112 animal, vegetable, miracle
tively modest scale required that we put in overtime to buy a respite. We
mulched everything heavily to keep root systems moist, discourage weeds,
and prevent late blight.
My favored mulching method is to cover the ground between rows of
plants with a year’s worth of our saved newspapers; the paper and soy-
based ink will decompose by autumn. Then we cover all that newsprint—
comics, ax murderers, presidents, and all—with a deep layer of old straw.
It is grand to walk down the rows dumping armloads of moldy grass glop
onto the faces of your less favorite heads of state: a year in review, already
starting to compost.
Believe it or not, weeds will still come up through all this, but it takes
a while. With neighbors on call to refill the poultry waterers, open and
close coops, and keep an eye on the green things, we figured on escaping
for a week and a half. Our plan was to head north in a big loop through
New En gland, up to Montreal, and back through Ohio, staying with
friends and relatives all along the way.
We nearly had the car packed when it started raining cherries. We’d
been watching our huge cherry trees, which every June bear fruit enough
to eat and freeze for pies and sorbets all year long. This, plus our own
sparse peaches, plums, Asian pears, and a local orchard’s autumn apples,
were the only local sources of tree fruits we knew about, and we didn’t
want to miss any of them. Our diet had turned our attention keenly to
fruit, above all else. Like the Frostburg man with his eighty- three mealy
peaches and so forth, we wanted our USDA requirement. This winter
we’d be looking at applesauce and whatever other frozen fruit we could
put by ahead of time, at whatever moment it came into season. Tree-
ripened fruit, for the local gourmand, is definitely worth scheduling your
vacation around.
Last year, my journal said, the cherries had ripened around June 8.
This year summer was off to such a cool, slow start, we stood under the
tree and tried to generate heat with our heart’s desire. Then it happened:
on June 15, one day before our planned departure, the hard red spheres
turned to glossy black, all at once. The birds showed up in noisy gangs,
and up we went to join them. Standing on ladders and the roof of the