honestly, could supply 20 people with salsa all winter long. I don't have enough freezer space or shelf space or tummy space for all this goodness. Don't you wish you were eating @ my house? So, I suppose my victory garden is a success. To keep away the vegetable destroying bugs, I have planted my garden and yard with plants that beneficial insects love.....and chickens. I have sprayed only organic matter in the garden. The reward is in the copious hummingbirds and butterflies and bees and amphibians that thrive in my yard. And it's in my belly and blood and bones and hair.
On a day as happy as this one, I think in metaphor. Like, I hope my life is like my gardens. I mean, the beginning is exciting with possibilities...and then the weeding begins...(that might be those 20's and 30's when it's all about working for the reward later. I have to say that I do love this stage...the days are long, the sun is hot and there is time for swimming and barbecues if you can manage time well and prioritize. I notice too, that these days it seems that the majority of what sustains me are those efforts of others. I'm eating mostly from the healthy apple trees planted 20 years ago and the wheat harvested from the season before. But the days begin to fly by and I'm hoping that I will start to harvest more small and beautiful fruits of my labor (like the beets and greens and herbs) to keep me motivated and fed until the big harvest comes. It sure is overwhelming joy to harvest those fruits of the labor of earlier days, but I can imagine from watching my parents beginning the process, that it's work, too. It's not the same as weeding, but you've got to get that produce into jars somehow to feed you through the coming winter. And then I imagine those days when the jars are full, the sunlight is waning, the garden is down to bearing only the most winter hardy plants, and I open a jar of tomato sauce, take some berries out of the freezer, and relax into dinner.

the two sides to my story

The air today feels like summer in the Rockies....cool and dry and sunny. I am packing today. Every time I put things in boxes, it feels a little more real, a bit more probable. It is difficult for me to live these two lives...or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's what I was made for. To be Christian and Pagan, farmer and traveler. When I am in the garden or the woods or the fields in August, I want to stay and make plans to cultivate. And I know, although I have been avoiding the thought for months, that winter will come here again and staying means living through that miserable, lonely, dark part of the year. I have been avoiding the reality of time passing and the dichotomy of storing up for winter and preparing to leave the state.
It is coming to a head. The ending summer is not just the end of ease and comfort and bare feet and colorful gardens and wind in the leaves and the sounds of insects and birds......it is also facing my hopes of leaving and starting something else, somewhere else. I long for it and fear it.