The Adjusted Normal, 48. A Thin Harvest for Lammas Day
This year is so nefarious, it's even bad for crops. There's precious little fruit, whether in home gardens, or even in supermarkets. We have apple and pear trees that other years were bowed down with fruit, as well as orange trees that were growing little round green oranges. This year they're empty. A neighbor down the road has plum trees with boughs hanging onto the road. Last year, I would pick a couple to eat as I finished my walk, fighting with the birds for the ripest ones of the bough. This year, even the birds were hard put to find one ripe plum.
Even fruit in supermarkets is missing in action. Other years, I would buy red plums that were juicy and sweet. This year, they have no juice, and the sweetness is a memory. There are fewer, too, and pricier. A local plum, the mirabelle, appeared one week in one supermarket, and I haven't seen it since.
The mirabelle plum is a plum the size of a large cherry, yellow with reddish tints. It has a tiny stone you can spit out, and a load of sweetness that makes you think someone emptied the sugar bowl inside them. Every year about this time, I search for them. Only one supermarket that I know of carries them. They are locally grown, in the area of O Rosal, south of Vigo toward the Miño river and the Portuguese border.
Apparently, they've only been cultivated here since about seventy years ago. The area of Europe where the mirabelle is most cultivated is Lorraine, in France, though the plums do exist in other places, such as England, or Germany. There are mirabelles in other places in Spain, but they don't seem to travel at all. The first time I noticed them, I didn't quite know what they were. Then, they appeared on local television, and, one year, I tried them. Now, I await them every summer. But, this summer, they are not to be had for love or money.
In part, the problem with fruit, and other produce, is the devil virus. Earlier this month, an outbreak in Lleida started among fruit pickers. Because many of them are itinerant, and here illegally, they live in shacks and shanties, and couldn't isolate once infected. So, the summer harvest fell behind.
What fruit there is, is hard, barely sweet, and not as appetizing. My husband still finds good watermelons, but they aren't cheap this year. That is his star fruit; he loves it and can always pick the best one. I don't know how he does it. He weighs one in his hands, presses it, slaps it, and decides which one passes the test. Very few times does he make a mistake. I don't have his same luck. While I have chosen a good one from time to time, I've also brought a few duds home.
What was plentiful and at a reasonable price this past spring were the strawberries. But only the spring ones. The summer ones, grown locally, aren't good this year, either. Normally, they're sweeter than the early ones, and at around the same price. But this summer, they're mushier, and go bad much more quickly, besides being more expensive.
Today is Lammas, anciently the first day of fall, because we have entered the harvest, and the first loaf of the year made with the first wheat is supposed to be blessed at Mass today. What would our ancestors have thought of the portends nature is showing us? Because even the gods seem to have abandoned us. This year is one that is good for neither man nor beast.
Life continues.
Even fruit in supermarkets is missing in action. Other years, I would buy red plums that were juicy and sweet. This year, they have no juice, and the sweetness is a memory. There are fewer, too, and pricier. A local plum, the mirabelle, appeared one week in one supermarket, and I haven't seen it since.
The mirabelle plum is a plum the size of a large cherry, yellow with reddish tints. It has a tiny stone you can spit out, and a load of sweetness that makes you think someone emptied the sugar bowl inside them. Every year about this time, I search for them. Only one supermarket that I know of carries them. They are locally grown, in the area of O Rosal, south of Vigo toward the Miño river and the Portuguese border.
Apparently, they've only been cultivated here since about seventy years ago. The area of Europe where the mirabelle is most cultivated is Lorraine, in France, though the plums do exist in other places, such as England, or Germany. There are mirabelles in other places in Spain, but they don't seem to travel at all. The first time I noticed them, I didn't quite know what they were. Then, they appeared on local television, and, one year, I tried them. Now, I await them every summer. But, this summer, they are not to be had for love or money.
In part, the problem with fruit, and other produce, is the devil virus. Earlier this month, an outbreak in Lleida started among fruit pickers. Because many of them are itinerant, and here illegally, they live in shacks and shanties, and couldn't isolate once infected. So, the summer harvest fell behind.
What fruit there is, is hard, barely sweet, and not as appetizing. My husband still finds good watermelons, but they aren't cheap this year. That is his star fruit; he loves it and can always pick the best one. I don't know how he does it. He weighs one in his hands, presses it, slaps it, and decides which one passes the test. Very few times does he make a mistake. I don't have his same luck. While I have chosen a good one from time to time, I've also brought a few duds home.
What was plentiful and at a reasonable price this past spring were the strawberries. But only the spring ones. The summer ones, grown locally, aren't good this year, either. Normally, they're sweeter than the early ones, and at around the same price. But this summer, they're mushier, and go bad much more quickly, besides being more expensive.
Today is Lammas, anciently the first day of fall, because we have entered the harvest, and the first loaf of the year made with the first wheat is supposed to be blessed at Mass today. What would our ancestors have thought of the portends nature is showing us? Because even the gods seem to have abandoned us. This year is one that is good for neither man nor beast.
Life continues.
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