Preserve

Mighty Neighborly, a regular feature on the Precipitate blog, explores how everyday, local decisions impact a larger community and the environment.

If you read my blog post of two weeks ago, you may be under the impression that I have packed my bags and moved home. While this is not the case, I do take the train to my parents’ house about every two weeks, primarily to see my nephews who are overfond of Pop-pop’s swingset.

The second reason for my trips’ regularity is that the folks live on four acres across the street from a horse farm and a few doors down from a state park. I don’t think I could ever live out there, but every few weeks it’s nice to see a tree that’s not in a cage of bricks or wood, fighting for space with power lines and sidewalk cafes. There’s also the garden.

My dad likes to keep most of the yard football-field even; however, the acre where the house is located is my mom’s domain. If she had her druthers, it would have transformed into a small hobby farm, but apparently her small town neighbors think farm animals less noble than the horse would bring down their property value. Don’t worry, mom. Bees are not farm animals.

The garden, on the other hand, is flourishing. The main garden had a healthy run with lettuce and spinach, and is now currently producing more cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants and jalapeños than we can eat. There are also pretty healthy crops of beans, peas, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. Cauliflower? Not so much. I think the particularly steamy summer we had in Illinois had something to do with the production of the stinky, white cabbage things that are rotting in the yard. The yard also supports walnut trees, an unreasonable blackberry patch, and a squash patch with species yellow, zucchini, and pumpkin. Finally, there are the berry experiments.

We have four blueberry bushes of different species; allegedly, this is necessary for proper pollination. We have yet to get berries from them. However, the elderberry bushes are doin’ fine. My mom got them because she has this idea in her head that she’s going to make wine. Since our time was short and our family’s booze-making experiments (at least in living memory) are limited to the porter now brewing in my little brother’s closet, we settled on elderberry peach preserves, a closer cousin to the .8 pounds of strawberry jam made earlier in the summer.

So, cheesecloth acquired and mosquito bites properly sworn at, we began to process the garden’s yield. While my mom sliced tomatoes for garden sauce and I juiced the elderberries, she told me about things I was too young to remember: how in her mom’s time, many houses had outdoor summer kitchens; about root cellars, often over a river to provide refrigeration for dairy products; and how when she and my dad were first married, she used to can with his sister in the summer. If your aunts lived closer, we could all cook Thanksgiving together. Yeah. I know, mom.

H. V. Cramond, Staff Blogger