Life, Mind and Garden Abuzz

We are, at this moment, getting slimed by a furious thunderstorm, slap-dab in the middle of a Sunday morning. The past 2 weeks have given us lots of rain.

Classic images of farmers will tell you that rain is good. I think of rain sometimes along with an image of a leather-faced farmer looking up to the sky, straw hat tipped upwards, along with eyebrows knit in concentrated hope. While our culture is on the whole disconnected from this reality, it remains a reality nonetheless that rain brings life.

And life abundantly. Two days ago I went to check on my garden, after taking a blissful break for a week while the rains came down. Again, absence made the growth more apparent; I was surprised that the vines had nearly carpeted the whole patch. The baby butternut squashes, barely existent the week before, had doubled in size. The greatest surprise waited in the summer squash bush, like an obese child playing hide-and-go-seek behind a lamppost. One squash lay, brilliant yellow, warty and swollen, nested in the arms of the plant. It was about two-thirds the length of my arm.

Greater shock yet remained. I pushed aside the furrily-spikey leaves of the zucchini plant to see whether it had yet decided to produce fruit. Bees and beetles buzzed beneath its canopy, and yellow flowers continued to unfurl daintily. Don’t be fooled by these fairy-like images, though. Because underneath at all, I finally discovered an ogre of a zucchini, stretched out and snoozing, camouflaged dark green under the plant. Uttering expletives of surprise, I pulled the thing off its vine (after photographing it, duh!), feeling it drool juice from this new wound out onto my fingers. It was heavy, several pounds, and the size of my lower leg. There was another, just inches shorter and ounces lighter.

Meanwhile, there are other fruits and vegetables in excess all over town. There’s a crabapple tree I know of that’s nearly ready to be shaken and freed of its rosy-green fruit, as well as a tree dripping with purple-gray plums outside the café where I work. I could be a full-time homesteader right now—picking, cutting, pitting, peeling, baking, freezing, drying, canning. There’s more around, and available for little to no cost, than we have time to prepare or put away.

This makes me wonder: Why seasons? Think about the contrast.

Now, it is summer. Color abounds, in landscape and in diet. Flowers cut from gardens (even from vacant lots, for the imaginative) endlessly adorn our tables. Our meals are stuffed with fruit of the land. First come the strawberries, followed by blueberries and melons. Beans, beets, broccoli, greens, peppers. And the corn—fresh and tender, exploding sweetness into the mouth. Fuzzy peaches, bumpy squash, plump cherries. One can be bored neither by the cuisine nor the activities of living, for the sun allows us to be out at all hours. Then there is the preservation of all things edible, which once occupied the summers of those on this land. This allowed not only for the nourishment of the body in times of scarcity, but also for variety in dullness. How sweet, lovely, and precious is a jar of homemade jam in the depths of winter, when we are just dying to see real, deep reds or blues on our plates! These things maintain the memory of warmer times.

Fast forward: Winter. Nothing grows here. We eat lots of animal products, and root vegetables stored in cellars somewhere. Pies and cakes are filled with spices, pumpkin (another veggie stored in cold, dark places), dried fruits, or nuts. We pay fortunes for fruits imported from other parts of the country or of the world and for meager portions of green things. In the meantime, we stare gloomily at barren landscapes of skeletal trees and drab colors.

Although the variety is enjoyable, it can also be a bit jarring. Sometimes, although I am always safe and fed, I feel like I will waste away in the winter. Why is it like this? Why such extremes of abundance and lack? I ask not because I am altogether ignorant of the mechanics of weather, but because I believe in a Maker who intentionally designed this part of the world to function in this way. Does not this entire world speak something from his heart? So what is it about the juxtaposition of seasons, the constant rhythm of yearning in winter and overflowing fullness in summer, that he wants to speak?

I want to raise the question, and mull over it a bit longer yet. For the time being, there are summery things to be done, providing a lovely opportunity for thought and discussion on the matter.