I had my first real taste of summer today as I wandered aimlessly back to the woefully small patch of grass and overgrown little garden which constitutes my back yard. Six or seven years ago I had dug up a small garden patch along the fence line there and planted flowers as well as a patch of chives and a small patch of carrots. At the corner of my little garden plot I planted raspberry canes. With the exception of the past couple of years, I had done a pretty good job of tending my little garden. Of late, however, I have found that my interest in gardening, even at that minuscule a level, has diminished and my little plot has become terribly choked with weeds. The raspberry patch, however, is still producing and the first of the berries are ripening now. I sampled some of them today.
For many, the watermelon is the fruit that symbolises the sweet days of summer. For me, it is raspberries. We had a good sized patch of canes that grew in the backyard of my boyhood home. I can remember soaking my feet in the morning dew on the grass to pick a handful of them to put on my breakfast cereal. Later the same day, I might pick another handful to sprinkle over ice cream for an afternoon treat. All summer long that raspberry bush seemed to produce fruit endlessly. My mother would pick a basket of them and make raspberry jam and preserves, carefully measuring out the sugar and pectin and scalding the jam jars in a huge pot of boiling water to remove all impurities. Along with jams made with blueberries and other seasonal fruit. they would last well into the winter months.
As I sampled the berries today, I was a little ashamed of myself for letting the raspberry patch become so overrun with weeds. I dug in and spent a good hour or more pulling weeds and stray vines. It seemed like the raspberry patch was rewarding my efforts, revealing more of it's fully ripened hidden gems as I went along. I know it's too late to dig up and plant the rest of my garden this year, but at least my raspberries will have a fighting chance!
I can never do any yard or garden work without thinking of my mother. Gardening was one of her passions and she took great pride in her ability to provide an abundance of fresh fruit and home grown vegetables for her family. The daughter of a prairie farmer she grew up in Southern Manitoba during the depression when the ability to plant a garden was not a hobby skill but a survival tool. Even as a child I was amazed by the amount of food that could be produced from a medium sized backyard garden. We had a root cellar in the basement of our house and our family didn't buy a bag of potatoes til well after Christmas. I guess to that extent my mom was a settler. Although she enjoyed travel, she was always happy to return home. For her, home was a place where she could put down roots both literally and figuratively and find comfort and refuge in a crazy world.
My father on the other hand, embodied the spirit of the gypsy. He was a railwayman who literally made his living by travelling. At one point in his career he had enough seniority to take a regularly scheduled train run but refused the opportunity. He knew that he would get bored if he had to be on the same train everyday. He preferred to be on the spareboard where he was always on call to work any train or yard job on the line. In the too brief time that I knew him, I can't recall him ever being in one place for much more than a week at a time. As a child I learned the language of the railway spareboard. Four or five times out meant that he would probably be home for four or five days. Three times out meant he'd probably be home for a day or two. Two times out and he would be gone that night. Not that he didn't contribute to the home life of the family. On his days off, he would often bake large batches of cookies for us kids. Often he would spend the afternoon cooking a meal for the family that was a little more elaborate than the usual weekday fare. He took a measure of pride in his family and his crazy schedule was just a part of our life. If he had to be away for my mom's birthday or a special occasion a pot chrysanthemums (my mother's favourite flower) always appeared at our door. The local florist was a member of his lodge fraternity and one of his best friends! Even a man with the soul of a gypsy needs a place to call home. He knew it and so did my mother. Opposites really do attract.
So what does this all have to do with Canada Day? Just this. As Canadians we are all the sons and daughters of gypsies and settlers or at least only a few generations removed from them. Even the indigenous first nations people were largely a nomadic lot. This country has the second largest land mass on the planet. Even if you travel from the east coast to the west just turn around and head back. It's pretty much guaranteed that there's a lot of stuff you missed! This place is a paradise for the gypsy soul. And if your soul is predominately that of a settler, there is no better country on earth to settle down, raise a family and put down roots. Even if those roots only belong to some raspberry canes in the backyard of a rented house.
Happy Canada Day!
...more later.
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