August 30: Harvest
Kristen Lindquist
Muskmelon big as my head--
all day its perfume
sweetens my kitchen.
Book of Days
BOOK OF DAYS: A POET AND NATURALIST TRIES TO FIND POETRY IN EVERY DAY
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Filtering by Tag: harvest
November 4: Late harvest
Kristen Lindquist
Posted with BlogsyOctober 1: Harvest
Kristen Lindquist
October 8: Leaves are starting to turn
Kristen Lindquist
End of the season--
chestnuts on the tin barn roof,
sparrows at field's edge.
chestnuts on the tin barn roof,
sparrows at field's edge.
October 16: Herbs
Kristen Lindquist
I planted my first herb garden at the house where we lived the longest when I was growing up. I think I was about 12. My dad helped me build a hexagonal frame for it, and, surprisingly, it flourished. I remember that the key plants were parsley, sage, and thyme, with a clump of mint that grew out of control, chives, and lamb's ears, because I loved how soft and fuzzy the leaves were. I would often find our family cat lounging in the bed of thyme or chewing on the mint, and I was thrilled when my mother would occasionally add my chives to a salad.
In the years since, I've created several more herb gardens, and when I couldn't have an actual garden, tried to keep pots of herbs around the house. When we bought our current house, one of the first things I did after we moved in was to balance out a nice perennial bed that already existed on one side of the front lawn with an herb garden on the other, anchored by a lilac bush that had been a housewarming gift. Six years later, I've got fennel, a couple of different mints, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, several clumps of chives, echinacea (ok, not really an herb, but I needed something tall), and maybe some oregano out there.
The funny thing is, I don't really do anything with these herbs. Sure, the parsley and fennel were supposedly grown for my husband to use in his cooking, but he never remembers they're there before they go to flower. But I like their unpretentious flowers. And I like the fact that the greenery of my herbs is beautiful, fragrant, and at least potentially useful. When I mow the lawn along the garden's edge and smell crushed lemon thyme or the oniony scent of chopped chives, I always smile. This afternoon I harvested a big bunch of sage and some lavender ostensibly to dry for some future purpose. But really, I just did it because I wanted to breathe in their fresh aromas, to have those scents mingling in the air of my kitchen. And to feel like my garden has produced at least this small bounty.
Handful of sage boughs
trimmed while raking leaves today--
harvest of fragrance.
In the years since, I've created several more herb gardens, and when I couldn't have an actual garden, tried to keep pots of herbs around the house. When we bought our current house, one of the first things I did after we moved in was to balance out a nice perennial bed that already existed on one side of the front lawn with an herb garden on the other, anchored by a lilac bush that had been a housewarming gift. Six years later, I've got fennel, a couple of different mints, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, several clumps of chives, echinacea (ok, not really an herb, but I needed something tall), and maybe some oregano out there.
The funny thing is, I don't really do anything with these herbs. Sure, the parsley and fennel were supposedly grown for my husband to use in his cooking, but he never remembers they're there before they go to flower. But I like their unpretentious flowers. And I like the fact that the greenery of my herbs is beautiful, fragrant, and at least potentially useful. When I mow the lawn along the garden's edge and smell crushed lemon thyme or the oniony scent of chopped chives, I always smile. This afternoon I harvested a big bunch of sage and some lavender ostensibly to dry for some future purpose. But really, I just did it because I wanted to breathe in their fresh aromas, to have those scents mingling in the air of my kitchen. And to feel like my garden has produced at least this small bounty.
Handful of sage boughs
trimmed while raking leaves today--
harvest of fragrance.
October 22: Last Lupine
Kristen Lindquist
The Harvest Moon rises tonight, the October full moon, the light of which once enabled farmers to get in that last harvest by working into the illuminated night. My co-worker seemed to be perpetuating our connection to that agrarian past by mowing the field that is the office lawn this afternoon. Milkweed fluff churned in the brisk breeze, fallen leaves swirled in his wake, and the lawn is now corrugated with thick ridges of mown grass.
When he came in from his version of "haying," he brought us a gift: the season's last lupine. I haven't seen a lupine in flower since last June, I think, so this one was a true surprise. We wondered if it was a second round from a plant that figured it would try again, having bloomed a few weeks earlier than usual this summer. Or maybe it bloomed in response to the full moon. "Lupine" means "wolf-like," after all, so this could be the flower's way of howling at the moon.
This tall purple stalk now sits in a coffee cup on the window sill, the russets and ochres of fall foliage providing a contrasting backdrop: summer meets fall. Soon enough, our "last flower" will give way to our "first snowfall."
