Village Squire, 1976-09, Page 15Oh the joy[ ?]
of getting
off the harvest
BY
SANDRA ORR
Every morning now I hear, the important
' bigger male takes a thoughtful look at the
garden and leaves a pre-recorded message,
"It's going to be a long, hard winter. Get all
the food done up you can."
"Mm," I mutter, "Maybe," sending a look
after that some would call black, not thinking
I want to get off my chair. But, after all, I did
put a garden in and it did grow and with
rising prices, wage shrinkage arid lay-offs and
where is it going to end?, the thought of it is
enough to make even a devoted chair -sitter
feel guilty about sitting let alone putting
anything into his or her mouth. So this season
I decided to outdo myself, do something with
everything, impress you know who (I am not
as lazy as he thinks).
Even though I've eaten several bushels of
tomatoes already, I go out and pick them,
every last green one, the weeds protecting
them from the frost, and put them in rows in
the basement. The basement is heated so that
twenty percent wizen, thirty percent rot, but
the rest are edible until the end of November.
Next to the neat rows of tomatoes I put the
pumpkins and squash. I cook a squash on
Saturday, serve the leftovers on Tuesday and
then again on Wednesday and Thursday since
it was not eaten on Tuesday. I pay no
attention to the groans of my family; they
don't like squash. I mention something about
good food going to waste. By spring only
eight squash and three pumpkins have been
removed from the heap; so there is a great
quantity of these molding and rotting
vegetables to remove from the cellar, along
with the above mentioned tomatoes, in the
spring.
Not anticipating a run on squash this year I
didn't plant any, reasoning that in the chance
of anyone desiring one, I could cook a
pumpkin and pass it off as squash instead;
not in pie form of course, in vegetable form,
mashed up with butter in a casserole dish.
Everyone would sooner have it as pie though,
and if I ever make apie I will have to mash it
VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBER 1976, 13