Reflections on the Fifth Week of Fall - Autumn Red

Burning Bush 

Neighbors agreed with me.

Kathy, owner of a cat, dog, rabbit, duck, mini-donkey, alpaca, and cow menagerie, grabbed my elbow at the township meeting. “What’re those red bushes in front of your house? They’re gorgeous.”

Sandy, our tax collector who lopes down the road like she’s on a mission, stopped mid road and stretched her arms wide. “Your burning bushes are amazing this year. I see them from way down by Hutch’s. She points a finger down the road. “As soon as I round that curve.”

John, the hay farmer I talked into running for Township Supervisor, stepped inside our log house and adjusted the visor of his baseball cap. “People have been telling me how spectacular your burning bushes are.” He bobbed his head. “They were right.”

Our three burning bushes, euonymus alati, dazzled brighter this year than in the past. I’d crouched and circled to photograph them numerous times. And each time I visualized them as a colorful backdrop for fall flowers. After three hard frosts, all our flowers had died. Maybe I could buy some potted mums.

Between loads of laundry Friday afternoon, I dragged Spence on a mum hunt despite his having just returned from two hours of shopping in Meadville. He hadn’t even unloaded the truck when we took off.

I steered the Subaru under clouds threatening rain and past tawny corn fields to the Amish nursery on Lake Road. Pumpkins, in shades from orange to white and in sizes from bushel basket to tennis ball, spread across the yard. No mums. Sighing, I pulled onto the muddy drive by the greenhouse to turn around.

“Don’t worry. There may be some in the greenhouse.” Spence jumped out of the car and strode away.

Hope rising, I hustled after him.

Spence slid the greenhouse door open. “Nothing here. But I hear someone by the house.” He closed the door. “I’ll go ask.”

I trudged to the car and watched a marmalade-orange kitten lap water from a puddle.

Spence met the Amish farmer halfway to the house. They chatted longer than a no would take. Maybe the farmer had mums or knew where to find them.

Spence returned and slid into the passenger seat. “He said it was the best year ever for mums. He sold out three weeks ago.”

“Does he know where to get some?”

Spence grinned. “He didn’t. He said to come three weeks earlier next year.”

Backing onto the hard road, I searched my mind for places I’d seen mums last year. “Did you see any at Giant Eagle or Home Depot in Meadville?”

He shook his head.

“Let’s try the grocery store and flower shop in Cochranton.”

“Didn’t that flower shop close?”

Burning Bush 

The flower shop had closed. No sign, leaf, or petal remained in the empty storefront. I circled and headed to Market Place. Scarecrows, pumpkins, and corn stalks decorated the front of the grocery store. No mums. Discouraged, I kept driving.

Spence patted my knee. “We can try Kepners.”

This fall, when I’d sped past the farmer’s market south of Wells Wood, I gazed at their fields dotted with myriads of pumpkins. I hadn’t checked the front of the store. Maybe. Hope rose from my toes to my belly. No sense in getting too excited.

I pulled into Kepner’s parking lot. No mums out front. In case they’d taken them inside because of the frosts, I got out and walked into the small store.

Spence followed.

No mums.

“May I help you?” A woman, with her hair in a white bun cover and who wore a winter jacket over a long dress, smiled congenially.

“I’m looking for mums.”

The woman’s smile saddened. “We sold out two weeks ago. It was the best year ever for mums. We started selling them early—before Labor Day.”

Before Labor Day? People bought mums in summer? Stopping hope from dropping to my toes again, I asked about the Amish store a couple of miles away. “Would Windy Knoll have mums?

Her smile brightened. “They might.”

Spence put his hand on my shoulder—his signal not to get overexcited. “They didn’t have any out front.”

Her smile vanished. “Then they don’t. They would put the mums out.”

After thanking the woman, I trudged to the car.

Spence plopped onto the passenger seat. “You’re too late. You’ll have to look earlier next year.”

While I drove home, Spence pointed out mums in yards. “There’s a yellow mum . . . another yellow one . . . a red one . . .”

Concentrating on the road, I missed all except the bushel basket sized mums in front of Gingersnap Junction, an artsy antique store. Frost had killed their wide crown of flowers. I didn’t want those.

