The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Harvest
The harvest is in! Peaches, plums, strawberries, nectarines! Raspberries, apricots, mandarin oranges! Ripe and juicy, plump and sweet. Hanging like Christmas ornaments, gleaming in the morning sun.
We grab our wicker baskets and hats, and pull on our long-sleeved shirts. We tromp down the stone steps to the garden beds at the bottom of our back slope. The branches are loaded!
“Lizard!” Mateo calls out, as a gecko scurries across our path and scoots into a dark space between the stones. My son crouches down to lizard level, eyeball to eyeball with the prehistoric thing. “Green!”
“I want all the black raspberries,” Olivia announces, not pausing to look. “Forty-four hundred ninety-two.” She finds a level spot to set down her basket and goes to work, her fingers as nimble as a spider’s legs as she feels in the sticker bush for the ripe fruit. One berry in the basket, five in her mouth, the sweet juice dripping down her chin. As if by instinct, she knows which berries to pull off and which to leave, her extractions as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Amazing, the way these strawberries put on.” Tim appears on the steps beside me, his basket already full.
I reach in and pick the fattest, reddest specimen. “Glorious,” I say.
Tim is the one with the farm-boy roots, the survivor if someone dropped him in a forest with a compass and a book of matches. He monitors the pollination of the bees and gauges the rainfall. He knows when to fertilize and how to dig the beds so they drain.
I pluck another strawberry and take a bite. “Absolutely perfect!”
Mateo trundles down the steps toward us, his gecko pursuit abandoned. “Peaches!” he says. Tim sweeps him up for a piggy-back ride to the tree. “Come on, big boy.”
The yard is a collage of colors, purple and pink and yellow and red. I smell the earthy bark of the redwood, the sugary aroma of the ripe fruit. A breeze ripples through the branches of the willow, and it sounds like a waterfall.
Today we’ll have raspberries on our cereal, strawberries on our pancakes, plums for dessert and peach ice cream. We’ll stockpile what we don’t use, labeling plastic bags with black Sharpie pens before stacking them in the freezer downstairs. All winter long, we’ll eat jam and sorbet, buckles and muffins, tarts, smoothies and galettes.
I reach for my basket, ready to pick. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swoops in ascending circles, coasting on invisible currents. I watch until he disappears, certain he’s flying toward heaven.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
Stumble This Post
We grab our wicker baskets and hats, and pull on our long-sleeved shirts. We tromp down the stone steps to the garden beds at the bottom of our back slope. The branches are loaded!
“Lizard!” Mateo calls out, as a gecko scurries across our path and scoots into a dark space between the stones. My son crouches down to lizard level, eyeball to eyeball with the prehistoric thing. “Green!”
“I want all the black raspberries,” Olivia announces, not pausing to look. “Forty-four hundred ninety-two.” She finds a level spot to set down her basket and goes to work, her fingers as nimble as a spider’s legs as she feels in the sticker bush for the ripe fruit. One berry in the basket, five in her mouth, the sweet juice dripping down her chin. As if by instinct, she knows which berries to pull off and which to leave, her extractions as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Amazing, the way these strawberries put on.” Tim appears on the steps beside me, his basket already full.
I reach in and pick the fattest, reddest specimen. “Glorious,” I say.
Tim is the one with the farm-boy roots, the survivor if someone dropped him in a forest with a compass and a book of matches. He monitors the pollination of the bees and gauges the rainfall. He knows when to fertilize and how to dig the beds so they drain.
I pluck another strawberry and take a bite. “Absolutely perfect!”
Mateo trundles down the steps toward us, his gecko pursuit abandoned. “Peaches!” he says. Tim sweeps him up for a piggy-back ride to the tree. “Come on, big boy.”
The yard is a collage of colors, purple and pink and yellow and red. I smell the earthy bark of the redwood, the sugary aroma of the ripe fruit. A breeze ripples through the branches of the willow, and it sounds like a waterfall.
Today we’ll have raspberries on our cereal, strawberries on our pancakes, plums for dessert and peach ice cream. We’ll stockpile what we don’t use, labeling plastic bags with black Sharpie pens before stacking them in the freezer downstairs. All winter long, we’ll eat jam and sorbet, buckles and muffins, tarts, smoothies and galettes.
I reach for my basket, ready to pick. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swoops in ascending circles, coasting on invisible currents. I watch until he disappears, certain he’s flying toward heaven.
By Jessica O’Dwyer
Labels: Jessica O'Dwyer
Stumble This Post
