It’s a day of heavy garden harvest, this high summer Saturday. Were the yard a fancy dinner jacket, its buttonhole would sport a moonflower or a canna, a hollyhock or a sunflower. If the occasion demanded it, a plate-sized, shockingly pink hibiscus, or a surprise lily cluster could be supplied just now. “Surprise!” they all seem to say, “we’re here already. Let’s go on that date.”
This week’s most welcome rains have brought on the humid heat: the Dog Days of Summer stand outside the backdoor and when you open it, they pant right in your face. I opened that door, kicking it ajar since my arms were full with a basket of wet laundry for the line. The outside air slapped me in the face, an identical feeling to the one I’d just had with my head down in the washer pulling out wet sheets. Ah, August at its signature best.
Rather than capitulate and call halt — always a temptation this month: you know, give it up and melt into any nearby sofa and stretch out like a cat. Nope. I decided to walk to the Farmers’ Market and do some errands in town.
With purpose I strode into the CHS woods hopping onto the Rails to Trails path at the back of the high school. How cool and dim it was in the woods, how refreshing. Picking up my pace, I headed deeper in, descending the staircase to the pretty bridge spanning the valley’s creek. The bridge itself was littered with detritus. It looked as if someone had done some woodworking and hadn’t cleaned up. Everywhere were papery curls and chips of bark as if an aerial beaver had set up shop.
Up close I saw that I was looking upon a hundred permutations of shed sycamore bark, most of it curled up into little beige parchment scrolls. One beautiful fragment had landed flat, its outer side up. The little rectangle is tawny as deerskin, dappled with holes outlined in white. A leaf is plastered into it and has taken on the texture of the bark. The shape and stem of the leaf are clearly outlined, colored a faint green fading to brown. I hold this slender thing in my hand and marvel.
This summer many have commented upon the dearth of birds and butterflies. The CHS woods this morning defy that. The air is alive with varied bird sounds (many unfamiliar to me). As my mind quiets to listen, my brain shifts gears. In a flash, my head had twirled the dial from some fast-breaking news station to a classical music one. My shoulders dropped; I pulled in a deep draught of green air. Birdsong prevailed. Something deep and consoling had spoken.
A couple of decades of my life have gone by as I’ve walked through this old valley. I know it well. Yet today — something new. An opportunistic gang of domesticated blackberries has colonized some small pines. Humans take note: if you’re not vigilant, nature decides where things grow. The crop of gleaming, dark drupes among the ripening red and white ones beckoned. What excellent fuel for the walk.
Years ago we had a patch of such blackberries in our backyard and our then little daughter would pick and then sell them at the Farmers’ Market. I can still see that sprite of a nine-year-old, dancing around, straw hat jammed onto her head, singing a sales jingle she’d made up on the spot: “Fresh blackberries picked this morning, fresh blackberries picked this morning! 75 cents a pint! Whoo Hoo!”
Grant Street itself was quiet and full of presence (walking instead of driving changes everything). I saw pear trees loaded with fruit and surprise lilies hither and yon holding out their fistfuls of bouquets in people’s yards. Remember that old-fashioned magic trick of whipping out a big bouquet of flowers and grinning like a banshee? Surprise! We children are always aghast. Grant Street is heavy with magicians this morning.
That oldest and wisest of magicians, nature herself, produced my next surprise. A delicate deer trotted across Grant Street right in the middle of the day, crossing from one wood patch to another near the little road leading up into the Oddfellows Cemetery. That deer joined another smaller one to graze. I supposed they were family. Their world doesn’t overlap much with ours: my eyes landed on them and they bolted out of sight.
I walked on up into that secluded place where it was exceptionally quiet among the victims and veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War I. The graying, simple stones and small pillars stretch back into the woods. The marker tells me the cemetery was formed in 1824, two years after Montgomery County … Just where exactly have I gotten myself off to? Who knows.
Yikes! I must pick up my pace. I’d had a late start already.
Here I am, walking through the public library lot to the Farmers’ Market. I quickly fill my bag with local onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Thank you, farmers. Today I don’t need garlic or honey or other produce on offer, but I am hungry. How convenient that today’s Market (even at this late hour) looks like a pop-up bakery and pizzeria ... I call Marc. I need a ride home. I’m balancing a hot, fragrant pizza bianca on my spread hand and, in a happy splurge, have also bought a couple of gigantic, carrot cake cinnamon rolls. It’s a day for a decadent lunch. My date pulls up. He sports no flower boutonniere but is right ready to share that yummy little feast.
No matter how you get there, come down to Pike Place to our Farmers’ Market on Saturdays through September. Your vendors will be there between 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. A world awaits if you come and see.
Dr. Helen Hudson of Crawfordsville contributes her Real Food column to the Journal Review.