After our forty mile hunt, I pulled into the garage. Mumless.

“You don’t need mums.” Spence strode to the middle of the road, held an imaginary camera to his eyes, and pressed an invisible shutter button. “The bushes are stunning without mums.”

I pulled my camera out of its case, that I’d lugged hoping a mum display would make a great photo, and stepped to position my feet in front of his. Looking through the viewfinder, I could feel hope rising above my knees. The burning bushes had never looked lovelier.

From different angles and distances, I took thirty-seven photographs. Each one made me wish for mums.

Letting the camera hang from my neck, I headed along the driveway toward the house. Gravel crunched under my feet.

Spence put his arm around my shoulders. “I’m trying everything to make you happy. We can get mums next year.”

Inside the house, while Spence’s tractor rumbled outside, I didn’t want to wait until next year.

Maybe I could find a store in Seneca since I’d made plans to attend the Oil Valley Quilt Guild’s show Saturday then eat dinner with my son Charlie. I searched the internet. No flower stores in Seneca. But I would pass the five star Anderson’s Greenhouse in Franklin on the way. I dialed their phone number. “Do you have mums?”10-25-19 Burning Bush 1

A female voice on the other end of the line answered. “Yes. We’ve got mums for ten dollars, twenty dollars, and, and . . . ”

I waited for the and . . .

“We have mums.”

Mums on Maple Stump

Whatever the and . . . , I wanted mums. “I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon.”

On rainy, cloudy Saturday, I pulled into Anderson’s parking lot. MUMS! On three tables and the blacktop sat pots bursting with blossoms. Rust, orange, yellow, purple, and white mums looked fresh and bountiful. A huge basket, with a third section in orange mums, a third yellow, and a third rust, had a forty-two dollar label—the woman’s “and . . . ” price. Though I admired the grandiose display, I selected three six-inch pots of yellow mums.

Michael, the middle-aged man who wore much cleaner garden clothes than Spence, carried the pots to my car, stooped, and nestled the mums on the floor behind the driver and passenger seats. “That’ll be nine dollars. Three dollars each.”

Not too late. Just right for pretty mums at a bargain price.

Driving off to the rhythmic swishing of windshield wipers, I inhaled the spicy fragrance of mums. Success!

This morning, while Spence napped on the sofa after writing rhino!UP, a newsletter for renters, I carried two pots of mums in one arm and one in the other—like Michael had—from the porch where they’d spent the night to the burning bushes out front. I spaced the pots under the bushes, stepped back to view the scene, then shifted the pots. The yellow color blended with the red burning bush leaves like I’d hoped, but the size of the bushes dwarfed the flowers. Ten pots would have made a better picture. When I liked the spacing, I focused the camera.

Wind toppled the smallest pot. I set it upright.

Wind blew. The pot tipped. I reset the pot—four more times.

After photographing the first arrangement, I moved the pots and took pictures from different angles.

Filled with hope from toes to windblown hair, I giant stepped back inside to the computer and downloaded twenty-one pictures. The flash had reflected off the top of the yellow mums making each flower glow like the sun. Sheesh. The pictures of the burning bush looked better without glowing flowers.

When I clomped down the metal stairs, Spence blinked his eyes.

“After all that, the pictures didn’t come out.” I explained the glare from the flash under the overcast sky.

“Did you try without a flash?”

Camera dangling around my neck, I trudged outside, lugged the mums back to the burning bush, and turned off the flash. Click, click, click. I pressed the shutter release. The yellow mums washed out in those photos too.

But Spence, always trying to make me happy, had followed me outside. He lifted the smallest mum plant to his head and spread his arms wide. I took pictures—before and after the pot toppled off his head. Though I hadn’t caught my envisioned photo, I’d been right about the burning bush. It made a colorful background for falling flowers.

Spence and the Mums

Reflections on the Fourth Week of Fall - Their First Fire

Trees Along West Creek Road

Last Monday, hair damp from swimming, I walked under a canopy of golden leaves to our log house. When I opened the front door, two kittens scampered across the great room to greet me. The third napped on the sofa. And Spence, away buying off-road diesel for his tractor, had laid a fire in our wood stove. My husband's a sweetie. Wood, kindling, and crumpled paper waited for a match. I petted the kittens and debated. Light the first fire of the season and for our kittens, or wait until Spence could help keep curious kittens from singeing their paws on the stove?

