September kitchen

Everyday there is at least one basket, sometimes more. 
This time of year, I have the odd feeling of a baseball outfielder, standing under a high pop fly ball, thinking, I... GOT it! I think I got it! Oh lord, what if I don't got it? Except I'm "fielding" these baskets of goodness, figuring out if it's ultimately going in cans or freezer bags or root cellar or directly into my mouth, then putting it there, one little step at a time.
I have decided that next September, and every September thereafter, will be declared a Project-Free Zone. No house renovations, no house painting, no nothing except food preservation. No furniture overhauls. I just want to be able to focus on that fielding feeling, on taking in the harvest and doing it right. 
Seems logical, right?
My new kitchen is handing the onslaught just wonderfully, it must be said. Having extra counter for my vat of fermenting hot sauce, and for cooling canning jars, and for those baskets, is so lovely. The top of the half-wall behind the stove is coming in SO handy for tomatoes and for when I buy peaches or nectarines-- somehow they look more appetizing lined up like that rather than in a bowl. Of course, my whole "grand vision" of the half-wall was to use it for curated display-- maybe just a big vase at one end-- and not piles of cookbooks and rows of tomatoes, but, y'know. Life and all that. Especially September life, when things are at their craziest and you just hold on and keep riding that crazy train. It will end soon. Soon it will be over and the whole world out there will be frozen and barren. So you hold on, and you holler, and you ache a little. But, by god, it's worth it. 

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