Late Summer Musings And Meanderings
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Summer is on the downhill slide here in North Idaho. Yesterday, it was very hot, the third day in a row that was more toasty and humid than normal. One nice thing about where I live is that no matter how hot it gets during the day, it cools off at night, like about 30 degrees cools off. However, we usually get a night or two during the summer of not coolness, and when that phenomenon happens, I know the arrival of fall is imminent.
Of course, there are other signs of the waning of the season. One of them I spied as I wandered out to the barn to check on my daughter. She was busy clipping her show heifer. That of course means fair is a week away. This year though, it's not called The North Idaho State Fair, that event, like many others, has been canceled. My kids are showing their animals in the newly christened, Kootenai Show.
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It's amazing to me to see all of the adapting people have done and hoops people have jumped through to keep carrying on. Things are a bit weird. Well, not everything, pigs still cool off the same way:
What isn't weird though are the transitions of nature. After checking on progress in the bovine hair salon, I turned to the northeast and strolled out to the garden. Well, I did make a pit stop. These creatures distracted me. Nose strokes occurred.
After horse therapy, I finally made it to the garden and gazed upon yet another sign of the impending season change. The vast majority of my tomatoes are all ripening. It really doesn't matter when I start them, for some reason the nightshades love to taunt me by ripening when I have to spend a week away from home at the fairgrounds. It's like an agricultural flipping of the bird. Guess I will be doing a marathon canning sesh when I return from The Show.
My green-tinged cardiovascular system gave a botanistic leap when I walked among my pumpkins though, there are so many of them! I gave one of the large ones a nice little pet too, and smiled at the thought of all of the future pumpkin-based comestibles that are in my imminent future.
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This year I plan to can a ton of that pumpkin. Thankfully there are no shows this fall. There are lots of volleyball and football games though, maybe.
Moving on from the pumpkins and squash, I stepped up to the green beans. One of my friends gave me a garlic infused butter that a local restaurant makes and I really wanted some freshly steamed green beans tossed in Himalayan pink salt, pepper, and garlic butter. Like, I wanted a pile of green beans prepared in this manner more than an Insta Influencer wants free stuff, and let me tell ya, it happened. That pile of garlic infused green beanage made me happier than a tabby cat on a pile of crepes.
So even though things are weird and I am a bit burnt out from both normal summer and not normal summer in a peculiar time, something as simple as sitting down and demolishing some freshly picked and prepared green beans after enjoying a stroll through a farm on the cusp of season transition brought a little bit of zen to my weary soul.
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Our green beans are producing nicely right now, and the cucumbers are kicking in. Still no red tomatoes, but plenty of green ones. I keep wondering if any of the winter squashes are going to get big enough before frost.
Ooh, winter squash, fall frost roulette! It's always suspenseful for sure! I'm going to have loads of pumpkins, but as every year, the winter squash are definitely a crap shoot.