I checked the weather station on the kitchen wall—52℉ (11℃) outside, 65℉ (18℃) inside. Pulling a knit cap over my damp hair, I waited.

Tuesday morning we had our second hard frost of the year. In the afternoon I dressed in walnut stained clothes and hustled out to swish through fallen leaves on a black walnut hunt. Sunshine warmed me. No need for a fire.

Wednesday dawned cloudy and rainy. The log house temperature dropped to 62°. Instead of lighting the fire, I turned the oven dial to 375° so I could bake rhubarb oatmeal cookies for the weekend quilt retreat at Whitehall Camp and Conference Center in Emlenton. Chop, chop, chop. I sliced frozen rhubarb until my fingertips numbed.

Ande jumped onto the table and sniffed the rhubarb.

I grabbed him around the middle and lowered him to the floor.

Rills climbed up my jeans and reached his paw toward the bowl of dry ingredients.

I grabbed him around the middle and lowered him to the floor.

Gilbert sat in a kitchen chair and batted the bag of walnuts.

I grabbed him around the middle, lowered him to the floor, and walked across the room to shake the kitten crunchies in their food bowl.

They gobbled, stared out the sliding glass door, but returned when I baked a chicken pot pie for the retreat.

The hot oven and the exercise lowering kittens precluded the need for a fire.

Temperatures dropped to the mid forties on cloudy, windy Thursday. I checked the thermometer—43° out and 62° in. Chilly enough for a fire, but Spence had driven to Cleveland for two lead safe meetings and grocery shopping. I could make one more day before the retreat without a fire. Maybe the dryer would raise the temperature.

After I washed and dried three loads of laundry, the temperature rose to 63°. I pulled a sweater over my turtleneck and sweatshirt. The layers kept me warm as long as I raced about the house folding clothes and packing sewing gear for the retreat. When I sat at the computer, my skin cooled. Holding and sipping a cup of hot, ginger turmeric tea erased the chill.

Friday morning the indoor temperature dipped to 60°, but I felt toasty while I stuffed in the last items—a midwife mystery novel, my phone charger, and the tablet to play The Scarlet Pimpernel while I fell asleep.

The aroma of coffee and Spence’s voice floated to me from the kitchen. “Do you want a fire?”

“No.” I dragged my clothes, bedding, and sewing gear to the front door. “If you need one go ahead.”

He didn’t.

After toughing out the low sixties temperatures at home, the 72° sewing room and sleeping lodge at the retreat made me sweat. I pulled off my sweatshirt, pushed up my turtleneck sleeves, and sipped cold water. Even after a hard frost Sunday morning, I felt toasty.

Back at Wells Wood the fellas didn’t. “Two blankets and three cats,” Spence’s voice said through the phone.“We had great sleeping weather.”

I drove home Sunday afternoon in my turtleneck and mused that, after the heated weekend, I might make it until November before needing a fire.

Golden Leaves

At home, chillier inside than out, Spence had a different idea. “People are coming for the campaign meeting at six. I’ll start the fire before they come.” He stirred chicken taco ingredients in the fry pan.

Two kittens jumped off the sofa and padded toward me.

I set the basket of fabric on the kitchen table, picked up Ande, and reached down to pet Rills. “Do we really need one? It’s balmy outside.”

“The fire will make it cozy and welcoming.”

I glanced around. He’d washed all the dishes, picked up for company, and had supper almost ready. If he wanted a fire, he could have a fire. “Okay. That sounds lovely.”

At five-thirty, he knelt by the wood stove, opened the glass door, and struck a match.

The kittens sneaked to within a yard of Spence. They bobbed their heads and stared into the firebox.

Spence lit the paper, smoke billowed into the room, and, screech-bang, closed the door.

Ande and Rills crept to a paw-width from Spence’s butt.

Gilbert stood on his hind legs and reached his paws toward the smoke.

Aroma of campfire tickled my nostrils.

