I woke up this morning and it was cold, really nice and cold, for the
first time in what passes for Southern California fall. Recent
sprinkles of rain have turned my barren, drought-ridden front yard into
an oasis of wild grass, and I stood out there for a minute in my bare
feet, savoring the icy crisp dew on the cold, sharp little blades and
enjoying the pale glitter the morning light casts over all that bright
and brilliant green.
It's a Saturday. There's no
rush. I let the chickens out into their pen, feed them, look for eggs,
and then move their run to the front yard so they can enjoy the new
grass too. As I'm hauling their heavy pen I realize there are huge
patches of clover here and there. Have I seen these before? I can't
remember. In our days of the immaculately tended weed-free lawn?
certainly not. But with the lawn abandoned to its own devices, the
October rains have brought up soft springy patches of the stuff
everywhere. The chickens pounce on it greedily and delicately pluck each
individual oval leaf off the stem. I pull in some loofah gourd vines, these crazy seeds that have taken over my winter garden with their sprawling vines and enormous yellow flowers, and let the chickens have an extra treat on this cool morning.
I'm so
enchanted with the green this morning I stop waiting for the baby kale I
planted to grow into something respectably sized and just pluck the
biggest leaf from each plant. I end up with a tiny salad that fits in my
hand, too small for a bowl, maybe big enough to throw into a smoothie,
but decide on a whim to just eat it raw. It's delicious, still cold with
morning dew, mild and almost sweet with a flavor that can only be
described as "green". It's fresh, it's alive, it's pulsing with
nutrients pulled out of the sun and the soil and utterly unlike the
bumpy, bitter leaves I've had from the store. It's not sweet, exactly, but there's something so craveable about it that makes me think maybe I should start my morning this way more often. There's fall broccoli coming up in the kale bed and I notice one of the plants has a little lavender flower hiding under the huge spade-shaped leaves.
I check on the fruit trees, the Gala apples we planted a month ago when it seemed the weather was turning and right before the record heat wave struck with its killing temperatures of over 100. The trees look fine, surprisingly, leaves are bright green and soft, and new leaves are sprouting. I dream about next year when we might be able to harvest enough for apple cider, apple pie, and unlimited snacks from the little trees. Then I glance over at my Meyer lemons, which finally produced this year, but are stubbornly refusing to ripen, branches weighed down with dozens of creamy green fruit that I scrutinize week after week, wondering if my eyes have played tricks on me or if they really have lightened to a more lime-green color? Today there's a truly yellow spot on one fruit and I'm encouraged. Maybe I'll actually get my fresh lemon curd before I die. Maybe.
I finish in the garden and go back in to make some almond milk. I haven't done this by myself before and I'm fascinated and delighted by the cloud of creamy white milk that pours out of the blender once I've put it through the unfortunate but aptly titled Nut Bag. I think about whether I've ever seen almond trees at the local nursery and wonder how long it takes from sapling to harvest. Could we really make milk from the nuts from our own trees? This week we collected our first eggs from our six month old hens and it simultaneously energized me to think about more sustainable living project (Beehives! Tilapia ponds! Hops!) and underlined how long-term these projects are. Blueberry bushes, bought in bloom and two weeks from fruiting, were easy. Nut trees? That might take a while. I decide to mentally table the trees and make myself a pumpkin chai almond milk latte like the Southern California white girl I am. Even though I don't own an infinity scarf, ugg boots or yoga pants, the fresh almond milk and the pumpkin taste amazing.
I've realized that Saturdays are insidious. When there's nothing to do except live in the moment you suddenly realize that living in the moment is pretty amazing. Every taste from my garden makes me want more, makes me think maybe I should make a double batch of the fresh bread that's so good we tear it in pieces and slather it with Kerry butter like we're living in 1952, that I should make sure we go to the Farmer's Market because maybe they'll have fresh arepas at the Venezuelan stand, these creamy, white corn, polenta-like thick tortillas filled with Spanish ham and coteja cheese and saffron. Could I spend the morning responding to the insane growth of weeds in my broccoli beds rather than the inane growth of my email inbox?
