Husk Cherries
Some things are just wonderful enjoyed fresh in their simplest and purest form.
As we close out Summer and my kids are back in school, I plan to be here more, so I am planning to get back to a new routine. I am just sinking into what lies ahead of us this week with both our kids settling into a new school and both there for a full week. New routines need time to sink in.
The days of September are already going too fast. It feels like the summer days that have been so warm and dry have placed everything around here in hyperdrive to go dormant. The milkweed leaves are fading and the pods are beginning to dry out to release seed. The Queen Anne’s lace is long spent but still beautiful as it catches the shifting light of late summer in the fields I wander daily. The apples are getting sweeter in the late heat of these days and the shoreline has gone to the locals and stray tourist or two. The golden light of these days is filling our home even now at 5:30 PM and I can tell the sun is nearly due west as we approach the final weeks of summer before the sun will push southward for the shortest day of the year.
I hold these shifts of the land’s rhythms so heavy in my soul. They guide me now as I trace the shadows over the walls like a sundial that can tell time. It does the same for me. When the light shifts, I remember the shapes that the sunlight caught me in and the shadow it cast behind me on the wall. Once again this September it finds me different once again. The land shifts more subtly but me and my children feel far quicker. I could list everything that’s changed in me. How much I have learned all summer or the things that I wish I had had more time for and what that even told me about myself.
Last September, I was lucky enough to find the time to return to the farmer’s market. I hadn’t been all summer for the sake of life and how busy the market felt to me. When I did, I met new faces, that soon became friends. One of these now friends sells the most magical Husk Cherries at his stand and I was glad to see them return to his stand in these final weeks of summer, just like the sun has returned to its end-of-summer spot on our walls at home.
If you have never had them, they align far closer to a tomato or tomatillo than a cherry. Think of it as a cherry tomato wrapped in a paper lantern but with a deeper musky flavor. You peel back the golden lantern (or blossom in this case) and within it lies this smallish (cherry tomato) size yellow fruit that tastes like the way summer feels. Its earthy, complex, and sweet yet musky flavor is truly unique. It is what I do believe northern sunshine tastes like in some odd way. I had had many ground and husk cherries living here, but none of which were from the farmer’s market in all my years meandering through on a Saturday.
Now, that those husk cherries are back in the market, they are landing once again in my bags I fill at the market with everything I hope to savor deep in my bones and freezer for when the cold winds howl outside my windows and layers are required to be in the land that feels so lush and light right now. Just as these sweet fruits and every other flavor of the season will fade, so will these slip-on-your-sandals-for-a-walk-days will too. I know it will and all I am reminded to ask now, is how do I savor it all? How do I can the sunshine? How do I save the feeling of being in the sunlight in the morning? How do I put away the humming of the bees or the crisp crunch of the bean?
You see, of all the things I buy this time of the year in the market, I always buy the husk cherries with the intention that I will make something to celebrate their flavor. Maybe a savory/sweet jam that I will open at just the right moment I need to remember the fullness and beauty that they hold and can only be harvested in the days of September so their flavor is perfectly captured. A jam that maybe can transport me to these days when we scoot to the beach right after school and soak in another dip before needing my sweater to warm me up as the sun fades early on the horizon. I always lead with this intention while I scoop up two containers of them to take home. I think of how for just a moment these tiny fruits make me believe I can taste the soil and sun in them and how good they would be added to a bowl of oatmeal on a snowy day in January when I have nearly forgotten the feeling of the sun on my face the way it hits me now.
My intentions are always good in this way, but it never happens. Instead, I peck away all morning eating them. Slowly peeling back the paper of their ballooned husks like little presents ready to be enjoyed. I pop one in after another just enjoying them in their simplest and rawest form. They are tender and exciting every time. Somehow everyone is more enjoyable than the next. In some way, I believe the next one will be the one that lets me fully taste the land in them just a little more than the previous. Before I know it, all I have is a pile of papery husks that will only now feed our compost pile. There is no jam boiling on the stove on another warm September afternoon. Nothing to pull me back to this moment come January, and yet, even if short-lived lived it was delightful for the moment.
Yet, even though my jar for the jam sits empty, these husk cherries are teaching me something new about savoring I hadn’t ever seen before. In my enjoyment of them, there is a memory, a writing of a story, and a capturing of this season even if I am not holding some bit for later. I am seeing more and more how some things in life aren’t meant to be more than just the moment they are. We cannot make everything last forever that is good in life. We may not be able to savor something in a jar or photo or even a note in our journal. Some things just need to be eaten fully when they come to us.
Some things in life are good just as they come to us and that is all we get of them. They are meant to be enjoyed with our attention right then and there. They are meant to be bitten off, eyes closed, sensing every flavor and nuance of what it is. Nothing more and as someone who wants to hold everything as if it can stay that way forever this is a good reminder. To indulge, eat the whole box, and enjoy every single last drop. Leaving nothing left for the shelves, because we had our fill in the season we were intended to have it.
