Veg Therapy and How to Try to Keep Semi-Sane

In these unsettling and most peculiar times I look for diversions

IMG_8160.jpglike contemplating a lovely dessert with blackberries and figs

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or maybe quinces – but am not certain what I would do with the quinces. I like the look and the name but not the taste really.

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Apples are easy but the Winesaps won’t be here until next week.

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Teeny, tiny pears all sheeny with wetness.

IMG_8161.jpgThen I’m delighted by pinkness and buy dahlias which will only last three days – but lots of nice things last even less time than that.

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Oh my! what a dazzle for the eye!

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The mescalun looks as if it has been arranged – but it hasn’t.

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Romanesco is worth mediating on  – all Fibonacci and architectural – look at the little group of singers at the top in their soft green dresses under the coral overhang – or make up another story entirely. Or, according to Mee (the friend who did the cookbook) bake it inside a Godzilla cake and astound the kiddies.

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An orange nose has poked itself into the ghost gourds.

IMG_8180.jpgThis decorative gourd is all warty and weird – maybe it’s enchanted. In the end I brought the dahlias home and took their photo on the dining table.

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And that was my morning avoiding watching the news or doing any writing or anything remotely useful. And so we go on!

October

October is one of my favorite months – the beginning of the turning of the year and a little bit decaying and mystical…

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Nothing like an old baking sheet background for gloomy…

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This is a sunflower squash

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posing as a space alien.

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These are some pears

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and more pears

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and a pomegranate from a street cart and flowers from Bobby’s garden.

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Some meadow flowers hanging on to summer at the green market

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so joyful.

5135D877-5FF6-473E-A165-D58EC057EBBAbut pumpkin season is upon us

IMG_7971.jpgand acorns

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and an eggplant with some sort of message –

when we get to the beach

IMG_8117.jpgI find a poor fishy who is unlikely to send any more messages…

 

 

Fall Thoughts – assorted

A rather sepia-tinged time of year – my favorite really.

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Last week it was 85F but time for raking leaves thought there weren’t enough to make a jump-able leaf pile.

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A season of very round things

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and more round things

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and a giant sunflower seed head.

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Time to get out the water colors and work on images for my Jane Stories.

img_3904-3And look at the light on Robert’s notebook!

img_3913Halloween approaches and Berch has been busy on the local diner window. The light was so clear and bright yesterday afternoon that the paint thew splendid shadows.

img_3915This makes the window paintings extra good.

img_3922In the later afternoon a walk by the Hudson. So breezy and clear.

Green Thoughts

What would I do without the green market to take photos of?

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White and red currents with a suitably sere leaf.

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Squash flowers to be lightly battered ( but not by me!)

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A complete meadow of black-eyes Susans and daisies and so forth.

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Shasta daisies…

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And then the edible flowers – photographed in their plastic containers which render them misty and mysterious. As a child I ate nasturtiums and honey suckle and maybe chomped on clover.

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But the current fashion for eating snapdragons and chive flowers etc etc is more to do with looks than taste, I think. Others may disagree.

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But they do look stunning.

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As regards my own humble horticultural efforts on the roof: this year I’m attempting an egg plant (seen here). I have a great deal too much mint and a lot of sage that looks charming but I never eat. There is kale but I never eat that either.

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And here is a tiny posy on my table.

Reading notes:

Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi

Landscape and Memory by the brilliant Simon Sharma who grew up in Essex like me.

And a Famous Five  adventure by the much maligned Enid Blyton – just to see how she moves plot and conflict – and gosh, was she good at it.