every day is a good day
Autumn leaves are pretty wherever they fall. Sometimes they fall on the water and float among the duckweed. It makes you wonder if they would prefer to decompose on dry land, or float about aimlessly until they sink to the bottom of the pond. If you were a leaf, where you would like to fall?
According to the old Japanese calendar, this year, November 7, is the first day of winter. The year is divided into 24 solar terms, with each term having a name. This year, November 7 through 21 is considered the beginning of winter. The next solar term from November 22 through December 6, Light Snow, is the period when snow starts falling.
For marking the season, I like the old Japanese calendar. Using the equinoxes and solstices makes the beginning of the seasons to late. The winter solstice falls on December 21 this year. By then, it seems winter has been with us for sometime. It makes more sense to use the equinoxes and solstices as the middle of the seasons, not the beginning.
It’s a beautiful start to winter here. After a furious wind and rain storm yesterday, the day started out clear and cool. A perfect way to begin winter.
Food can be beautiful before you cook and eat it. I picked a squash for a future meal or two, gathered some sage and rosemary to spice it up, and realized how beautiful it was. When you grow your own produce, there is beauty to enjoy from the shape and feel of the seed, the first leaves, the first blossoms, buddy fruit, to the day you pick it.
There’s so much beauty in growing vegetables. Cutting lettuce greens for harvest today, I had to pause to take photos of these flat lettuce. They have such an unusual growing pattern. After delivering greens today, we went into town to run errands and get haircuts. We stopped in a deli for lunch, and even though the sandwich and soup were good, the salad greens were so sad. After growing salad greens, I’ve become very critical of the greens many restaurants serve. Salad greens need to be picked that morning, and for a good salad, variety is key.
There are no pictures of swans, but this afternoon we saw our first flock of swans. On our way into town, six magnificent trumpeter swans flew overhead, not more than twenty feet off the ground. It means that winter is practically here.
These spent bean pods are ready to be reincarnated. Their lives as bean plants is now over. Over the winter they will turn into soil and be reincarnated as new vegetables. It’s amazing to think that these inedible, stiff-as-cardboard, dried pods will next summer, be crunchy carrots or supple arugula.