End of August - Bountiful but not Beautiful

The end is coming.  The August garden is not a beautiful sight.  The weeds and grass are taking over some areas. Summer plants that have given their all are fading and need to be removed.  But the garden is not through giving yet.  This week's harvest was again bountiful.  

The bush beans are done, but the pole beans are producing prolifically.  I've already canned more than I have in years and there are more to come.  Tomatoes are slowing down, except for the little Juliets which will probably keep going until front.  They seem less susceptible to the blights that consume the other tomatoes.  Okra is coming into its own.  Fried okra may not be the healthiest, but it is the best by far. I can't believe I still found a few little cucumbers.  They don't usually last this long.

If the weather and my busy schedule will just break a little, I can pull out the bush beans and plant fall greens.  There is still time.

Last evening was cool enough to sit out on the deck after supper.  Hummingbirds fought one another to protect their feeding rights. A flock of birds (unknown) flew over. Peace descended as the did the sun.

A chittering flock flying low
toward the southeast.

Do they speak of 
the end of summer?

Are they bound
for some later holiday?

Do they know the beauty
of this late August evening?

Do they dream
of tropical shore when they rest at night?

A Gracious Plenty

Last Friday I had to bring the car over to take my garden havest back to the house. I hadn't been out to pick in 9 days. When I put it out on the counter for a picture, I thought of Mammaw's words, "a gracious plenty." My harvest was more than enough, and more work to be done.

Mammaw (Emily Farrar Westmoreland) used the phrase often. I remember her using it to mean abundance, as I was thinking, and also to mean enough, even in the face of scarcity. She would say it when it seemed that there might not be enough to go around as her affirmation of "make do."

Mammaw was born in 1902 to a respectable but not well-off family - John Andrew and Nellie Farrar and big-brother Travis. Four more siblings would follow. When she was still a young teen, the family left their hill-country farm in Montgomery County, Mississippi and moved to Sunflower County, no doubt seeking greater prosperity in the rich farmland of the Delta.  Her father and older brother farmed and later were merchant/businessmen.  There was always "enough" though the family never found the riches they hoped for. 

By the time the Great Depression descended, Emily was married to Clark Westmoreland and a young mother of one daughter, my mother Clara Nelle (born Aug 2. 1929).  Emily's concept of "a gracious plenty" carried her famiy through the depression and stayed with her throughout her life. It is but one of the many legacies she left to her daughter and grandchildren.

A Gracious Plenty

A Garden Feast

The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get

The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.  I have always attributed this saying to Pogo, but evidence does not support that.  It does express my busy summer.  With many people-centered activities, time for reflection has been minimal.  And I'm not good at reflection in afternoon or evening. I'm more of a morning thinker.  I will begin a few posts representing some summer catch-up of photos and activities and will date them as they happened.

My last post was a waterfall trip Bill and I took in February to Middle Tennessee.

August 7

Swallotail on a Sunflower

Pole beans are finally coming in

the Goldfinch blends in perfectly