THE BUTTER MOON

Life is full of struggles – the big ones like the one between good and evil, and the smaller, day-to-day things like avoiding laundry or what to do with the yoghurt that’s past its best before date – but the one that reared its ugly head on me this morning was zipping up my favorite blue jeans.  It’s not that I couldn’t get them done up - we’re not that far gone yet – but sitting in them is getting to be uncomfortable.  Obviously Karma is trying to tell me that the opposite of sitting is what I should be doing.

But I wasn’t thinking about Karma at the time; she always wants me to take responsibility for my own actions.  The thought that went through my head this morning was “Darned Butter Moon!”

Let me explain.

Back in the days of pre history when humans were all hunter-gatherers their way of keeping the passage of time was different than what we do today.  Increments as small as minutes and hours were of no importance, but in order to feed themselves throughout a whole year they had to know the seasons.  It was of utmost importance to know when the hunting was best, when certain plants would be ready to harvest, when the migrations would take place.  They watched the moon and named each full moon as it pertained to their livelihood.

For instance March was the Sap Moon because that’s when the sap would begin to rise.  April the Egg Moon, May the Milk Moon and June was the Strawberry Moon.  The moons of the waning year claimed the names of Harvest Moon, Hunter’s Moon, and Frost Moon.  Maybe it’s the farmer in me but I’ve always liked the idea of observing the season’s passage in this natural way.  Since I ‘live out on the land’ this natural calendar makes so much more sense than using the names of the Roman Emperors or Greek goddesses.

My year goes more like this: January is the Dark Moon because even though daylight hours are beginning to stretch out, it’s really hard to tell yet.  February is the Mexico Moon – or anywhere south and warm.  If we get away to find sunshine it will be then.  March is my Mud Moon.  I don’t dislike it as much as I did when the house was full of kids, but it’s still pretty muddy.  April is the Impatient Moon – the snow doesn’t go fast enough, the grass isn’t green yet, and I just want to plant things!  May is the Planting Moon, June is the Dandelion Moon, and my name for July is one borrowed from my hunter-gatherer ancestors - the Thunder Moon.  They were also right about September being the Harvest Moon, and October being the Hunter’s Moon, as well as November being the Snow Moon and December the Cold Moon.

But August?  My August?  This is the one I call the Butter moon.  Not because of the moon’s pale yellow appearance, nor is it because cows produce more cream at this time of year.  No, it’s completely, entirely, and inarguably because with all the fresh vegetables coming in from the garden the butter consumption doubles in this house in August.  Butter on new potatoes.  Butter on corn on the cob.  Butter on peas and carrots and beets, on beans and steamed Swiss Chard.  Not to mention all the extra butter that goes into cucumber sandwiches.  All of these things would taste good on their own, but it’s like they say … everything’s better with butter!

I’ve been sitting for the better part of a morning as I wrote this.  Karma wasn’t kidding about the “this is going to be uncomfortable” warning she gave me this morning.  It’s a darned good thing that the Butter Moon is almost over, and maybe I should spend the up-coming Harvest Moon commemorating my hunter-gatherer ancestors by walking everywhere I go and consuming only what I harvest on my own.

                                                (SLOW) DOWN TIME

It’s been a summer of nonstop activity.  I know it wasn’t last week that I was still waiting for the snow to melt but the time has gone by in such a blur that it seems like it. 

Summer is always busy but in the five years since I retired I have managed to get myself on the local tourism board: this kind of multiplies the busy factor of the season.  I really don’t mind.  I enjoy being part of a positive influence in my community, and the people I share board duties with are all great to work with.  It’s just that from the long weekend in May until Labour Day there is a lot to do.

This year was extra crazy.  Our group always plans and hosts the Canada Day celebrations but we really upped the ante this summer striving to draw a bigger crowd with live music and a steak supper.  Mother Nature treated us to a rain/hail storm to make things even more challenging but the day was a success in spite of her efforts.

