Nature's Bounty

I am blessed to live in a beautiful place. About 15 miles north is a typical urban area with restaurants, theaters, two colleges, sporting venues, shopping malls and anything else a girl could want. But here, where I call home... where I live and experience each day, it is a much more rural place. I love this area. It has been my solace as I have rebuilt a life for myself and my family. The simple beauty of the nature that surrounds me has helped to give me sure footing as I have carved out a life here -- despite it being quite altered from the life I thought I would have when I arrived. I live surrounded by mountains. Well, actually, I live on one of the mountains. Mountains give off a sense of steadiness and strength. They stay in place despite the weather or the season. Firm and immoveable. Not stubborn, but settled. I like what I have learned from them. You can see them from anywhere in the valley below. The valleys themselves have harvests every year. This year's harvest has been spectacular.

Being the rural place it is, there are farmlands and orchards down in the valley below me. I can look off my porch to see the cherry, apple and peach orchards. I can see the corn and wheat fields. Off in the distance is the farm where I went last week to pick raspberries and blackberries. Many of my neighbors have gardens that grow tomatoes, zucchini, peppers of all sorts, carrots, and onions. So far this year, I've had three different neighbors deliver some of their own garden bounty to share with me. Two of them knocked on the door and presented them as a gift; another did it stealthily and I found the delicious bag of freshly picked tomatoes on my front porch. To this day, I don't know who it was but the tomatoes were delicious.

The fresh-picked corn and watermelon I buy at the roadside booth in town have been enjoyed by my family over and over again.

And the berries from Phelp's Berry Farm! Oh my! Oh oh my. I spent two days making Blackberry sauce (for future dessert recipes - stay tuned for Blackberry Souffle next week) as well as Blackberry and Raspberry jams and Chocolate Raspberry Ganache. You know, I'm not sure which I enjoyed more -- having the berries in the house to cook and bake with, or spending the day picking them. Wearing my "Rice Paddy Hat" (as my children call it) to keep the sun off my shoulders, being outside in the light and the breeze, picking berries with people from all around the area I live in.

Friendly, folksy people who, like me, wait all year for the opportunity to come to the "pick your own" farm and get their cherries, blackberries and raspberries. Groups of neighbors go together. The young mothers bring their children... and I have to tell you... there is nothing like watching and listening to young children picking berries. Mom gives them their own patch to harvest and boy do they go to town. Jabbering, eating, and occasionally putting a berry or two in their basket. Getting so excited when they find a big ripe juicy one that they have to announce it in the loudest voice they've got. "Wow, Mommy, look at this one! Can you make a pie out of this one?"

Little girls in a berry patch. What a great time!

And next come the peaches.


Wait till you see what I'm going to do with all these peaches! I have a favorite orchard (Sabin's) where I go to buy my peaches each year. I drive by their signs each day waiting for them to hammer up the "Peaches Now" banner. I can hardly wait. They are my favorite fruit and this is my favorite season.

So, this year, I've had fresh tomatoes - made into BLT sandwiches and sliced on dinner plates, zucchini put into breads and cakes, yellow squash - sliced and sauteed for side dishes, corn - on the cob, in fresh corn salads and frozen for some corn chowders this winter, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cherries - making desserts, syrups, sauces, jams and fruit platters. No shipping in fruits and vegetables from other areas. All from the farms and orchards right here in my hometown. This place I love. This place where nature's bounty sits on our dinner table at every meal.