Spence opened the sliding glass door and a window. Kneeling by the wood stove, he lit a match, opened the firebox a second time, and tossed the match in.

A cloud of smoke and several dazed wasps flew out of the firebox.

“There’s no draft.” Spence slammed the door. “The chimney must be blocked.” He sat back on his heels and stared at the smoke and wasps swirling inside the firebox. “Wasps must-have made a nest in the chimney recently. After the chimney sweep cleaned in July, anyway.”

Gilbert batted at a wasp that landed on the glass door.

I pulled him away and squished the dazed wasp with a pad of paper. Carrying the wasp remnants outside, I hoped the other escapees would expire and drop into crevices the kittens couldn’t find.

Ten minutes later, while I bit into a chicken taco, Spence opened the wood stove a third time. He pushed a log to the side making more air space in the middle of the box and lit another piece of crumpled paper. Spence slammed the door.

Whoomph! Flames burst from the kindling and filled the fire box.

Ande strode between Spence and the stove.

Spence lifted Ande and set him in the chair by the front door.

Rills jumped up beside Ande, scooted across the end table, and walked across the top of the wood stove.

Rills on the Wood Stove

Spence grabbed him. “Stay off the stove.” He set Rills on the floor and shook his finger at the kittens. “Don’t jump on the stove. Got it? No cats on the stove.”

As if listening to an elementary school teacher, the kittens sat on their haunches, stared at the wagging finger, and flicked their tails.

Spence turned from the kittens to the blaze. “The fire must have burned enough of the nest to clear an airway.”

Glad I hadn’t had to wrestle with a blocked flue and wasp swarm, I gobbled my taco and enjoyed the flames licking the logs.

By the time John, a candidate running for a six year term as township supervisor, arrived, the smoke had cleared. The room felt cozy, and the wasps had left the firebox—dead or alive.

Ande jumped onto John’s leg.

Both Spence and I lunged to grab the kitten.

John waved us away. “I like cats.” He petted Ande. “He’s a friendly cat. But he has sharp claws.”

Kathy, a candidate running for a two year term as township supervisor, and Sandy, the tax collector, came next. We sat at the kitchen table. While Spence and Kathy sipped wine, the five of us discussed yard signs, millage, and an introductory letter to send to voters.

Ande wandered away from John, sat on his haunches, and gaszed into the fire.

John chuckled. “Look at him stare at the fire.”

Spence leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “It’s his first fire. They didn’t have fires in the barn.”

The kittens stayed a safe distance from the wood stove. They didn’t stay away from our neighbors.

Rills interrupted Kathy’s oral listing of locations for yard signs by climbing her leg.

“Ouch! You little bugger.” Kathy detached Rills from her slacks and glanced at me. “You need to clip their claws.”

On a to do list, I wrote polish the letter, create a handout for writing in Kathy’s name, and clip kitten claws. Like starting the first fire, I’ll wait until Spence is home to help me with that last one.

By the end of the meeting, I’d been doubly warmed—warmed by the first fire and warmed by the company of clever, well-informed guests.

Burning Bush

Reflections on the Third Week of Fall - Six Pointed Ears

Napping Kittens - Gilbert, Ande, and Rills

Sitting in my log chair Thursday afternoon, I gazed through the sliding glass door at a luminescent, powder blue sky and an array of sun-highlighted orange leaves. Below the door, the kitten fountain bubbled and burbled while the kittens napped on the sofa. With Spence in Cleveland handing out lead safe housing pamphlets at a health fair, the kittens had room to stretch—back paws backward, front paws forward—which made a furry line rather than their usual curled heap.

Rills flicked an ear.

Kitten ears. The vet had instructed me to keep their ears clean—a task best attempted with the kittens in rest mode.

Tiptoeing to the kitchen, I filled a dipping bowl with water and grabbed the package of cotton swabs.

Rills opened one eye and glared at the swabs.

Though I preferred to clean Rills’s ears last because he squirmed, scratched, and growled during the process, I needed to minimize his protest by swabbing him before his drowsy state changed to wide-awake energized mode. I grabbed him.

He squirmed in my hands and waved his paws—claws out—when I lifted him off the sofa.

