I’m exhausted. For dinner, we ate apple pie, more than half of it. But this is summer’s end and that is the way it is, frantic and furious and absolutely beautiful. This email from my Dad this afternoon got me to thinking.
Elderberry jelly and syrup are elixirs from the gods and we should be
truly grateful to enjoy them. The best, however, is elderberry pie. A
dish above all else. A dish treasured by your ancestors as a gift of
love and far too good for city folks.
I remember picking an agate bucket of elderberries and delivering them
to your Great-grandmother to wash and separate and then make a pie. It
was an event worth a trip to the store for vanilla ice cream.
You do lead the good life.
Love, Dad
Of course, he’s right. It is an incredible luxury to be able to put up ones own organic food. It most certainly is NOT cost effective. If I take stock of my day, I see that I picked and put up:
4 qts. yellow tomato juice
4 qts. elderberry juice
4 qts. of tomatoes / frozen
1 apple pie (that will not last through breakfast)
* and worked for a bit of time with C on the shed. The wood that we are using to build it is also from our property. When we cut for the power / phone line (that line that is still on the ground) we milled what we cleared.. thus 2×4’s and more.
My Secret Pal has been revealed. I’d been wondering and was hoping to ‘meet’ my SP. After all, my SP makes (and shared) strawberry jam, salsa, and peach jam, sent handmade beaded stitch markers, knits sanghuar gloves, incredibly beautiful Norwegian socks, and is thinking of knitting
this for HIS sister. That’s a pretty terrific guy!
Comments
6 responses to “a way of life”
It is indeed a luxury. I grew up in a family of canners: my grandmother still puts up everything she can pick, and the little remnants go into a mysterious canned concoction called “garden special”. How I hated it when I was a kid, but I do love it now!
What a fabulous secret pal! I hope his was as good to him.
Doing for oneself takes all available minutes, and was often not enough in New England, when the available minutes were limited by frost. I really like hearing all the things you accomplish.
Your SP is a guy! Cool.
Grrl, I love apple pie for dinner.
elderberries are the best, getting ready to do some soon…it is a battle to see who can get to them first, with the birds and tourists (who pull off to the side of the road to help themselves!)..but worth fighting for…
I can see your writing skill comes from your dad. What a lovely memory he described about elderberries!
Pie for breakfast is the best thing. I grew up on a farm, and those last weeks of summer were indeed hectic. My mom canned everything that could be canned, and froze some as well. In those days it was cost effective, not so much now.