Our other big event was our first ever garden tour in mid July.  In order to get something new like this up and running we needed an assortment of local gardens to show off.  It was much more challenging to get people to commit than I had anticipated so I ended up including mine as one of the rural yards.  My selling point when asking others to show their gardens was “You keep your yard and garden anyway.  It will be no extra work.”  While I believed this to be true when I said it, turns out only the first part is.  When you know you have people coming expressly to see your yard and garden, you are much more critical of grass height and visible weeds.  I can’t thank the folks enough who did offer their gardens for the 2018 tour, and I hope we can find some more for next year.  It really was a lovely day.

Besides those two events – and all the work that went into keeping ahead of grass and weeds – I also spent a few weeks in the spring clearing out deadfall in the shelterbelt which we later wood chipped piles of mulch for our fruit trees.  As well, we hosted several different visitors, entertained grandchildren a couple times, and as the days got hotter and hotter, took up hauling water to keep everything alive. 

In July the garden kept me busy with peas and beans to pick and process, now it’s cucumbers I can’t keep up with and soon it will be corn.  Then there will be potatoes to dig and I literally have a forest of tomatoes I will have to deal with.  But right now, strangely, I have nothing to do.

I have wandered around the yard.  The grass crunches to powder under my shoes; it is so dry.  I took a pail of water to a few new trees, but watering on a larger scale is out of the question.  We just can’t take our well for granted.  We haven’t had measurable rain in ages and there is no guarantee there will be lots of snow for runoff to replenish our water supply in the spring.  As depressing as the scorched earth is out there, I really like to take showers and wash dishes on a regular basis.

So with the one thing that needs done out there off limits I found myself wandering aimlessly this morning; all my accumulated work ethic spinning its wheels in the sand.  Time to turn my mind to other things … I will be ending August off with a short camping trip with a smattering of family and grandchildren … I should pack.  And later on, as I wait for my farmer to come home for supper, I will pour myself a glass of wine, sit on the deck, and watch the hummingbirds do battle over sugar water.  We can celebrate the end of summer together in the twilight.

                                       IT’S AN EMOTIONAL PROCESS

The blast furnace temperatures went away for a couple days so I made the best of my gardening time while I could.  On those hot hot days I stood at my laundry room window and tortured myself with what a tangled, neglected mess my garden had become.  The lettuce was two feet high and about to flower.  The Swiss chard had collapsed under its own weight.  The peas, in their effort to climb above the jungle, had pulled the dill down. 

The beans looked lush and green from the house, but I knew under all those leaves lurked at least one large tub of over ripe beans.  They had gotten away on me … well, it all had … just like every other year.  Whether the reasons be holidays or company or weather or over production, by the middle of August it always comes to this.  It was time to start wrapping up the season.

So dressed in what seemed like winter clothes after the past week (knee length shorts and a T-shirt) I tossed back the last of my breakfast coffee, picked up my big, black garden tub, and commenced a bit of a purge.

It struck me, as I plucked bean plants from Mother Nature’s bosom, that gardening presented the same series of emotions year after year.

In the cold, dark days of January I long for anything green and growing.  I leaf through seed and nursery catalogues and dream of warm sunshine and moist earth.  By the end of February I can stand it no longer – I haul dirt in, set up shelving in the south window and plant seeds.  March and April are spent trying to keep the seedlings from dying because I planted them way too early.

At last May arrives, the earth warms; it’s time for the real thing.  To place those tiny seeds in moist soil is an exercise in anticipation.  How long will it take them to germinate?  What pests will I have to guard against?  Which will deliver their goods first – radishes? Or lettuce?  The ritual morning garden check begins.

There is joy when the rows start showing up; first tiny green specks, then discernible rows, and finally clear lines of lush sturdy plants, easily spotted from the laundry room window.

Toward the end of June satisfaction kicks in.  We are eating salads, and baby carrots, spinach and beet leaves.  The peas and beans are in bloom.  Butter sales are about to sky rocket.  All is good with the world.

