The family was surprised, yes, but also elated. We knew her as an irascible one, prone to sudden fits of anger over the tiniest things: a child who didn’t know what the breast stroke was, or a canoe paddle left wrong end up on the shore. Any complaints about worms in apples would elicit purple-in-the-face anger and stories of her having been sent to her room hungry many nights, long ago, for similar offenses. She wasn’t easy to love, but love her I did.
Aunt Jane was finally getting married! Her new hubby was way cool, a college professor. He came with three kids in ages that spanned the ages of our five. He was handy! He was fun! And when she was with him, she was not nearly as volatile. The two of them fixed up an abandoned cottage on our lake property so that they could live in it. They filled the root cellar in the big house with all kinds of wines, dandelion and elderberry and grape. For seven years, all was well at the lake.
Until. You know. It had to end. No one could live with Aunt Jane for long. She was difficult. And once alone again, she became very, very depressed.
I went to live with her for that first summer. She credited me with saving her life. I don’t know how I managed to stay in that tiny cottage with her, other than that the lake was there, and the sailboat, and the canoe, and I could go out to be free on the water all by myself whenever my chores were done or her ire too much. My skin browned to a beautiful Greek deep gold. I was fit, I felt accomplished and boy did I ever learn a lot about growing and preserving my own food.
We grew nearly everything we ate behind the cottage. We would lay black plastic down long rows, cut holes in them three feet apart, fill the holes with water, then cram tomato seedlings in. No staking needed. We had plenty of room to just let those tomato plants sprawl as their fruits ripened on the plastic. We tied the leaves of cauliflower up over the heads so they would not turn green. Many of the foods we grew were ones I had never eaten before: okra, fried green tomatoes, spaghetti squash, eggplant, jalapenos, elderberries and, yes, wormy apples. I learned how to place broccoli into salted water so the worms would float out, and then I ate the broccoli. I dared not NOT eat it. We’re talking Aunt Jane here…
We froze and canned food for hours on end. Jellies, and sauces, and salsas, and pickles. We froze peas, and beans, and squashes of all kinds. The cottage would become steamy hot, but no matter. A dip in the nearby lake would cool us right off for the rest of the day. A lakeside campfire and some song at night to end the day brought on some of the sweetest sleep I can remember in my life. I woke refreshed, and eager to get to those chores, so that I could get out on the lake and ride the wind.
I remember that first, and still only, year of depending on what I could grow myself for food as a great summer. I don’t remember many of the skills I learned, and it would be another forty or more years before I tried my hand at growing my own food again.
I’m a bit older now. I’m old, actually. My bones creak, my back complains now and then, and I have to be very careful of my knees. Arthritis owns my thumbs. But the garden? I love me an afternoon of working in my garden. I owe that love, in large part, to my Aunt Jane.
I wish she were still alive so that I could tell her that.
This is my entry to the Garden Hive community's very first mid-month creative writing challenge. Come write with us! @tezmel and @carolkean this is right up your alleys. But just so you know, you only have one more day on this challenge. Get cracking! Poetry would fly too.
Here is a previous post I wrote about my Aunt Jane.