The beauty of the earth

I see more natural wonders than I did when I was young. I’m sure it’s not because there are more natural wonders. I think I just pay attention now. I can stand quietly and watch patiently. Or my threshold is lower. In any case, I was hanging out with my old Girl Scout buddies on Jane’s deck Friday evening when I saw a hummingbird moth. I have since identified it as a white-lined sphinx moth and learned that sphinx moths are divided into hawk moths (which swoop in a hawk-like manner) and hummingbird moths (you can probably figure that out). The moth was busy drinking nectar from Jane’s black and blue salvia. Jane went all out with the black and blue salvia this year, having learned how the hummingbirds loved it last year. The sphinx moths love it too. Jane sees them all the time, even during that day, which is unusual for moths.  I grabbed Jane’s camera and headed out the back door. As my eyes adjusted to dusk, I saw another, and another, four, seven, a dozen, flying all around me. I could only remember ever seeing one of this kind of moth before in my whole life. Now I was surrounded by them. A little miracle to end a very long week. The beauty of the earth takes my breath away.

White-lined sphinx moth drinking from black and blue salvia

My weekend was two whole days long this week for only the second time since the beginning of August. I’ve been over-committed. Pat and Nancy came out Saturday afternoon to help with the harvest and make sauerkraut. We started in the south garden picking tomatoes, peppers, and dry beans. All hands were on deck to pick apples out of three of the apple trees. A fourth tree was equally loaded, but we ran out of bushel baskets to put the apples in. We had to be very careful of wasp-infested apples. It wasn’t just the windfall apples either. Wasps had hollowed out nests in apples that were still hanging on the tree. I remembered words of wisdom I learned in childhood—never put your hand where you can’t see it.

Left to right: Nancy, Pat, Terry, Hilda

Tree loaded with apples

Wasps devouring a windfall apple 

Terry labels the apples

Total apple harvest so far

In the north garden, we harvested the cabbage, which did very well this year. We had to cut the harvest short as it was getting on 4:00. By 5:30, we had the sauerkraut in the crocks. We should have kept track of how many 5-pound batches we prepared. It had to be 5 or 6, plus an extra pound. An extra pound makes us do math. If 5 pounds of cabbage gets ¼ cup of salt, and there are 16 tablespoons in a cup…

The cabbages were really nice this year

After our sauerkraut was stowed in the wine cellar, and Pat and Nancy’s was in their car, we settled down to the olive dip and Bugles that Nancy brought, cherry tomato salad with  basil and fresh mozzarella that was leftover from my Girls’ Night Out Friday, and champagne to celebrate Pat’s birthday. Appetizers were followed by margarita pizza (to use up tomatoes and the rest of the mozzarella) and chocolate cake. A good time was had by all.

I recently read Coop by Michael Perry. In his reminiscence of his childhood, he recalled standing with his parents outside the barn at the end of the day when they had stacked the last bale of hay for the year. They would all be thinking, “No matter what winter brings, we’ve got the hay up.”

As we march through the harvest of each fruit and vegetable as it comes into season, I say that to myself a lot. And this weekend, I’m thinking that no matter what winter brings, we’ve got the sauerkraut up.