Coffee Chat: Season Upon Season

Do come in and join me.  It's cool enough today to warrant a cup of hot coffee and there are warm Banana Chocolate Chip muffins to go with our hot drink.  Have a seat, won't you, and stay for a chat?  It shall be a totally random sort of chat, the way all good talks between friends so often are.  

I have been saying steadfastly for the past few years now that I am embracing all seasons and finding things to love in them all and I am...but my heart has remained just as steadfast in loving Autumn best of all and never more so than now when I am in what might well be determined to be the autumn years of my life.  

It might sound sad at first, but there is no sadness in it.  This is not the winter of life but autumn and that looks different from other seasons is all.  I'm learning to embrace what that reality looks like for my husband and myself.  I'm thinking  the future (winter) isn't as 'long term' far away as it used to be and that there are things we do now or never, not 'some day' as we'd always supposed we had plenty of time to do them in.  It's not that time has run out, for it hasn't.  But there's not as much time ahead in which we'll be able to follow dreams and indeed many of those dreams are different than they were at 30 or 40 or even at 50.  It's really not a sad view.  It's no different than looking at the clock and realizing that it's suppertime and the day is nearly over.  Not done, but not as much time ahead as one had supposed remained.

Most importantly, I'm realizing that things I felt were so vastly important and so desperately wanted, well...they are still wanted but in a lesser way.  Nice, if they could come along while I could enjoy them but life will go on should they not ever happen.  It's getting late to dwell on what hasn't come.  It's time instead to prepare for our new season and cozy things up a bit and really enjoy the season I'm in and embrace the next season as it comes in.  Peaceably.  Comfortably.  Welcomingly.  

Why such a philosophical bent of mind?  It's been on me for several weeks now as I've seen the signs of a new earthly season approach.  It's inevitable that at some point we begin to understand clearly what season of life we ourselves have come to and mine is most definitely autumn.  And so, since it's my favorite earthly season, I'd like very much for it to be my favorite season of life, too.

I've the immense pleasure of knowing things I didn't know in those other seasons.  There's also the pleasure of understanding more of myself and others than I have before.  I no longer have some of the responsibilities that I had as a younger woman, so my mind is less distracted.  Those precious children of mine are grown and this summer, more than ever, I've learned to release my worries about them to God and trust that I have done all I can to instill in them a true sense of their value, their responsibilities to themselves, their family and to others.   Not to say I don't and won't hurt for them as they face struggles but they've all, to a person, shown themselves equal to life in all it's goodness and harshness and they've come through it with a strength that makes me feel they shall manage.  I've done my duty by them in that sense.  Now all I need do is be here as a sounding board when wanted and a prayer warrior for them daily and to give a hug or encouragement or laugh as it's needed.  

So what does one do in the autumn of life?  

Since I am the cultivating sort,  I realize there are crops to be sown in the autumn months that will mature and nourish body and soul  before winter arrives.  It's not a fallow time of life, but one still rich with the possibility of harvest.  So I intend to be sowing, both literally and figuratively.  There are so many things I want to be doing in my yards and home and families lives.  

There's more pruning to be done.  My goal is to move past the things that have haunted me and look only ahead.  To live well and do all I can to make our life beautiful, as beautiful as any autumn ever was.

And if I've given up certain dreams, there are others to be had.  Gentler, less ambitious dreams perhaps but dreams all the same.  So I'll sow new seeds there, too

But I'll go no further with that for just now.  I haven't thought it out as well as I want to do but I'm going to take some time to do some thinking in the near future.  I want to explore what this season of life can look like. 

How do you feel about pumpkin pie spice?  Are you on the bandwagon or just trailing along behind it waiting for it to move on out of view?  I like pumpkin.  I like pumpkin pie.  I confess I don't much want pumpkin pie in my coffee.  Or ice cream.  Or hot tea.  I just don't.  Am I alone in this?  And if you do enjoy it, please have my share.  I won't mind in the least!

But that said, I do love to make pumpkin banana bread and pumpkin pie and I enjoy using pumpkin in things like a hearty beef stew or as a sauce for pasta.  I just remembered that Pumpkin Alfredo I made last fall that John enjoyed which surprised me no end.  And there's a Pumpkin, Chicken and Black Bean Enchilada recipe I want to make that I haven't made in years.  