Out of season gift:
a single lupine blooming
under Harvest Moon.
When he came in from his version of "haying," he brought us a gift: the season's last lupine. I haven't seen a lupine in flower since last June, I think, so this one was a true surprise. We wondered if it was a second round from a plant that figured it would try again, having bloomed a few weeks earlier than usual this summer. Or maybe it bloomed in response to the full moon. "Lupine" means "wolf-like," after all, so this could be the flower's way of howling at the moon.
This tall purple stalk now sits in a coffee cup on the window sill, the russets and ochres of fall foliage providing a contrasting backdrop: summer meets fall. Soon enough, our "last flower" will give way to our "first snowfall."
Out of season gift:
a single lupine blooming
under Harvest Moon.
August 1: Predators
Kristen Lindquist
Today is the pagan holiday of Lughnasa or Lammas, the first harvest holiday of the season. I celebrated this perfect summer day on the Elizabeth Ann, watching seabirds in Muscongus Bay under blue skies and on calm seas for Friends of Maine Seabird Islands' fourth annual seabird adventure. We cruised out to Eastern Egg Rock with about 120 people on board, most of whom hoped to see puffins. And puffins we saw, though not in great numbers. Puffin Project researchers on the island counted record 109 pairs this summer, but only a handful of the colorful little birds were hanging around offshore today. What we did see: black guillemots, laughing gulls galore (1,500 pairs of those on the island!) making a racket along with the clouds of terns (common, Arctic, and endangered roseate all nest on the island), cormorants, eiders, a big cluster of ruddy turnstones, a couple of Wilson's storm-petrels dancing on the waves, a few gannets in the distance, some "peep" sandpipers, several great black-backed and herring gulls, osprey, bald eagle, harbor seals, and harbor porpoises.
And a peregrine falcon, which strafed the island, flushing every bird into the air in a screeching, swirling mass. It stooped, the fastest bird on earth, and when it rose into the air again we could clearly see it held a tern in its talons. The falcon flew off trailing an angry mob of terns dogging it like silvery wasps, but it did not relinquish its prey. Early harvest.
The cruise began to feel like a Discovery Channel nature show when around the next bend we came upon a great black-backed gull attacking a young laughing gull headfirst. While we watched in awe, the gull killed this bird almost half its own size and dragged it off to tear apart for a meal. Another early harvest. As Sue Schubel from Maine Audubon reminded us over the boat's speakers, "It's not being mean, it's just eating dinner." I've never seen anything like it. But apparently the birds nearby had, as they barely even noticed the commotion just a few feet away.
As we circled the island several times we also were able to observe many guillemots catching rock eels the same vivid red-orange as their feet. Terns and puffins flew in to young with beaks full of fish. A riffle on the water chased by a gull revealed where a school of fish was driven to the surface by larger fish. And just before we turned away to head back to Port Clyde, a peregrine scared up the birds once more...
A lot of harvesting going on, the bounty of the sea made visible by this island teeming with healthy bird life. And a joyful day overall, which we celebrated by enjoying our own harvest from the sea at Cod's End in Tenants Harbor on the way home.
Not gull's prey this time,
cormorants look away, calm,
dreaming of herring.
And a peregrine falcon, which strafed the island, flushing every bird into the air in a screeching, swirling mass. It stooped, the fastest bird on earth, and when it rose into the air again we could clearly see it held a tern in its talons. The falcon flew off trailing an angry mob of terns dogging it like silvery wasps, but it did not relinquish its prey. Early harvest.
The cruise began to feel like a Discovery Channel nature show when around the next bend we came upon a great black-backed gull attacking a young laughing gull headfirst. While we watched in awe, the gull killed this bird almost half its own size and dragged it off to tear apart for a meal. Another early harvest. As Sue Schubel from Maine Audubon reminded us over the boat's speakers, "It's not being mean, it's just eating dinner." I've never seen anything like it. But apparently the birds nearby had, as they barely even noticed the commotion just a few feet away.
As we circled the island several times we also were able to observe many guillemots catching rock eels the same vivid red-orange as their feet. Terns and puffins flew in to young with beaks full of fish. A riffle on the water chased by a gull revealed where a school of fish was driven to the surface by larger fish. And just before we turned away to head back to Port Clyde, a peregrine scared up the birds once more...
A lot of harvesting going on, the bounty of the sea made visible by this island teeming with healthy bird life. And a joyful day overall, which we celebrated by enjoying our own harvest from the sea at Cod's End in Tenants Harbor on the way home.
Not gull's prey this time,
cormorants look away, calm,
dreaming of herring.