Going by the calendar there are two days of summer left, but
the signs of fall are unmistakable. The squawking of blue jays filling up their
stores is the most prominent bird sound at the moment, and the robins seem to
have left without saying goodbye. Chickadees call back and forth from sunflower
heads heavy with seed, and even without a real frost trees have started to
change colour.
Harvest is creeping along at an agonizingly slow pace. A few
days of sunny, windy weather with low humidity last week brought some progress,
and we are over half done, ahead of many others in this area, especially
farmers who struggle to combine peas. Thanks to the wet weather wheat has started to sprout on the stem, which leads to the quality being reduced from #2
to feed wheat. But the yields are very good this year, and as long as we can
finish harvesting it will be okay. We have about two to three days of
harvesting wheat left before we can tackle the canola.
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| Waiting for the last load of the day |
Since Carl is free to help with harvest now my grain cart
driving days are mostly over anyway. I am happy to spend time in my garden
refuge, pulling/digging up weeds, carefully loosening soil compacted from too
much rain in too short a time around the strawberries and their babies,
listening to the squabble of blue jays and squirrels. The mosquitoes, just
hatched within the last week or so at a time when, in other years, we breathe a
sigh of relief because they have finally disappeared, are tiny but ferocious,
but for some reason they don’t bother me as much as they usually do, and the
bumps from their bites disappear within a couple of hours.
What I’m missing this year is what is, for me, the very essence of late
summer: the sweet peas, reduced to tatters by the hail a month ago, only
had about a dozen blossoms left, and I, in a fit of recklessness, picked them
all yesterday and now have them in a small brown vase on my desk, where the
scent doesn’t get dissipated by the wind. To my surprise I found that I
might get to enjoy more of them, even in the garden – IF it doesn’t freeze: a
whole new set of buds is about to burst open. What marvellous resilience plants
possess.
There are some fruits I’ve had to pick earlier than I would
have liked: the apples of the second tree, for instance, which hung almost as
full as the first one. The pockmarks from the hail were starting to get brown
and would undoubtedly have led to rotting, and already the wasps were beginning
to savour them, even though they had not reached their full sweetness. They
have been turned into apple cakes and apple compote, and two big bags of them
are on their way to becoming apple wine.
The winter squash, too, is no longer exposed to the elements. Robbed of its protective leaves by the hail the 'buttercups' were better off inside in this changeable weather. The cucumbers, which I had assumed to be totally beyond hope, surprised me with a small crop of new cukes every few days. As always some had managed to escape my searching eye and, hidden under the few remaining leaves (or, in a few cases, suspended from vines that had twisted around the trunks and branches of the nearby sour cherry suckers) had continued to swell. Last not least, of course, I have to mention the zucchini which, undaunted, didn't even pause in their blooming and producing their medium-sized yellow fruits. Amazing how their golden blossoms can brighten even dreary days.
Strawberries, too, are ripening still, and even the purple climbing
beans have sent out new sprouts, their tendrils reaching for the nearest
support. I suppose there is no hope of harvesting more of them; frost must be
at least close if not imminent. So far I have resisted the little voice telling
me to pick the tomatoes, but sooner or later I will have to cave in.
Cranes have been moving south in large numbers for more than
a week already, another sign of impending autumn. Even late at night I’ve heard
their croaking call a few times. Does the bright light of the moon make it
easier for them, I wonder? Or are they guided by a different force?
Much closer to home I
had another bird encounter about two weeks ago. Walking by the living room
window I was stopped in my tracks: a blue heron was standing on one of the big
flat rocks by our small pond. Never before had I seen one here, except, rarely,
to fly overhead. My first reaction was utter enchantment: I love these
beautiful birds, and to see one this close was a special gift. It took me only
a moment, however, to realize what this must mean, and my second reaction was: ‘OH
NO’! The heron must have noticed me behind the window and lifted off in its
awkward way before I could even take a photo. The damage had been done already,
of course: there has been no sign of the nine strapping goldfish who we had
managed to overwinter twice between summers awash with mosquito larvae and
other tasty morsels. I had already dreamed about goldfish reaching a legendary
age and size … Twice more in the next
two days the brazen thief landed on the lawn, no doubt knowing full well that
he had depleted the stores completely since he did not get close to the pond
again. A small pang of guilt remains: I feel as if I had set the table for the
heron, had, unwittingly, sacrificed the fish who must not have known what hit
them when his swift beak did its deadly work. I console myself with the thought
that, for once, the heron had a truly easy meal.
The sun has once again gained the upper hand this afternoon, and the harvest crew might well be able to gain a bit of ground before nightfall. The nights, dripping wet with dew, are beautiful now, and sunsets, as always, spectacular ...
