And the walls come tumblin’ tumblin’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter the situation there is always cooking to be done.  Yesterday my wonderful next door neighbor invited me to take as much of her garden in as I wanted.  Her husband passed away a few weeks ago and her garden is overgrowing. Her middle aged daughter lives in the home but I get the impression the relationship isn’t that solid.  I get that impression because of the police visit that happened when they tried to discuss the burial arrangements a couple weeks back.  Anyway, the daughter did some planting this year but refuses to pull it up.  The little old lady is so terribly hunched over that she can’t pick the veggies herself.  Seeing that she is clearly unable to do it she probably thought she’d offer them to me.  I told her that I would be happy to dig them up for her, I’d even clean them and bring them to her house.  She declined saying that they weren’t planted right (the daughter did plant it in a crappy way, too crowded and not in rows) and she isn’t in the mood for them anyway.  She wants us to have them..and for them not to go to waste.  So today I went over with a basket and pulled some root veggies for supper.   I grabbed some purple turnips, beets, curly parsley and fennel oh yeah and couple of spring onions as well.

 

Here the bounty is all washed and ready to be  cut up.

 

 

And here is the final product,  I added some yams and onions and the last of the leek that was in the fridge.

 

 

I have a new appreciation for living in the heart of the city.  We used to live on the outskirts and I’ll never do that again.  I mean I would live on an acreage or farm but never in one of the newer suburbs.  The beauty of living in the heart of the city is that you live with a diverse group of people.  In the suburbs everyone was young families, two minivans and we never met our neighbors. No one had gardens they had landscape artists.  I’ve lived in this place less than a month and I already have met some wonderful women who are teaching me the art of canning, gardening and pie making!

Just a week ago we had a spaghetti squash that  another neighbor gave me and she even told me her recipe!   It’s was for spaghetti squash and meat sauce, AMAZING!

 

So the walls may be tumblin’ tumblin’ but I’m enjoying the fall harvest.  As the saying goes, “A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long.” e e cummings