The rising of the Saturday sun found me already awake and buzzing around the house like a worker bee. Combed and clothed, I stirred my family to wakefulness and then it was off to the Farragut Farmer's Market at Renaissance Park on Kingston Pike. The Farragut Market is a beautiful slice of rural elegance in the midst of urban sprawl. It was my pleasure not three weeks ago to purchase a most beautiful set of earrings from Set Free Design (Find them on Facebook!); braided horse hair hoops surrounding light teal roses. $15.00 and that treasure was mine to wear, framed against my dark hair. I also purchased beautiful tomatoes and Japanese winter squash, whom I mistook for the seasons first pie pumpkins at first. Yesterday's sack of purchases took the form of Lemon Boy and Pink Tomatoes, as well as the first Cherokee Purples I have ever clapped my eyes on. Then my eldest niece spots a treasure that for a moment transports us both to our childhoods in Georgia.
"Look, that's a fig tree." she exclaims and gestures to a woman carrying just such a plant in the crook of her arm. I ask her were she chanced by that lovely tree and she points me in the right direction. I won't lie, excited coated me from head to toe like a fine, clean sweat. I took off at a jog across the parking lot, hair flying and green eyes searching for the man with the fig trees.I found him and slid to a stop with a look that I bet was a lot like a hungry mountain lion.
"One of your patrons told me I could get a fig tree from you." I said. "What kind of figs do you have."
"Brown Turks." he told me and in my mind I was once again seven, climbing the old fig tree outside my grandmother's house in Smyrna, Georgia. I grinned broadly at him.
"How much?" I ask.
"Ten dollars." he tells me.
I look over my shoulder to beckon to my niece. "They're ten bucks!" I shout from where I am standing. I waste no time and reach into my bag, handing over ten dollars. Two minutes later, the Heart of Home has gained two juvinile Brown Turk fig trees that will bear us treasures for the tongue. The week before, I was pleased to see that my October Bean sprout is now over a foot long, quickly outgrowing his 38oz plastic container. That, the herb garden, and now the fig trees means that we will definably get good use out of the greenhouse we purchased that same weekend from Harbor Freight.
It is Tuesday night and I began writing this Sunday night. As I mentioned before, I am a full time maid and cleaning houses all day takes its toll on the body. I consider good conditioning for the work ahead, the work on the great green earth. I dream of a homestead, were every bed has a quilt or afghan from my hands, were our preserves, pickles, cheese, yogurt and bread are packed in the kitchen and were cold water runs deep. If you ever have a chance, read Sylvia's Farm by Sylvia Jorrin. Her book was like a door to me, opening up a realm of possibilities that sported creamy fleece, flashing black feathers and golden mead. Her words poured into me like hot mulled wine, spicy and subtle, fragrant and rich.
"Sometimes the most concrete of realities are built from the most ephemeral of dreams." -Sylvia Jorrin
In my dreams there are goats and wild grapes, children, cider and cheese. I rest now, so I can work to build them into reality.
beautiful dreams from a beautiful dreamer. Our homestead will happen, love. And while I might miss sleeping beside you most nights of late, I tell myself it's a'purpose as I try to breathe life into writing and editing to help us get there. One day, I will look on your sleeping face as you rest in our four-post bed in a log-built lodge that overlooks our homestead, and as the rooster crows a welcome to dawn I'll know it was all worth it.
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