I reached for the fleece blanket. Avoiding the swiping claws, I wrapped the blanket around Rills—once, twice, three times—making sure none of his legs escaped. With him mummified except for his head, I set him on my lap and dipped the end of a swab into the water. I held the point of his ear with one hand and maneuvered the swab tip around ridges inside his outer ear.

He squirmed.

Tightening the blanket around his neck, I selected a clean swab, wet it, and took a deep breath for the hard part—the part that made me gasp when I had watched the vet clean Gilbert’s ears. I feared she would break his eardrum. She assured me a cat’s eardrum lay deep inside, and my kittens had excessive dirt in their ears. “Don’t be afraid. Dig in and clean.”

I stuck the swab into the wide part of the ear canal and swirled.

Rills squirmed and whined.

At least he’d remained semi-calm. One ear done, I shifted his blanketed body so I could clean the ridges in his second ear.

He squirmed and growled.

As fast as Rills pulled his paw from the blanket, I tucked the paw back in, changed swabs, and inserted it into the canal.

He squirmed and thrashed his legs making the blanket roll like waves on a stormy lake.

Setting him on the floor, I exhaled. Two ears done.

Rills shook his head as if shaking off a pond full of water. He scratched an ear with his hind leg and shook his head again.

I grabbed Ande and sat him on my lap. No need for the blanket. I held his head with one hand and maneuvered the swab with the other.

Ande shook his head while I cleaned. Four ears done.

After I set him on the floor, he walked to Rills. They shook their heads together until Rills pounced on a stuffed Christmas tree toy some kitten had abandoned by the food bowl next to the fountain. He snarled. Biting into the top, he shook his head which waved the tree.

The tree dropped to the floor.

Rills put his paw on a gold garland and ripped the treetop off with his teeth.

Glad Rills took his annoyance out on the toy, I grabbed Gilbert and lay him on his side across my lap.

He muscled the point of his ear back and down to flatten the ear.

I pulled it open.

He flattened it.

Wishing I had muscles to open and close my ears, I inserted the swab, cleaned, and set Gilbert down. None of the kittens ran away and hid. They stayed on the floor, which appeared snow covered with fragments of toy stuffing Rills kept scattering. In the faux snow, three kittens shook like a trio of bobble heads. Six ears done.

I emptied the dipping bowl, so the kittens didn’t pounce on it and empty the water for me, then climbed to the loft.

Listening to the On the Media podcast of “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee,” I spread my log cabin quilt across the sewing table and tugged the binding from the front to the back over the lumpy inside batting as white as the snowy toy stuffing which I needed to sweep—after Rills had worked through his frustrations.

Stitch. Stitch. Stitch.

When I’d hand sewn half of the left side, the podcast ended and a grinding sound floated up from the great room.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The kittens’ water fountain made that noise when water ran low. Maybe ear cleaning made them thirsty.

Sticking my needle inside a quilted daisy on the back of the quilt, I headed downstairs.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The circle of kittens staring at the fountain blocked my view.

Drowned Tree

I strode to the kittens which, in unison, craned their heads toward me then looked back at the fountain.

On the slide, below the bubbling water, lay the Christmas tree toy in a halo of soggy stuffing.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

“Who drowned the pruned tree?” slipped out of my mouth before I decided it didn’t matter.

The kittens swiveled their heads, again, and stared with not-me-innocent eyes.

Reaching over them, I unplugged the fountain and carried it—Christmas tree and all—to the kitchen sink. First I rung the water from the tree and tossed it into the trash. Then I dumped the water, disassembled the fountain, and scrubbed its pieces.

Ande and Rills paced beside my feet.

Gilbert curled on the sofa for a nap.

After reassembling the clean pieces, I carried the fountain across the room.

Rills and Ande followed.

I set the fountain down and fetched the filtered water pitcher.

Rills licked the wet metal.

The stream of water from the pitcher made the kittens step back. I plugged the fountain in.

Burble, burble, burble. Water bubbled out the top and down the slide.

Gilbert jumped off the sofa, thud, and padded over.

The kittens circled and drank. Sated, one by one, they jumped back to the sofa, stretched their legs, and kneaded the fleece sofa cover with long, sharp claws.

