The Deep Roots of August

Hey there - I’m back. A few have asked where I’ve been, why I’ve not posted - so I do apologize for simply disappearing for a few weeks. It’s been a summer hiatus of sorts.  July is a time for me to slow down to a languid pace; a time to watch the sunrise through the trees from my back porch, or to sit on the beach at the cove watching the osprey swoop in lazily, a flapping fish in her beak to feed her chicks, or to breathe quiet as the egrets stand ever-still in the waning light by the edge of the marsh.  For me, July is a self-indulgent month of introspection, of reading, of simply “being”. It does my soul good.

But August? Now - this is a month that brings me back and takes me home to a time when life was a bit simpler, the pace bit slower, the summer a sweet interlude of suspended time (and I know it is a blessing to even be able to say that about one’s childhood); these fleeting weeks of heat and sun that sing to me of gardens overflowing, blueberry and blackberry bushes drooping with prodigal abandon. The glow of this month goes beyond the hot rays of sun on a scorching August day, —beyond to the marking of place and time; a place where deep roots and deep love really did exist in a time that was real and sure. 

In August, I remember my parents with renewed clarity - with a fond reminiscence that aches with its intensity.  The picture on this week’s blog is of my Dad standing, proud as a peacock to be sure, in front of his corn, likely a photo snapped in August - considering that the corn is towering over his head. Dad was not a tall man, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, and his corn had reached well over 6 feet that year. This is how I remember him; nose crooked (fractured during a long-ago football game), smile wide, work pants soiled with the dirt of his own land. He loved his garden (we’d call that piece of earth “Gabby’s Back 40”) though it really was a fairly small plot of land. Dad was an organic gardener long before it was fashionable or politically correct; a Rodale-disciple before most modern organic farmers were even born.  He took great pride in his garden and his produce, and we kids were swept along in the rhythm of the season, somehow sensing that this particular place and time was special - but not really understanding why until years later.

There were certain things and ways of “doing produce” that were sacrosanct in his garden, in our kitchen.  The corn wasn’t picked from the stalk until my mother would yell out the back door that the water in the large stock pot was coming to the boil.  The ears were then quickly picked by Dad, and then shucked by all of us kids (5 of us made short work of it all) and popped into the boiling water as quickly as we could muster. The sweetness of that corn stays with me to this day, and it was nothing for us to put away a couple of dozen at a meal. He had a similar process for peas, making sure we’d get those into boiling water within minutes of being picked and shelled. Dad had his opinions, to be sure; but when it came to his garden and produce, he was usually right.

In those summers, we had permission to pick tomatoes from the garden any time of day, and I remember biting into a still sun-warm Big Boy freshly plucked from the plant, its orange-red juice running over my fingers and down my chin, marking my tee shirt with the stain of summer. Tomato sandwiches were a favorite: white bread, mayo and thick slices of tomatoes, with the obligatory sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Cucumber sandwiches, too; I wish I could say the bread was buttered - but Mom was a devout fan of margarine.  Still, as I child, I didn’t really know better.  It was all about the cucumbers.  Green beans, wax beans, radishes (eaten like an apple, but dunked in salt for each bite!), beets, carrots lettuce, zucchini.  Mom wasn’t a fancy cook, but she was a very good cook. Food was prepared simply - much as it had been when she was a child. Interestingly, she was not a big fan of vegetables, but in August as the produce was rolling in? You’d never know it.

And Dad’s blueberry and blackberry bushes? Oh my! Mom would get to baking - blueberry and blackberry pies and blueberry bread; or we’d eat the berries by the handful out in the backyard, sneaking them off the bushes when we were really supposed to be filling the berry-pails with the fat, dusky-blue fruit.  Mom knew, of course, but she rarely gave us away - she had grown up as one of ten children in a family where summer gardens were large and prolific, and home-grown food was free for the taking.

August was also all about canning. For many years, Dad planted about 75 tomato plants, and Mom would put up about 100 quarts of tomatoes (give or take) by the end of summer, which she’d then use for the rest of the year. As soon as we were old enough to peel hot tomatoes bobbing in boiling water, we’d get pressed into service to help with the canning (which of course we all hated; it was hot, sweaty work during the dog days of August). Beets were pickled; cucumbers turned into the best bread and butter pickles I’ve ever eaten. My parents’ idea of eating your vegetables after September ushered in the fall was opening up canned tomatoes and the pickled produce, or digging out the carrots left in the garden until Thanksgiving. It was the legacy of their own parents, of growing up during the Depression, of making “do” with what you could harvest and preserve. I can still remember my mother standing in front of her “canning room” - a space my dad had filled with shelves under the cellar stairs. By the end of September, those shelves groaned with the kaleidoscope of hundreds of jars of produce, and she’d stand there with a satisfied, nearly joyful, look on her face. She loved that view, and shared once that there was nothing she loved more than seeing that canning room filled to the top. I think she felt that with a full canning room, we’d never go hungry.

The deep roots of August are true and constant in my life. These roots of plants and bush anchor me surely to a legacy of love, of tradition, of provision; a legacy that spoke of tender care and passion for the careful stewardship of the land. Dad was not a farmer, but his summer garden, Mom’s filled canning jars — each were a testimony to a love that was visible and real; a legacy that delighted the senses as well as filled our bellies; a legacy that spoke of my parents’ shared love of family - and their dedication to care for that family. We learned so much from those summers: the value of hard work, the rewards of tilling and reaping, the “best way” to cook fresh produce, the precious love that could go into a simple tomato, a slice of pie.

In August, I take time to remember them as they were then; vibrant, smiling, hard-working, providing for the family, enjoying the fruits of their labors.

In August, I can’t help but reach down, pick up a real garden tomato, and remember them as the juice runs down my chin and fingers - the tomato-gold of childhood.

In August, I remember those deep roots, and it brings me joy.