Reflections on the Tenth Week of Fall - Sparking Celebratory Spirits

Charlie's Cupcakes Chopped and Mixed with Blueberry Pie Filling

Mid October, my husband stomped through the front door and splattered mud from his garden boots and soil-caked jeans. “The garden’s been crap this year.” He toed off the boots. “A groundhog found a gap in the fence. It ate the squash.”

“Not the butternut squash.” Imagining teeth marks marring the smooth outer skin and yellow-orange flesh, I would have clapped both hands against my cheeks if my hands hadn’t been wet with soapy dishwater.“ I can cut the bites out and freeze the rest for Thanksgiving.” 

“No.” He strode to the sofa and pounded computer keys to record garden notes. “There’s nothing left but seeds.”

Sheesh. No squash for Thanksgiving. I celebrated our Wells Wood harvest by serving as many homegrown vegetables and fruits as would fit on the table that day. I glanced through the sliding glass door to the winter rye covering the unproductive potato patch. The seed potatoes, though planted three times in three different months, rotted in the soggy soil. No Wells Wood spuds for the table this year. Since we’d eaten the asparagus and since the summer heat frizzled the pea crop, that left frozen pole beans to represent our harvest. 

Pole beans didn’t spark my celebratory spirit. 

Thanksgiving morning, sounds of plastic crinkling rose from the basement. Spence transplanted kale from four packs to bigger pots and set them under grow lights.

In the kitchen I grabbed the handle of a cast iron skillet with a potholder and stirred slivers of store-bought onions in a pool of olive oil. The bunching onions Spence had planted in Mr. Hooper, the hoop house, didn’t thrive. 

When I carried the pan to the table and poured caramelized onions over the mixture of bread cubes, celery, and spices, kittens raced between my feet. “Your lucky I didn’t trip and scald you,” I explained in my teacher voice. 

Gravel crunched in the driveway.

I shoved the dressing pan into the oven.

Grinning, Charlie stepped into the house and held a plastic food container aloft. “I made cupcakes this morning.” He set the container on the table. “They’re crunchy. Maybe I left them in the oven too long.” 

Squealing, I opened the container, pulled out an uniced cupcake, and sniffed. Vanilla. “They smell great.” I tore off the paper and bit. The texture had a slight crunch. The sugary vanilla flavor reminded me I hadn’t eaten desserts for six weeks in hopes of passing my mid-December, cholesterol blood test. “They’re sweet.” 

Charlie slipped out of his jacket. “I thought you could cut up the apples Dad bought.” He whirled his hand as if mixing ingredients. “Crumble the cupcakes and make a kind of apple cobbler.”

Apples. Spence and I had harvested a total of ten apples this fall. And they had bruises so I couldn’t keep them for Thanksgiving. “I baked a pie with Dad’s apples last night.”

“Do you have blueberries?” He stooped to pet Ande then, cradling the kitten in his arms, stood. “We could use blueberry pie filling.”

One by one over the summer, I’d picked a quart of blueberries and two cups of strawberries. Not the best fruit year. But the idea of consuming Charlie’s cupcakes with Wells Wood blueberries triggered ample celebratory spirit for Thanksgiving. I hugged myself and decided to freeze the apple pie for later. I fetched the bag of frozen blueberries. 

Ande jumped from Charlie’s arms to the table and sniffed the cupcakes.

Reaching around the kitten for the top, I covered the cupcake container then cooked blueberry pie filling. Fragrance of blueberry mixed with aroma of dressing in the kitchen. Not wanting to wait until dinner, I served our cobbler-concoction after lunch.  “The dessert’s not sugary-sweet.”

Charlie snickered. “Didn’t you taste the blueberry filling while you cooked? It’s tart. That cut the sugary taste.”

An hour later my daughter’s cheery voice yelled “Happy Thanksgiving!” through the phone. Ellen answered my questions. Ellen and Chris’s new tile floor should be finished in a week. They would celebrate Thanksgiving with a friend who mixed plantain and chorizo into the stuffing. I handed the phone to Spence, lifted the fresh turkey out of a Malady’s Meat Market box, and set the box on the floor.

Three kittens circled the box. They sniffed. Gilbert jumped in first. The other two crouched—waiting for turns to jump inside.

After Spence handed the phone to Charlie and went outside to play in Mr. Hooper, I nestled the cold bird on a rack in the roaster pan. Sticking my hand into the bird’s cavity, I pulled out the giblets and neck. Slippery stuff. 

While I set them in a pan of water on the stove, a kitten scampered across the great room—pitter-pat-pat—and thumped onto the table behind me.

Rills Licking the Uncooked Turkey

I peered over my shoulder.

Rills crouched beside the roast pan and licked the pale breast. 

Giggling, I dashed to fetch my camera.

When I jogged back, Rills still licked. His eyes darted my way then back to the turkey.

I took three pictures before lifting him off the table. With a wet paper towel, I wiped the licked spots—though roasting in the over for the afternoon would kill any kitten germs. Monitoring Rills’s circular trips around the table, I slathered olive oil over the turkey’s skin, put the lid on the roaster, and shoved it into the oven.

Spence stomped back, kicked off his muddy boots, and stretched his hand toward me. “Look what I found.” He held three beets—two the size of golf balls and one the size of a lemon. “Since they aren’t that big, I’ll pickle them next week. You’ve got beans to go with the turkey.”

A garden vegetable harvested on Thanksgiving Day would be a first. My celebratory spirit surged through me and escaped in a “Woohoo! I want fresh-from-the-garden beets for dinner.”

Spence flashed his patient, whatever-makes-her-happy smile.

While the fellas sipped Beaujolais nouveau, I savored the beets—boiled then seasoned with Spence’s special spices. Pickled beet flavor exploded in my mouth, and I anticipated the sweet-tart blueberry-cupcake cobbler dessert. 

Homegrown beets and blueberries.

Kitten shenanigans. 

Family. 

Despite a disappointing harvest, our Thanksgiving celebration surpassed my expectations.

And I saved the pole beans for the leftovers.

Thanksgiving Nap