The claws needed clipped so that the next time they climbed our pants or walked across our shoulders, we didn’t need a tourniquet.

I sat in my log chair and gazed through the sliding glass door at the luminescent sky and sunlit leaves. I could clip nails on the twelve furry paws another day. And spreading the job over a dozen days might save the stuffed mice in the toy basket from decapitation and drowning.

Rills Drinking

Reflections on the Second Week of Fall – The Watermelon Puzzle

Watermelon and Girasoles

Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Spence called across the great room filled with ten Wellses chatting, chuckling, and consuming their last bites of grilled sausages and homegrown pole beans. “Do you want to risk it?” 

I must have missed the beginning of my husband’s sentence. “Risk what?”

“Picking a watermelon. They’re supposed to be ripe when the tendrils and stems turn brown.” Though he couldn’t see the vines from the log house, Spence glanced out the sliding glass door to the south garden. “The tendrils turned brown. The stems are green.”

A puzzle⏤deciding the ripeness of a watermelon. 

If only watermelons would advertise ripeness with hues like purple blueberries and red strawberries do. Our bowling ball sized Blacktail Mountain watermelons display a dark green rind whether unripe, ripe, or over ripe. 

We’d tried several methods.

►Days to maturity. I never resolved if the number of days on the back of the seed package meant from the day Spence planted the seed, the seed sprouted, or he set the seedlings in the garden. Add to that variable weather, and the number of days loses relevance.

►Thumping. Thumps on unripe, ripe, and over ripe watermelons sounded the same to me. Call me thump deaf.

►Yellow spots. Yellow spots on the bottom indicated lack of sunlight not ripeness.

The only year I didn’t puzzle over when to pick watermelons, groundhogs had invaded the garden. They bit into melons exposing red fleshy centers. Ripe. This year, Spence secured the fence excluding the fruit testers. 

Although drenching spring and early summer rains brought mold and slugs killing many plants, twenty-two watermelons survived. I didn’t want to waste even one. 

Squirming around the coffee table and past her aunts’ knees, Addy, our four year old great niece, tilted her face adult-ward, tapped her great uncle’s thigh, and grinned at him. “I’ll pick the watermelon.”

He stooped to Addy’s height. “Your Aunt Janet’s the boss of the watermelons.”

Boss of watermelons? Spence bought the seeds, planted them under grow lights, transplanted the seedlings, and sprayed plants with the fungicide Serenade. I just picked and ate. 

Addy turned to me, clasped her hands, and pleaded with her eyes.

“Sure.” If the watermelon had a white interior, we could compost it. “Pick the one with the brownest stem.”

The watermelon they picked had an olive green stem.

With one hand I balanced the melon on a cutting board, and, with the other hand, I whacked a chopping knife. Thack! The melon split revealing pink flesh.

I handed slices to the gang. Chatter gave way to slurps. The watermelon, not quite ripe, melted on my tongue releasing a mild, sweet flavor. And spitting seeds onto my plate triggered memories of me a few years older than Addy. Mom had handed us children slices of watermelon and shooed us outside. Juice dripped off our chins, and we spit seeds into the grass.

Addy gulped her melon and wiped her face with the back of her hand. Then she tugged on Spence’s shirt sleeve. “I want to take a watermelon home. Can we pick it now?”

Spence frowned out at the garden. “No. The melons aren’t ripe yet.”

Addy’s face darkened. Her shoulders drooped.

“But Aunt Janet can make watermelon popsicles. You can eat one next time you visit.”

Addy jumped on the balls of her feet. Her face brightened. 

Watermelon on Vine

Mine didn’t. Though I would gladly make Addy popsicles, I needed to figure out how to pick ripe melons. Maybe the brown tendrils and stems would work. 

Through the first two weeks of September, no stems browned. One by one, I picked and ate nearly ripe melons. 

Monday, September 16, I spied the first brown stem. With a whoop Addy probably heard more than a hundred miles away in Pittsburgh, I grabbed the melon and rushed inside. 

Whack! Thack! 

The watermelon split releasing a bold fragrance and exposing bright red flesh. But mushy pulp surrounded the black seeds. “Weird,” I said to Spence, who carried a peck basket of tomatoes into the kitchen. “Look.” I held half of the melon up for him to inspect.