Naturally, the moment I start thinking of the pumpkin things I might make, I hear there may be a pumpkin shortage this year.  There are ways around that.  Most canned pumpkin doesn't even contain pumpkin.  It's a mix of winter squashes!  So you see I might switch it up and have butternut squash or acorn squash instead.  Provided those too aren't in short supply.

Since we're on the subject of food trends let's talk about what has become the most expensive part of the pig.  Bacon is trendy.  Like Pumpkin Pie Spice come September, bacon is 'in', only all year round.  It's a thing.  

I  liked bacon just fine when we were eating it but once we'd decided we'd give up pork, bacon wasn't the problem.  For me, it was sausage.  I liked my sausage.  Honestly?  I'd not mind over much if I had some real pork sausage in the house right now.  But the turkey sausage we eat is a good one.  It's so good, that my children truly enjoy it.   

Now I grew up in a household that generally tossed a thin bacon slice into most beans or peas, where bacon grease was saved and used to cook other items.  But bacon in my chocolate chip cookies?  No thanks.  In my milkshake?  Are you kidding me?  And do you know how very many recipes I pass up that contain bacon period, not just sweet ones?  Hundreds.  And how often I find myself asking in a restaurant if something has bacon in it?  It's almost a given if it's on a menu, there's bacon in it.   

Well, I have no objection to bacon if you enjoy it.  I just don't see why I have to have my own diet reduced to the one or two items that don't happen to have bacon tossed atop it.  I've asked to have it bacon free but too often it comes to the table with bacon anyway.  I have learned to examine pictures of food rather than just read the menu description of a dish, too.  You'd be surprised how often it's in a dish but not mentioned in the description because it's considered a garnish, like parsley!

What happens if I eat bacon?  Not a thing.  It's a personal preference that has me not eating pork,  is all.  If I eat it I don't have any allergies, or crisis,  etc.  I'd just like to not eat it since I've chosen not to.  Were you to invite me to your home for dinner and serve pork, I'd eat it.  I might take a smaller portion and I most likely won't ask for seconds, but I don't feel I'll have compromised myself or my faith in eating it.  

You want to know one more food trend I'm not on board with?  Those cakes with the icing scraped down to the crust of the cake.  I am  all about the icing on cake.  It's why I enjoy cake.  It's part and parcel of what often makes me want a certain cake.  Let us think for instance of the way a cream cheese frosting compliments the carrot cake underneath.  Or the way that the coconut pecan topping of a German Chocolate cake turns an ordinary chocolate cake into something extra.  I am not amused at those cakes that look as though they've been scraped free of icing.  

My oldest, Amie, never cared for frosting.  She'd tunnel under it to eat the cake out and leave the frosting behind.  Mama came behind her and ate her frosting, lol.  I saw no reason to leave the best part to go into the trash.  I suppose that these sorts of fancy trendy cakes would suit her admirably.  Just enough icing to add a layer of flavor but not so much she felt she had to tunnel under it.  

We didn't do a big shop this month.  (I keep wanting to say 'pay period' but it's once a month now, so I might as well say 'this month'.)  So no big shop this pay month.  I'd love to say we'd saved money and we have but not as much as you might suppose.  You see, what we did buy we didn't buy at the cheapest places.  We just shopped at whatever store we were near and none of them were the least expensive sorts of stores.  

It might seem an odd choice to choose not to shop when every where I turn, all my best blogging friends, are urging us to stock up while foods are available and on the shelves.  I didn't like those empty shelves any more than anyone else this past Spring and early summer.  That was a sight I'd never seen in my lifetime and so I'm not turning a blind eye to memory this soon after the fact.  

No, nor do I care to think we might be headed to an economic depression.   For my part, I can't say we are or aren't.  My personal inclination is to keep stocking my pantry but I can say assuredly that I've not gone that much deeper in my stocking this summer, partly due to gentle restrictions remaining and partly due to necessity of keeping to my budget and yet here I am taking a month off entirely...

