I had so many plans for the garden this weekend but after a month of go-go-go I just can’t. So I didn’t finish digging out the compost bins. But even resting I still managed to do quite a bit. I picked and shelled dry beans. I picked mint, chocolate mint, oregano, and sacred basil, washed and set them out to dry for tea and spices over winter. I also collected seeds from the sacred basil and the Mexican sunflowers. The fermenting seeds from the Hungarian Heart tomato were ready to clean, so I took care of that and spread them out on a piece of scrap paper to dry.

My desk is covered with drying seed pods. I took some time to shell, in the case of purple pod pole beans, Kentucky wonder pole beans, and fortex pole beans, and pick from their stems, in the case of coriander. The cleaned tomato seeds I set out on my desk last week for the plum and cherry are dry. I labeled envelopes for all of these and put the seeds in them to save for next year.

The week was summery and dry. Every evening after dinner I go into the garden with a bowl and snippers and harvest green beans and tomatoes, sometimes peppers. This last week I picked the first red cayenne peppers. I suppose we could eat them fresh, but the plan is to dry and grind them into cayenne powder to spice our winter.

I had given up on looking at the summer squash plants and was surprised to notice this week that there is a yellow zucchini on one of them that just might make it to edible size. Another has several small yellow crookneck squashes that are promising. The crazy things plants do when I’m not looking!

We’ve been taking a long path around to part of the garden since a spider spun a large web between some hyssop and a tomato. I haven’t seen the spider, but the web is not in disrepair and James and I are both reluctant to break it no matter how inconveniently placed it is. I look at the web everyday hoping to see signs of abandonment so I can use the path it blocks again. Perhaps the spider will relocate sometime this week?

The chickens are doing great. Sia has stopped actively picking on Ethel who now has tail feathers again. Ethel still gets picked on but now it’s more of an opportunist picking instead of a deliberate bullying. Being the chicken at the bottom of the pecking order when there are only three chickens kind of stinks. James and I both sneak Ethel first dibs on treats before Sia and Mrs. Dashwood catch on and chase her away.

Every evening when we come home from work and let the chickens out of the run we find several sparrows trapped in the run with them. James and I have both searched for their entry point multiple times with no luck. We are confounded. One of these days we will figure it out and it will seem so obvious, but at the moment, it is a mystery. The chickens don’t seem to mind the sparrows, but the sparrows do mind having found a way into the run and free seed, but not being able to find their way back out again. They are clearly not the brightest birds in the flock.

While the weather remains summery, the season is moving towards autumn. The days are shorter and shorter, the summer flowers are fading and the autumn flowers are taking their turn—goldenrod, asters, and Jerusalem artichoke—the trees are beginning to change from green to yellow, orange, and red. Their leaves glow in the dawn and evening light. I’m beginning to feel the pull to turn inwards, to finish bringing in the harvest, to let go of the constant doings in the garden, to gather my energies and send them down into the earth, into the quiet dark. To rest.

But there is no rest just yet. There are beans and tomatoes and summer and winter squashes. There are still seeds to save. And soon garlic to plant for next year. But now, instead of adding more and more to the list of daily and weekly garden tasks, I can begin to let some go.

Reading

• Book: Landscapes: John Berger on Art by John Berger, edited by Tom Overton. This is a collection of essays originally published in other books and journals and gathered together on the theme of art. They span from the 1950 to 2007 and touch on Cubism, how art has become property and commodity, the purpose of museums, folk art, storytelling, and more. While sometimes personal, the essays tend to be on the formal side. And whether I knew who the artist under discussion was or not, each essay gave me pause with a new insight or a different way to think about art. What more could I want? I will happily read more books by Berger in the future.
• Poetry: Here is How it Could Be: Two Poems by Marie T. Martin. “Slowly, with a crack, the snail shell breaks—/ you don’t need it anymore.”
• Essay: Reading the Apocalypse by Sarah Boon. An essay on reading dystopian fiction and probably a book or two to add to your TBR.
• Investigative Report: These Household Brand Want to Redefine What Counts as “Recyclable”. An investigative report from ProPublica about how the Consumer Brands Association is trying to redefine what is considered recyclable plastic. They want companies to be able to say their plastic is recyclable if it is technically capable of being recycled, not by whether there is any place that is, or can, recycle it. Thus they can further cover up their pollution and claim they are green companies and the proliferation on plastic in landfills is not their fault but ours.

Quote

“In all of the universe, throughout all of time, no one else will be you doing this mountain of dishes on this random Tuesday ever again. It is your sacred duty to open up to that rare and fleeting experience.”

Brad Warner, “How to Not Waste Time”, Tricycle Magazine

Listening

• Podcast: Scene on Radio: Capitalism: The People’s Pushback. This is episode 8 of the season on capitalism and it’s a good one. Reported on by a Millennial, it talks about people pushing back against capitalism from the Seattle WTO protests to Occupy and more.
• Podcast: The Way Out is In: Mindful Economics: In Conversation with Kate Raworth. The above podcast ended up dovetailing nicely with this conversation from Plum Village about doughnut economics. Raworth does not see doughnut economics as the solution to capitalism, but a bridge from capitalism to an economics that respects planetary boundaries and is not solely centered on humans.

Watching

Nothing

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

This week James made a huge pot of chili. There is so much chili that even after we ate it for dinner and leftovers, there are four quart jars of it in the freezer to enjoy at a later time. He also made naan bread, something he started doing recently and is getting very good at. No photos because plain flatbread and chili are not that interesting to look at. But trust me when I tell you it is delicious!