Tonight's dessert. Not much happening in my neck of the woods; that's worth reporting here, anyway.
Went to the local farmers market on Saturday past, in search of peaches, tomatoes and fresh corn, for a birthday feast for Daughter, whose birthday isn't until the 27th, but we feared the peaches would be all gone by then. (She's turning 41 years of age this year. Holy cow! Where have the years gone?)
The weather has cooled a bit, back to what it usually is at this time of year. No more of those 100F-plus days. Now the crickets have begun serenading us at night, after the cicadas have quieted for the evening. I long for cricket song each year, perhaps because of that Chinese folktale I read when I was a kid about the emperor who kept one in a cage, to bring good luck to his palace. I don't know if they bring good luck, but I like going down to the basement to do laundry in late summer, early autumn, and listening to my visitors chirping to one another. Their singing is poignant, given that they have come in to die. Sometimes, I sit on the basement steps, in the dark, listening.
My crow family, that I've been watching for more than fifteen years, hasn't been coming around so much lately. I think there have been too many feral cats making themselves at home in my yard for the crows to feel comfortable. Either that, or it's because I haven't bought the hot dogs I used to put out for them. If I'm given a pay raise this year, maybe I'll add the bird-dogs to my grocery list again. I miss the crows.
I think I hear a peach calling my name, so I'm going to go drown it in a bit of cream and be happy that summer has finally returned. I have no idea what that blistering season is called, but I'm delighted it has passed. Good night, folks.
12 comments:
Like Dickens' Cricket on the Hearth. I can't imagine many cats would take on a crow, but I suppose they might discourage them when they had youngsters. Your peaches look and sound delicious, hope daughter has a good birthday!
I miss the tree frogs of my childhood neighborhood. I remember when I found out that racket came from little frogs that I'd never seen.
Fresh peaches are so nice. They don't really grow here in England and if they did they wouldn't have ripened beneath this summer's grey skies.
If I were given to praying I might, at some stage, have knelt and asked God to endow me with the stamina of a cricket. One couldn't help but admire them on those long hot nights in Pennsylvania (lying on the bed naked in front of a fan; having showered but not dried) when all related mammals were awake and knackered and the crickets were still sawing away indefatigably.
I love fruit and see rising steps of seductiveness in the various types. I'm not sure I would ever be seduced by an apple (though I love them and eat lots) but peaches and nectarines, caught at their peak of ripeness, take me a big step further. Good enough to be sinful, you might say. Alas, they also have a post-peak-ripeness when the intensity of flavour dies and they become predominantly wet. Once upon a time in the UK price alone made the peach a luxury food, beyond most pockets. In the mysterious way of things retail the prices have come down but the supermarkets now practise cruel deception; one spends the equivalent of half a kilo of carrots and one buys peaches intended to "ripen at home". They never do, they just become softer. A slander on the whole idea of a peach. Far better the French policy: don't import fruit or vegetables.
Happy birthday to your daughter. I turned 48 on the 7th of August.
I will admit my body feels about 980, but in my head I'm still 28! How'd I get to be this close to 50? :-\
I love to read you chatting, Crow.
Came across this and thought of your pencil-sharpening post (NOT, of course, "chat" but a well crafted piece):
“When I have a house of my own, it's gonna be full of all sharpened pencils.”
--Ann Newton (actress Edna May Wonacott), in Alfred Hitchcock’s "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943).
Love the season you've added -- blistering season. No way should those miserable days be called summer.
Peaches, along with all the summer berries, are my favourite fruit, and do mean "summer". Interesting folktale about the crickets. I've never heard cicadas, having not been in the south that time of year, I suppose. Enjoy the birthday!
We have four crows, well, now 3; haven't seen the fourth in a while, which hang about the bird feeder.Like to watch them interact with other visitors. Smart birds.These crows are big enough that they prob don't worry about a stray cat. Oddly, a rushing-at-them squirrel will spook them, even as they are twice the size of the squirrel.
We had gorgeous weather for 2 wks and then...splat...the heat came back and is supposed to be with us all week.
Shit.
And I ADORE peaches, but they have to be Colorado peaches. Bing and I drool over them like they are Lady Gaga.
A soft, sweet, peachy post. Somehow I missed it until today.
Our summer never quiet matured, and it has gone cool and rainy again for the present. But the green beans and beets did well.
Happy birthday to daughter! Enjoy the peaches.
Lucy: I think the reason crows fuss so about cats is partly to drive them away, which crows do quite well, and partly to teach their offspring who the enemies are.
Z: there are a couple of places near home, around a lake in a state park, where you cannot hear yourself think, the springtime frog song is so loud. Even though there are hundreds of them in the area and it sounds like they must be sitting on your head, I can never find them.
Jenny: thank you for visiting. We are blessed with the perfect micro-climate in this region for growing many kinds of fruit. Our biggest worry is when there are late season rainstorms that drop a ton of water, because the truit swells and the limgs break off. Peach and cherry trees have weak joints/forks in their branches, and heavy fruit causes them to snap off. This year's long hot spells have been good for peaches, making them extra sweet.
BB: you are so right about peaches past their peak, and about grocery store, hard-as-rocks peaches, which never taste right. If I could, I'd send you a bushel.
Michelle: Happy (belated) birthday to you, too! Fifty isn't so bad. That's only mid-century!
Fresca: Thank you for your compliment. Writing as though talking to a friend in the same room comes easier to me than anything else.
Diane: Ah, you've made it official - Blistering Season, it is!
M-L: My daughter was born in the summer seige of the 17-year locusts, in 1970. I had never heard so many cicadas and the constant shrill song became overbearingly irritating. I have since grown used to them, but much prefer cricket song.
RR: I doubt crows fear much of anything, but they sure are skitterish! I used to put food out for them on my carport roof and it was fun to watch them hop up to a piece of hot dog, tap it with their foot, then hop back, just in case the pink thing was alive.
Maria: Yep, peaches are good. Never had a Colorado peach. Is that a variety or the state where they grew?
Anne: thank you for the birthday wishes for Daughter; will pass them along. When I was a kid, I loved to pick green beans - and peas - from the vines and eat them raw. Oh, so good!
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