Passing

Met C on the flight from Quebec City to Toronto 4 years ago. Lover of trees and books (like me), she teaches English to immigrant kids from lower income groups, and is more of a mentor and guide to them.

She has a lovely vegetable garden in the backyard, and a tree, planted in memory of a friend who passed away. She made me pancakes with maple syrup and strawberries and blueberry jam made with her grandmother's recipe.

Told her how I mark the changing of the seasons by the arrival and disappearance of various fruits on the wayside carts. And this is what she replied:

.................................
.
"I also mark the passing of time with the ripening and harvesting of fruits and vegetables! I wait all Spring for the first green shoots to peek from the earth in my garden so that I can snip them and add them to my salads and soups...then the radishes beg to be picked...I gleefully anticipate the first strawberries that come in Spring.


By the time school is finished in June, it's time to go and pick those strawberries and bring them home for jam-making and freezing and, well, gorging...Raspberries get picked in huge quantities a few weeks later. We all go picking, and bring them home in buckets to process. It's difficult not eating them all in a day...with yogurt...ice-cream...custard...on their own... Oh my! They're so sweet and delicate!


The salad days of summer progress into the sweet corn-tomato-cucumber days...then the peach and pear days....the zucchini and pepper days...We'll soon be entering the apple-pumpkin days of the year but not before I harvest the concord grapes from the back yard... and the hazelnuts that abound... and those BEANS!! They have to be picked every day; they're so plentiful!

My goodness! We revel in bounteous splendour and I am grateful."