Michaelmas
We celebrated Michaelmas—the feast of the Archangel St. Michael, as well as his compatriot Gabriel (I think also the other Archangels)—by pulling up our carrots.
We celebrated Michaelmas—the feast of the Archangel St. Michael, as well as his compatriot Gabriel (I think also the other Archangels)—by pulling up our carrots. While we were at it, we pulled the rest of our potatoes. We have a good basket of each now, mellowing in a cool, dark corner of the basement.
Pulling carrots on September 29th (Michaelmas) is a Scottish tradition. So is stealing your neighbor’s horse, with the proviso it is returned by the following night. You should also eat a goose fattened on the spent remains of your field.
The last goose I cooked was for a Thanksgiving in Boston after travel plans were dashed by a snowstorm. We trudged through the weather to a local market, thankfully open, where goose was the only remaining poultry. That was thirty-five years ago. I may advocate for a goose at Thanksgiving or Christmas this year in addition to whatever else. Why turn our back on goose? It is delicious, even as it is somewhat labor intensive dealing with the amount of fat the bird releases in the pan. Applied to roast potatoes, however, the fat transforms ordinary to extraordinary. Ditto duck. In his cookbook, I’m Just Here For the Food, Alton Brown, describes being “chronically depressed” over how little duck we eat compared to chicken. We could do as well to think about goose.
It is late harvest season. Within the last week, the color of the trees has started to pop. Last evening, we sat down by the pond, which was smooth as glass, and marveled at the vivid yellow, orange, and red reflections on the water. There are plenty of people around here who love winter most of all, for its beauty, along with the skiing and snowmobiling; but autumn is unquestionably the thing we do better than anyone.
Apples are still on the trees. I am thinking we should pick them before someone else does. A bear has wandered across the property twice in the last few weeks and bears are supposed to be partial to apples. They can also make short work of the thin wire fencing around the trees that we use to discourage deer, porcupines, and other apple pickers.
I have written to you about bears in these postcards before. Honestly, if you are not forced to be eye to eye with them, they can be cuddly looking. And their minds always seem elsewhere, a result of their strength and size, perhaps: unperturbed, they just show up in the yard or on the driveway. They might be surprised—oh look, a house. Where did that come from? Winnie the Pooh was like this, head in the clouds. Maybe A.A. Milne had the same sense of them. Thinking about it bears never give an indication of being busy or in a hurry. Everyone else that crosses the yard is possessed of a purpose. They are working. Hurrying. Even deer, which are constantly on the lookout. I imagine bears occasionally bumping into trees, daydreaming through the woods.
September was a nearly perfect month of weather here. After a humid, wet summer, we were treated to clear blue skies, sunshine, and temperatures in the low eighties. You could say it was like being in southern California, except for our denser green landscape and smaller reptiles.
Nothing recommends September more than the absence of mosquitos and various biting flies. This year was an especially bad year for deer flies, or greenheads, as people call them. They were murder against Huckleberry during our morning walks in August. Remarkable how fast they found him and closed in around his eyes. Earlier in the season, faint clouds of black flies would be obvious outside the door, waiting while we put shoes on. The deer flies did not congregate, similarly. So who knows where they emerged from? Overhead, protected by cloud cover, until dropping to engage like P-51 Mustangs. We learned there were fewer of them if we avoided the woods and kept to the roads, which was good for Huckleberry’s leash-walking skills. With autumn, we are back to racing through the understory, chasing squirrels up trees. Very soon, Huckles will start wearing his orange vest for hunting season, his forest superhero costume.
He is looking at me right now holding a bone in his mouth, one of those peanut butter-stuffed jobbies. The message is that the peanut butter is gone and he wants to take it outside to bury it. Unfortunately, this is why he has nothing to chew on or play with inside. The bones have disappeared under the rhododendrons or down by the water, and the stuffed animals have been disemboweled and their plastic squeakers sent out with the trash as so much medical waste.
The answer is no. Bone stays here. Too bad, so sad. The goose is cooked.