A paltry patch of snowbells raising their tiny heads above a light blanket of snow. A bare tree’s silhouetted salute to the reflection of a phosphorus pink sky on a flat glassed ocean bay. An owl, talons gripping a limb, hoo-hooting dusk’s taps. Out on the horizon, the sun pulling up its cumulus comforter before saying good night: Magic Hour! That’s what they call it. Those moments when the full weight of the universe’s splendor bears down on a spot on a speck of a planet called Earth. Looking up from my long shadow, I take notice and gaze on in a hypnotic happy numbness. The word “behold” pops into my head.
Circle back. Dawn came slowly. Mourning doves chortled and coo-coo’d their sad delight at the approaching day. Out on the lawn a lone grape hyacinth mingled with a party of crocuses. Yawning dew-dipped daffodils, towering over Johnny Jump Ups, sun danced in the breeze. Forsythia, flowers ablaze, set off a faux fire on forest’s edge, just perhaps foretelling day’s end climax.
SPRINGTIME and first comes the skunk cabbage, and then, the foraged forest brings ramps, nettles & wild mushrooms. Morels & Porcinis are here now too & trade days, sometimes weeks, with the chanterelle, black trumpet & hedgehog. Alec, of recent, brings down his Oakwood grown Shitake mushrooms from Danbury way. Foraged fiddlehead ferns find their way onto plates next to fish or fowl. All this, part of a fleeting moment in time. Use it or lose it. You snooze, you lose. Etc.
NEARBY FARMERS, picking bunches of organic spinach, hail from Lancaster, PA. Planted last fall & wintered over, picked just yesterday, tender & “easy like Sunday morning.” Jersey dandelions, Round Up’s nemesis, enjoyed raw or braised, is pure heart health. West Coast rhubarb - remember that horizon: Red, big, thick stalks. Asparagus, inches high, will entertain us soon.
ROOT REMINDER: Crunch on carrots, eat a beet. Don’t forget slender tipped parsnips, radishes, jicama, turnips, horseradish, celery root, parsley root. I’m not letting up. Recipe help available. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. Vitamins and minerals included.
MENTIONABLES: Gold Nugget mandarins, Sunrise grapefruit, Sumo oranges, Wow strawberries, sweet blackberries, jumbo blueberries, and Giant raspberries, Mag melon cantaloupe, Cavaillon melon.
Hummingbird tomatoes: gold on the vine, red plum, yellow blush plum, big beefsteaks, cherry, grape, heirloom and green tomatoes to fry