The truth is there's also the knowledge of there not being a thing I can do to be fully  prepared for any shortages that might arise any more than I might be completely prepared for all emergencies.  It hasn't been revealed to me that this or that particular item will be desperately wanted and I'd best stock up.    I have felt a nudge to continue to build my pantry best I can.

That nudge has gone a bit further of late.  Not just to stock where I can, and not just to pay attention to what others see and hear in their areas and to check my area for same if it's something we typically use. 

The nudge is deeper.  It's a feeling I need to be learning how to stretch things out, renewing my acquaintance with skills I once used, and to learn new ones as well.  It's a feeling that I need to be learning from other sources than those I've chosen to look at in the past.  

Jennifer Scott, The Daily Connoisseur recently shared a series of posts about what she'd learned of homemaking while reading through The Little House series with her children.  It was really very informative and awakened a desire within me to see what I might learn by re-reading those books and as much from other sources.  Well it wasn't long before I had the opportunity to put that thought into action.

I do watch a few practical based YouTubes but some I watch as fluff and escape.  I just do.  But even those can be learned from and so I'm taking the opportunity to glean information from a variety of sources. 

I watched an episode of Fairyland Cottage on YouTube a couple of weeks ago as she foraged for dock seed, which she ground into a flour and mixed with her flour to make bread.   Shortly after I noted that the girl I buy my produce bags from had posted her order of seeds which included dock.  She wasn't even aware that the seeds might be ground.  It was news to her when I shared that she might let the plants mature and gather the seeds to grind.  I expect she intends to grow the plants for the edible greens, but I didn't know you could eat the greens until I looked it up after I saw her seed packets.  So you see, I learned two things.  I may not know what's ahead but I do believe that it's never an accident that we find ourselves learning things we didn't know.

Watching the Liziqi YouTube videos I gathered the idea of using things to the fullest extent possible.  It was a good lesson, coming on the heels of beginning the Gathering Fragment posts this summer.  I was so struck by the beauty of all she did at first that I almost missed the lessons with in the video I watched.  But then I was struck by her frugal use of what she had.  Goodness!   Anyone who can take a watermelon rind and make pickles and stir fries...Well that opened my eyes right up.  As did the realization that she'd used prunings from her grapevine to make fuel for her fire.  Over and over again, during that video it was brought home to me that there was so much more that I might do if I only took the time to really study a little bit more.

So I've been thinking after watching those two and then reading the vintage magazines, which are gold mines of making do in a beautiful way, that maybe part of 'prepping' really ought to be learning how to do things, too.  Foraging and remodeling things, learning to cook good recipes using all that is at our disposal in foodstuffs and  how to do things in an alternative way.  If we can't find canning jars, then let's learn how to freeze better and to dehydrate.  If we can't afford equipment then we should learn how to safely do it without.  Granny never had a dehydrator but she sure made good use of the heat of a car on a very hot summer's day by setting her apples on drying screens in the front and back window to dry.  I can do that!   Maybe I'll be pulling out some of my old tricks and maybe I'll find some new old ones I can learn.  I mean, there are alternatives to be found that I've never had  experience with in the past, like plant based meats, or foraging for dock seeds, etc.

If you haven't resources to stock up hard on foodstuffs then make it your duty to learn all you can, to organize your home, to see that things are maintained, to learn what you might forage, to seek out the lowest prices on the best basics you can afford, to keep your wardrobe in good repair and your car and home as well, because every penny you save will stand you in good stead.  Gracious we've so many more resources at our very fingertips than our ancestors ever had and they made it through hard times!

But let us carry all this a few steps further.  I think it's up to us to be grateful for every little thing; to trust that we can do whatever we must.  I think  that we should be proper cheerleaders in our homes.  I've always said that homemaking is a calling and a vocation but not a vacation.  Isn't it our duty to be sure that our companions in our home feel that we can manage if need be?  Are we going to be worth our salt?  Are we going to prove that we've been reading Proverbs 31 all these years for real purpose?   I hope we learn to see all the blessings we've never even realized were before us.   

And most of all, I hope that we can remember that all things come in seasons and no season lasts forever. 

I think that pretty much brings us round again to where we began don't you?  

It's been a lovely time chatting with you all.  I do hope you'll stop in again!