There are so many parts of this summer, the last year for that matter, I wish I could place in a jar. I think of falling snowflakes in the sunlight in January or the way my kids are still the size they are. I think of times with friends or moments with those I love. Glances with friends where you know you both feel it. Little things. There are lists of things I wish I could store up in the depths of me or just enjoy forever. The truth is though not everything can be. It just can’t. Time passes. Some things aren’t meant to be more than just beautiful in that present moment of time. They may not be more than just the perfect little husk cherry burst in our mouth and gosh that’s okay too. Life moves and passes. We just have to enjoy it right when it is ready for us to.
Watching the shadows of the Indian Grass now on the walls tells me the time now is here to be in those moments.TO savor every single last drop of this season. To dip in the water another time. To have one more fire on the shoreline. To bite into another tomato and let it drip down my chin. To run my hands over the flowers and grasses while they are still thriving as if I can absorb even an ounce of their ability to photosynthesize. To linger long over that meal on the patio a little longer. To really feel this season of life before it slips into something new. Not into something bad or worse, but into something different that will ache for me to listen to it and soak it in in a different way.
So I let these moments at the end of summer burst within me, enjoying every one as if they were the last of this season. Feeling the sun radiate on my face. Being a little sweaty. Letting the sand linger just a little more on my toes and in my hair. I sure wish I could hold those moments I want to put in jars longer, but just like the husk cherries, some things are just as wonderful enjoyed fresh in their simplest and purest form.
From The Margins This Week
A new portion of my newsletter where I share the things that get written from random moments and thoughts. Things from the margins of my life.
September in Northern Michigan:
These final months before the first snow are so full of the collision of summer and the new routine of fall. This time is both unbelievably beautiful but full to the point where we feel as if we are straining to grab what is ahead of us while trying to squeeze every last drop out of what we are leaving behind. We do so knowing that though the sunsets and the places that are our backdrop season over season will be the same, who we are, what we know about life, and the size of our children will all have changed. So we hold and squeeze tightly to both till we finally see the last of it drop into our jars of memories, which we place on the shelves like the flavors of the season. Hoping that even if we crave the routine and slower days ahead in some way we have something to remind us less of the chaos and more of the beauty of this summer season. We couldn't bear to look away from the moments that felt so beautiful.
Memories from Summer Nights:
Late light.
Warm tone evenings.
Verdant scent in the air.
Flit of the butterfly.
Sound of the bees.
Barefoot mornings.
Cooing of the dove.
Light meals full of herbs.
Living simply.
Hands dirty.
Basil-tinged perfume on my lake-rinsed skin.
Never wanting to leave the garden.
Diamonds on the water.
Lavender hues.
Gathering all we need from the soil.
Magic known as flowers.
Tomato juice on my chin.
Dill in the wind.
Rabbit in the garden.
Barrier between us and nature thin.
Sand in the car
Full moons on the lake.
Bouquets picked and shared.
Meals late in the garden.
Laughter echoing over the lush hills.
Abundance in its full form.
On my mind this week
September is a new vibe, so here are some things I am enjoying and thinking about right now.
Harvest season: In mid-September the harvest of grapes begins around here. This is one of many harvests in our area. Cherries are first and then apples begin right along side with grapes for wine. There are canon sounds are made in the vineyards to ward off birds tempted by the swelling fruits and friends become widows for a period of time to the season at hand never seeing their partners who create and grow these things in our region. So many tourists miss these little shifts in life around here that matter so much to locals. So I mention it, because it is a period of the year. An important one at that.
Rollerblading: Yeah I mentioned it on Instagram and I will mention it here. I am not into running so warm-season cardio isn’t always exciting to me. I live for my XC ski workouts that bring me a lot of joy. In the warm months…I struggle to find things. My friend mentioned it as a suggestion and it clicked it may be right for me. Sure enough, I grabbed some new skates and headed to our local paved walking trail, and boom, absolute joy in movement during the warm days. It is fun, playful, and mimics my favorite winter sports.
Bon Iver: A new album is always exciting, but this first song feels so perfectly end of summer. Gosh it makes me happy.
Asters > Mums: One great replacement in the fall garden is to add in the gorgeous New England or Blue aster your garden. When paired with Showy or Zig Zag Goldenrod it makes a wonderful place for pollinators and birds to get delicious food they need to make it through the winter. Not to mention they are native and Perennial (come back next year) so ultimately less work.
White Sage: Clearly am in design mode because I have a few plants on my mind this week and white sage is one. It has been added into our land to fight off invasive Knapweed and so far so good. I am planning to add more this fall before we head off for Italy.
Italy: I know I have mentioned it a few times, but we are starting to really get serious about planning and I am enjoying hunting down some fun things and ideas for our family, but also really looking forward to just some slow days in the countryside with not much on the agenda at all. I think we all need it after such a full and busy summer. Won’t lie, I watched Under the Tuscan Sun. It was such a lovely watch.
Rebuilding soil: Going to advocate for you to leave your leaves. Use dead plants to cover your soil and leave things in your garden. Plant into them come spring. Think differently about how you grow things next year now. I am doing a lot of this and have done it over the years and it seems to be working.
What are some things that have been swirling in your brain this week?
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