“Maybe it isn’t ripe.” He transferred the tomatoes to the table and headed back to the garden.

With a spoon, I scooped the mushy parts into the compost then, after rinsing the spoon, took a bite of the solid flesh. 

Grainy with a hint of fermentation. 

Not ripe.

 Over ripe.

Sheesh. I still needed to make popsicles for Addy.

Grabbing my picking apron, I ran to the watermelon patch. Thirteen watermelons remained⏤eight the size of bowling balls and five the size of softballs. The stems were green, olive, or tawny. Disregarding the colors, I stooped, snatched two of the larger melons, and stuffed them into the pouch of the apron. 

Picking cucumbers at the other end of the garden, Spence belly laughed. “You need a bushel basket.” 

By the time he’d fetched one from the basement, I’d picked and piled all eight of the large melons. The small ones would have to wait.

Back in the kitchen, I fetched the blender and the popsicle recipe then read the ingredient list⏤watermelon, sugar, and lime. Oops. No lime. I could substitute lemon juice. I kept reading. Combine ingredients in a blender . . . Strain mixture to get seeds out.

Watermelon Inside

Duh. Chopping the seeds to bits then straining them out made no sense. I cut the melons⏤some unripe, some ripe, and some over ripe⏤and mashed ripe sections through the mesh of a strainer. After blending the juice, sugar, and lemon juice until the mixture topped itself with a pink froth, I poured the liquid into popsicle forms and shoved them into the freezer.

More watermelons waited on the table. I baked a batch of watermelon muffins. Cleaning sticky juice and black seeds off the table, I licked my lips anticipating a yummy muffin and popsicle treat for dessert.

After supper, I bit into a warm muffin. Dry. As if playing a trombone, I extended my arm to stare at the muffin then brought it close and sniffed. Watermelon fragrance. I took another bite.  Cracker dry. Sheesh. I must have left the muffins in the oven too long. They tasted okay, but I wouldn’t serve dry muffins to family or friends.

I ran warm water over the popsicle form and pulled out a ruby red treat. No danger of having over baked these. I licked. The popsicle tasted like ice. I bit. Still ice. Double sheesh. 

Leaving the popsicle in a bowl, I washed dinner dishes, stared out the window at the sunset, and hoped Addy wouldn’t care about the lack of watermelon flavor. When the rack overflowed with dripping dishes, I reached for the last bowl, the one with the popsicle. It had melted leaving juice. Tipping the bowl to my lips, I sipped.

POW!

Watermelon flavor exploded in my mouth. Maybe I’d misjudged the popsicle because it’d been so cold. I took another bite. Still mostly flavor of ice. But, I knew what to do with the rest of the melons.

The next day, I searched the internet and found a simple recipe for juice⏤blend equal parts watermelon and water. Phooey on diluting the flavor. I would freeze pure watermelon juice. 

Cutting chunks of watermelon, I mashed them through the strainer until my biceps throbbed in protest. Discounting my aching upper arm, freezing watermelon juice proved the easiest way to store watermelons for the winter. Would other people like the juice?

Spence, a diabetic, couldn’t drink it, so I tested the juice on some willing friends.

Last week, Jennifer, owner of Jane Austen Books, raved over the watermelon juice at lunch. “This is amazing!” She ran downstairs to give her daughter a sip before returning with more compliments. “It’s so sweet you could add it to lemon juice for a naturally sweetened lemonade. It would also taste great with a tablespoon of lime juice.”

This week, Tom, our neighbor who drove over to help Spence measure for septic lid extenders and to see our three kittens, accepted a glass of watermelon juice. He took a sip and thumped his glass onto the table.  “I’ve never had watermelon juice before. It’s powerfully good.” He gulped more.

One problem solved. Watermelon juice pleased more than just me so, if Addy didn’t like the tasteless watermelon popsicles, she could drink the juice.

One problem remained. The puzzle detecting ripe watermelons. Brown tendrils and brown stems worked the same as thumps and yellow spots. I’m still groping for a way to identify ripe watermelons, but I’m not desperate enough to open the fence to groundhogs.

Popsicles and Muffins