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| The meadow on a cool August morning. |
August is an elegiac month to me. I like the word elegiac. To me it sounds like what it means: expressing sorrow for that which is irrevocably past. When I was young August meant the end of summer, though really there is some summer left after it. It always was the warmest month of the year. When I was young and we lived in New Cumberland, the heat made the world seem heavy and languid. I remember days when the August air was thick with the smell of the ripe grapes that grew up the back of our house and the aroma of pears from the tree at the top of the yard. It was like breathing syrup. Walking barefoot under that pear tree was like crossing a minefield – the fallen pears were always full of yellow-jackets. I can’t count the times I forgot and ran under the tree and stepped on a squished pear and was stung. I used to love to sit in the glider in our back yard and swing slowly back and forth and listen to the sound of cicadas droning in the still trees and daydream in the August heat.
Later, when we moved away to Ohio, August was the month when Grandma would come to visit us. She always brought my cousin Rick with her and sometimes cousin Ron, and once cousin Lori, and one time even Grandad came. They stayed the month with us and it was wonderful. During those August days we never let the heat prevent us from doing anything. The two Augusts that we lived in the country, we went boating on the reservoir all month. In the evenings we would sit on the porch or in the living room with the fans blowing and play Monopoly for hours. We rode our bicycles all over our corner of Ravenna. But always in my mind there was the knowledge that it would not last. And knowing it was soon going away tinged everything I did with a glow of elegiac sadness. At the month’s end Grandma and all our company went home. The house grew quiet. All our energy gone. School was about to start and our freedom was vanishing with the heat. Another summer irrevocably past. Many summers later, it still seems that way.
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| The front yard maples. |
This year August has not been very warm so far. It has felt a bit like fall. I want a few hot days before the summer comes apart. Extra blankets on the bed and sweaters should not belong in August.
On Monday Josiah and I pulled up the garlic and set it on the back porch to cure. We ate our only cauliflower that day at dinner. (Darn that woodchuck!) It was delicious (the cauliflower, not the woodchuck). There are a few broccoli plants that survived the slaughter. We’ll start eating them soon.
The Yellow Transparent apples are ripe now. Stacey, Hannah, and Josiah picked six buckets full on Saturday. Applesauce making is about to begin. I have it on good authority that Yellow Transparent apples make the very best applesauce. They are the first apples to ripen – a soft, sweet apple that makes a pale smooth sauce. I have two old apple trees in my orchard (they are at least 50 years old) one is a Yellow Transparent – my earliest apple, the other a Northern Spy – my latest apple. Both of them are wonderful trees. The other trees in my orchard are younger, the oldest of the younger trees are 15 years old now. They give me fruit in good years. One of them, The Duchess of Oldenburg, is an early apple and will be ripe this week. They are good eating apples.
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| Picking apples. |
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| Apples waiting to be sauced. |
Saturday we worked together in the yard most of the morning. We weeded the strawberry beds. We pulled out the spent pea vines and took down the pea fence. We raked up fallen apples and took them to the barn for the chickens to eat. I mowed the lawn. Hannah mowed the neighbor’s lawn. In the afternoon I made another batch of dill pickles. We got a lot done. It was a good day.
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| Josiah raking pulled weeds. |
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| Strawberries. |
Today it is a little warmer. We finally rose above 80 degrees. After church we had lunch at the Shillig’s house. They invited friends from church to come to lunch and we went too. It was a fine afternoon for it. We ate on their back porch – sandwiches, salads, lemonade, desserts. After lunch we took a walk around the yard. The guests have gone now and we’re home again and the warm sunshine has made me drowsy. I think I’ll take a nap. Good Sabbath.
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| The back porch steps. |