And then July hits.  Well, actually, it’s a blur.  A person cannot keep up with Mother Nature’s production schedule.  Some years I last longer than others but Mother Nature always wins.  It’s exasperating.

Now, here we are in the middle of August, and the most prevalent emotion is one of relief.  Okay, I’ll be honest – it is with pure glee that I am ripping whole rows of legumes from the ground.  The mad rush is behind me.  Oh sure, I still have cucumbers coming at me and the corn is nearly ready and the potatoes will need to be dug, but the scales have tipped toward fall, my favourite season.  There is a feeling of completion in the air and the sky is the special soft blue it turns in autumn.  It doesn’t get better than this

A frost in September will finish everything else off.  In October I will put all my deck planters away.  In November it will snow. 

And somewhere in the middle of all the Christmas mail the seed catalogues will arrive, and we’ll start all this craziness all over again.

                                    GROUNDED

The past two weeks have been very busy for us.  Well, actually the whole summer has, but it’s the recent past that has me thinking today.

We live in a particular part of heaven called rural Saskatchewan.  Don’t laugh; beauty is in the senses of the beholder.  You may well consider where you live to be a slice of heaven too – I hope you do – but as for myself, there is nowhere on the planet I would rather live than here.

Even so.  Even though I feel this way.  Even as I appreciate the seasons, relish the colors, take in great deep breaths of fresh air, and watch successive sunsets bring to a close our happy, fulfilling days, sometimes my wonder at being so lucky to live here fades into complacency.  I begin to take it all for granted.

The cure for this is to look upon it with fresh eyes.  Over the past two weeks we have had visitors from far away cities, and through conversations with them I have come to hit the ‘refresh’ button on the value of living here.  It wasn’t that we sat and compared our lifestyles or argued about who had it better.  It wasn’t like that at all.  Everyone involved was quite satisfied with their lives; where they lived, and what they chose to do with their time.  It’s just that as we sat on our deck and looked out over the fields, or drove our dusty summer roads, or wandered around the yard and gardens, I was given the chance to see these treasures from a different perspective.

Things like how far away our closest neighbors live.  This is no big deal to us – it’s a mile, or two, depending which direction you’re talking about – but for each of them this is phenomenal.  Where they live the houses almost touch.  They need shades on their windows for privacy, not just to keep the sunlight out.  They lock all their doors all the time.  Their dogs are always on a leash. 

Questions like “How far away is your property line?” came up.  And when the answer was given, the next question was “What do you mean by ‘quarter section’?”  Out came the municipal map to explain that term, and then we were into things like ‘grid road system’ and ‘main farm access’.  In the very different worlds of Southern Ontario and Connecticut, USA these were alien terms.

The most alien thing for them, though, was the quiet.  No traffic noises, no machinery, no sirens, no voices other than our own and the occasional coyote.  When we lapsed into silence all there was left to hear was the whirring of hummingbird wings.

Of course, there is the other side of the coin.  Cities have such a wide variety of shops and services – how fun would it be to just wander and browse and shop on any given afternoon just because you have an hour or two?  Take in a movie on the spur of a moment?  Enjoy a choice of parks or pools or museums? 

And where they live they are only a call or a click away from a hundred choices of takeout food or delivery to the door, a luxury I dream of often.   

Then again, if that is such a thrill, why did our visitors from Calgary make such a fuss over picking and shelling their own peas?  How much fun did they derive from ‘snitching’ new potatoes for supper?  What was the big deal over the fresh garden lettuce and sliced cucumbers.  This, apparently, is not one of the 100 menu options available to them in the big city.  Our regular summer fare was applauded as a very special treat …. Or was that the fried green tomatoes the men cooked up while we waited for the farm chicken to finish roasting?

It’s been such a busy time I’m really not sure which of our guests mentioned reading about how humans benefit from walking barefoot of the earth.  How being skin-to-grass helps us connect with the Earth.  How we all need to be more grounded and that studies had been done that showed such a physical connection improved our well being.

I spend a good portion of my summer barefoot: that may go a long way to explaining why I love where I live so much.