The staked tomato is on the ground. The lemon drop chili plant that was supposed to grow to a max height of 3 ft is now nearing 5 and between me looking at it and thinking “Should I prune this? But it looks healthy..” and doing a look through to check on things after the thunderstorm, it too fell sideways, encouraged by the strong winds and weighed down by the numerous peppers. The carrots are well past the time they should’ve been harvested and the Turkish eggplant this year, although it remained upright, has fruit that’s half the size. In short, the vegetable beds are a disaster.
July and August have just been about maintaining, making sure everything is watered well and watered regularly during the heat waves. But now there needs to be damage control. The chaos is far from the contentment of this summer poem I found. And now that summer is coming to a close, it feels like a goodbye poem too.
The Waking
Theodore Roethke
I strolled across
An open field;
The sun was out;
Heat was happy.
This way! This way!
The wren’s throat shimmered,
Either to other,
The blossoms sang.
The stones sang,
The little ones did,
And flowers jumped
Like small goats.
A ragged fringe
Of daisies waved;
I wasn’t alone
In a grove of apples.
Far in the wood
A nestling sighed;
The dew loosened
Its morning smells.
I came where the river
Ran over stones:
My ears knew
An early joy.
And all the waters
Of all the streams
Sang in my veins
That summer day.
(From p.79 of Poetry U.S.A)
The heat waves felt they were dragging on. But there are things that you wait all year for, sometimes even forgetting that you’ve been waiting. Watch the fireflies light up as you peer down the street, as if to an inaudible count. Drink the first lemonade.
In the in-betweens though, when we got a preview of the coming fall with some cool, overcast days, I pounced on the chance to make this cake.
A rich chocolate cake that I’d usually find to be too much for summer but when I saw the book at the library I had to pick it up.
It’s the Stir-Together Chocolate Cake from p.28 of the book. I skipped the buttercream. It turned out as good as it looks and the leftovers froze well. I’ve been told that slices straight out of the freezer and dipped into a cup of hot coffee were just as good. So maybe this deliciousness is appropriate for this time of year.
Also, a new friend.
The internet tells me this is a blue dasher. Either it was very friendly or it couldn’t care less about me because I was standing inches away and pointing my camera at it for many minutes without the need to zoom in. It flew off a few times but came back almost immediately.
Books referenced in this post:
Fast-Fix Baking: 85 Recipes Ready to Enjoy in 2 Hours or Less by Brian Hart Hoffman.
83 Press (2024)
Poetry USA edited by Paul Molloy
Scholastic Inc. (1968)
Mariam Sultan 