The October Porch Vacation
Mud on potatoes dries to dirt in the sun, spilling from a bucket like a cornucopia overflowed. In the garden, a few tomatoes struggle to turn red but only make it to bright orange – the same color as the potted mums on the porch table, a $3 grocery store purchase for October’s yearly anniversary.
The dog is lapping water from her bowl. A muffled dishwasher hum from the kitchen, like the breeze that hushes through the trees, promises a crisp new beginning. Crickets hang on, drone a fading song, as I fill an empty notebook page with words. Then, lifting my eyes, I watch an oak leaf in mid air rocking like a cradle as it silently floats to theground.
Post note: No produce was harmed in the making of this post and the just-dug potatoes shown are all natural and un-posed.
October 8th, 2008 5:46 am
Do you keep the potatoes in a cellar? My folks used to do that, but they lived in dry Colorado, so it was easy to keep them through the winter.
October 8th, 2008 6:24 am
Always love your porch vacations, so peaceful.
October 8th, 2008 8:18 am
Love, “an oak leaf rock like a cradle as it silently floats to the ground”.
What a great price for those big mums!
I love fall…everything is slowing down..kind of suspended animation. Time enough to savour it!
October 8th, 2008 8:25 am
what a lovely fall day you share here. wish those potatoes were ours! our tomatoes are doing the same thing yours are, but you have had a summer filled with red tomatoes in your hot, east coast location. we have had only 6 red ones all season! the vines filled with green ones may end up ripening in our kitchen window.
October 8th, 2008 9:25 am
I have kept potatoes from the garden till March on one occasion. I keep mine in a cupboard in the cellar but the woodstove is also down there so it doesn’t always work. We keep talking about digging a root cellar, a hole in the ground with a cover.
October 8th, 2008 1:49 pm
That was a lovely post! Brightened my day a lot. Love the way you string words together.
Those potatoes look awesome! I love potatoes – fixed anyway!!!
October 8th, 2008 2:02 pm
Fried Orange Tomatoes!
Come see me… your in my post today!
October 8th, 2008 5:02 pm
Beautiful words and a Beautiful picture to go with them. You are a true poet, Colleen!
October 8th, 2008 5:40 pm
And like a writer, I’ve reworked the ending to this post about six times through-out this day!
October 9th, 2008 11:02 am
I feel as if I am there myself. Such soothing words and colours.