Meteorologists put our area under a frost advisory last night, and they were right. The frost fairies left proof that they were dancing on the rooftops while we were sound asleep. According to the morning paper, ours wasn't a killing frost. In order for it to be a killing frost, there has to be a 23- or 24- degree freeze that lasts 4 to 6 hours and ends the growing season. Ragweeds and other pollens usually disappear with a light frost, but the outdoor mold that brings on most allergic reactions will require a hard freeze before they go away.
Hubby gathered what's left of our garden produce. Our neighbors were doing the same and shared their over-abundance of tomatoes with us. Hubby is cooking up salsa now to put in the freezer. I am hearing his knife chopping up the peppers, and the house smells like the good old days.
We couldn't resist BLT's for supper last evening. Thick slices of juicy red tomatoes, salty bacon fried to a crisp, and a swoosh of mayo on multi-grain bread toasted to a light crunchy brown. For me, a sandwich isn't a sandwich without a generous slice of sweet onion!
Hubby's family grew up putting sugar on their tomatoes, and my family passed the salt and pepper shakers around the table to sprinkle on ours. Funny how we all tend to forever favor the tastes and foods that we grew up eating. Simple preferences like that reflect the unbreakable family bond.
So it is that another season is anxiously waiting behind the curtain to step on stage and present us with pumpkins for our doorsteps and gourds for our tables. Oranges and rusts and golds and browns take over where the reds and pinks and lavenders left off. Summer has grown weary, and fall is wide awake and ready to take its place. Another of Nature's orderly and silently sophisticated relay races.
"In the garden I tend to drop my thoughts here and there. To the flowers I whisper the secrets I keep and the hopes I breathe. I know they are there to eavesdrop for the angels." ~Dodinsky
