August

    

 I believe we all love the time around when we were born the best…it resonates deeply in our bodies. This is what the world should look like. For me, that time is late August, the time when the light shifts down in the sky and the end of summer is near. There’s a beauty in the aching sadness of ripe fruit, dry grass, and golden light tinged by dust and distant fires that brings my life to a standstill every year. The cat and I sit in the back garden, moving with the sun, soaking up the light for the long grey winter ahead.  

Mark and I pressed apples yesterday, using our new press. I wandered the neighborhood with my picker, harvesting apples from several abandoned trees that lean over rental housing fences. It’s a good year; I can feel the trees breathe a sigh of relief when I remove the fruit and the branches can reach upward again. In half an hour, I had two laundry baskets full of fruit, including some of our own. It took a while to figure out the new system, as we did not have a pre-pressing chopper, so the first round of just quarter fruit went nowhere. After I realized that the food processer could chop quartered apples quickly, we made progress. Juice flowed from all of the cracks, gushing into the bowl below. After two and a half hours, there was fruit pulp everywhere and a full professional kitchen pasta pot of juice. 14 quarts! And still lots of fruit in the neighborhood!

The house is painted and the tool bucket is unpacked, brushes and sandpaper returned to the basement shelves. In early mornings, the house glows against the deep blue sky—yellow and green, with dark red gutters and storm windows. We also repaired windows, and posts, and cracks in the bathroom. I painted bookshelves and the bedroom trim…if the pandemic keeps me in all winter, I will take on the kitchen.  If you add in a closet clean-out, reorganization of a the shed, and a purge of the lost space behind the shed, the house is in much better shape than it was last winter. According to the salesperson at Miller paint, I am not the only one tackling home repair this summer.

Late August and early September are the most beautiful months in the high Cascades….I miss the solitude of mountains this summer, because the trails have been packed with people escaping tourists to their towns and looking for a safe place to be. We spent the night at Duffy lake last week—every site was taken in the middle of the week. We need to go further in if we want to find peace and quiet, or wait a few weeks until school begins again.

Meanwhile, the cat and I are sitting in the back yard in the morning, watching the hummingbirds dive around the flowers, the woodpecker check out the greenhouse—no bugs here!—and the light shine on the seedheads of lovage and mustard. Mr. Beezhold nibbles on the dried cherries on the ground. The chickens argue over who owns the nesting box. Late August.