Getting Ready

On Sunday, just a couple of days ago, we knew a big cold front was approaching. The weather forecasters said so and my arthritic body said so. Rain would fall. Temperatures would drop into the fifties at night. The end of summer was upon us.

Aches and pains notwithstanding, I had a strong urge to get ready for cold weather. Dennis did, too. He marched out to finish splitting and stacking firewood from the old locust.

The first thing to my mind was the kitchen trash can; it was dirty in places a trash bag does not protect. It has to be cleaned outdoors, so outside it went for a thorough washing. Soon it would be too cold for that task, I thought.

Indoors my thoughts turned to preserving food for winter. I roasted what might be the last ripe pimento peppers from our garden along with a Marconi pepper Laurie gave me. First I saved some of the seeds from the Marconi because I’d like to grow these next summer instead of the Corno di Toro peppers I tried this year. I'll let this core dry completely before storing it in a glass jar in the basement.

The pimentos will be chopped and frozen in little jars I’ve saved. The Marconi, the long one on the left will go into some home made hummus.

Then there were the Colorado peaches, ready to be made into ginger peach jam, another preparation for cold weather.

Where does it come from, this urge to clean the den, lay in a food supply, prepare firewood, and generally get ready for hard, cold times? The human desire to emulate the ant in Aesop’s fable must be instinctive. Like the ant, we know deep down that survival is paramount in winter. Unlike Aesop’s grasshopper, we expect to live to see spring return.

Even though quite a few warm days still lie ahead, I love getting ready.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer