Philosophy or Compost? Food or Love?

 

Philosophy or Compost? Food or Love?

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Some days it is a great comfort to me. Other days, a rather delightful joke, makes me chuckle at myself. I can still hear the laughter in my friend’s voice as he said to me, all those hundred years ago, “Tomorrow things will be different. They may not be better. They may not be worse. But they will be different.”

I was a bit of a drama queen back then, a bit hooked on adrenaline. Even tragedy held excitement. I was prone to jump to conclusions, to make decisions and leap into action without assessing the height or depth of the cliff. This is my self-assessment based on memory and we all know how flawed that is! Yours may not be, but my memory is, well, creative.

My friend’s words stuck with me and taught me that no matter what is going on today: bliss, tragedy, illness, desperation, hilarity, love, boredom, grief, work without recompense, no matter what, tomorrow will be different. Circumstances shift. Feelings adjust. Clouds move in. The sun comes out. Stuff like that.

I’m not going anywhere with this. I simply like to share bits of my philosophy. I would share my personal favorite conspiracy theories but I forgot where I hid my tinfoil hat.

This morning on my way into the backyard for a sun-sit, I was waylaid by one amaryllis. When I moved here, there were perhaps 150 amaryllis bulbs that bloomed January through April. The following year, 200. I counted. I split them and moved them about. 300. 400. Then, NONE. Digging revealed an army of fat curly worms. Worms ate all the bulbs.

Being from Montana, I remembered hail storms, early freezes, drought years, grasshoppers. Happens, doesn’t it? A whole crop crippled, wiped out, in a blink. One lonely amaryllis buried in the dirt, waited out the storm, the worm, these four years. I like to think the flower is as happy to see me smile as I am to see its beautiful face.

Much of my current pleasure comes from my flowering yard, the fruit trees I’ve planted and my bucket garden. And my compost pit. Composting is new to me. It has been a learning experience for both me and my gardener, Leo. He does the hard work. I beam at him. I beam at my plants.

Making compost is easy with daily sunshine, plenty of fuel in grass and leaves and horse poop from across the way; how could it not succeed!

A mere four months after we began filling the pit with lawn and kitchen scraps, Leo was able to mulch all the trees and many of the plants with rich humus.

Immediately, my lime tree, which had been in hibernation and suffering from curly leaf, pruned and enriched, perked up. The papaya, which itself came close to being chopped into the pit, has a dozen baby fruits. The mango is leafing into spring. Seedlings stand strong, ready to pot into prepared buckets.

In February, I will be eating (and sharing) tomatoes and squash planted in November, both which managed a slow grow through winter.

Our tiny community thrives on food-share. I fill baskets with extras from my garden. Lani and Nancie, our resident bakers, frequently bring around cookies or invite us over for cake. Kathy bakes artisan bread, and she explains, “It is more than we can eat and doesn’t freeze well.”

To me, sharing food, whether a meal or cookies or garden tomatoes, is the same as partaking in Communion. Sharing food is a holy act. This is my belief and I don’t ask you to buy into it.

When I get hungry for pate de marlin, I share it with Ariel. He and I are the only ones who eat it. I don’t have a recipe. I put ingredients together until it tastes right. Pre-pandemic, I took a batch to a pot-luck dinner at Nancie’s. Ariel and I scooped large spoonsful onto our plates. Nobody else touched it. Pate de marlin is our special connection.

A couple days ago Leo plunked a bag onto my patio table. I peeked in. Smoked marlin, cream cheese, a handful of cilantro, a huge onion, a jar of nacho style jalapenos. And a packet of Crackets (like Ritz).

“Do you think this is a not-so-subtle hint?” 

Leo likes how we all share food. He says, “Sometimes food is love.”

Love—Communion. The same thing.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Ending January, philosophically

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A Small Town Fourth

A Small Town Fourth
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I began my Fourth of July by watering pots of petunias and sighing over the ever-present dust. The previous evening we had a non-storm, the type I call ‘Big Hat and No Cattle’. The wind blew and blustered, black clouds gathered high above, thunder roared and lightning flashed. I stood on my front steps and hoped for rain to settle the dust, but the clouds rose even higher and briskly marched across the sky to a Sousa beat. Later I heard that in the mountains to the south of us and on the high plains to the north, some folks got more action than they had wanted from those same clouds, but here in our section of the Milk River Valley, we stayed dry and went to bed with a clear sky above and the waxing moon erasing the dark night.

In the early afternoon I had a surprise visit from Charlotte, an old friend from high school, up from Billings to visit one of her daughters. We reminisced until it was nearly time for the parade. It is only four blocks from my home to Main Street . I hurried off on foot, hoping I would not be late, and arrived just in time to watch the parade get underway, led by the Fire and Rescue vehicles. The parade had everything; vintage cars and trucks decorated with streamers, floats, marchers of all ages waving flags and carrying banners, young people zipping around on ATV’s, beautiful horses with stately riders bringing up the rear. The marchers waved and we waved back. They threw handfuls of candy and balloons. Small children scrambled for the goodies. We spectators along the sidewalks chatted with one another with smiles, hugs and handshakes.

When the parade ended, we walked from Main Street to the city park. There the Harlem Civic Organization had set up serving tables for the annual Potluck in the Park. On these tables were children’s wading pools filled with ice to keep pot luck dishes cool and electric roasting pans to keep the barbequed pork hot. There were long rows of tables and chairs set up for the hungry diners. One thoughtful community member had set up a huge bank of speakers where as DJ he played lively background music, just loud enough to listen to but soft enough to allow easy talk with neighbors. It was early yet. Children played on the new playground equipment and romped on the grass while their parents staked out a family area and visited from group to group, keeping a watchful eye on the kids. I meandered over to the playground to help with the games for the little guys. I sat in the shade of a tree and handed out prizes to the winners. What fun to watch the children run three-legged races, sack races, crab crawls, backwards races and tugs-of-war, to shout encouragement to the participants, and to cheer for all the children. After each race I was mobbed by kids for their prizes. All were winners in my eyes. I passed out handfuls of booty.

The Civic Organization had set up a tent with photo displays of our town, pictures of things we like about our community as well as things we would like to change. Harlem is taking part in the Horizons Project, a program designed to help revitalize a community. The project helps members of the community plan what they want and then put their plans into action. Everyone has input into the planning. One step in this process includes a survey. Citizens hovered over yellow survey sheets as they thoughtfully painted a word picture of their visions for Harlem . The Potluck in the Park was a perfect venue to gather a large cross-section of our people in one place for this survey.

At six o’clock the food was ready. We formed lines, heaped our plates, and filled the tables in the park to capacity. Friends, neighbors and guests feasted on good food and fellowship. There must have been nearly three hundred people at the dinner. In that magical loaves-and-fishes way of potlucks, everybody had plenty to eat. We laughed, told stories, and enjoyed one another’s company. Around eight o’clock everyone spontaneously began to gather up empty plates, to break down folding tables, to stack chairs and to carry supplies to the large Seed Show truck to be stored until the next community event.

I walked home to find an unexpected surprise on my doorstep, bare root chokecherry, sand cherry, Saskatoon berry, lilac, golden currant, and plum sprigs, gifts from a friend. The only thing that could top off this day would be the fireworks. I stood in my back door and watched the sky rockets explode color umbrellas in the night sky. What a complete day. A diverse community had come together to celebrate our nation’s independence. We had a wonderful time.
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Mourning the Death of the Cajun Cafe'

Some dreams never disappear completely.
Mourning the Death of the Cajun Café
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I came across the derelict when I was driving my van crammed with furniture and boxes on my move back home to Montana . The building had obviously been long abandoned. A corner of the roof threatened to collapse. Windows were broken and a door hung loose. A warped and peeling sign across the front announced that this heap of debris had once been the Cajun Café. A homemade “For Sale” sign stood in the yard. Long way from Louisiana , I thought.

I was on that scenic section of US Highway 2, half-way between Bonners Ferry and Troy . Neither place was a major population center. The only residents up here in the north woods appeared to be moose and lodge-pole pine. Who would have opened a Cajun café, definitely a niche restaurant, out in the middle of nowhere?

But the Café was once somebody’s dream. With that thought my imagination took over. I hate to see a dream die. I have a friend long retired from the restaurant business. We often talked about what made an eatery work, in that idle way of people who enjoy good food.

So that evening I phoned him. “Got a business opportunity for you, a little fixer-upper.” I described the place, left out several pertinent details, emphasized ‘potential’, talked fast past ‘location’ and tried to sell a bill of goods around ‘tourist’ and ‘seasonal’.

A few months later my friend drove this route with me. When I spotted the old Cajun Cafe I eased off the road into the driveway. “There she is. A business opportunity waiting to happen.” He laughed. “A fixer-upper, huh?” “Build it, they will come,” I replied. “Are you kidding? Who is here to come?”

That tumble-down structure along the highway entertained us for nearly four years. We imagined a Saturday night at the Cajun Café. The Gumbo Special. Live music. Elbow-to-elbow customers who rode snowmobiles from their cabins off the grid across the trackless wilderness. Plenty of good food and with beer to swill it down. Belches and scratches, music blaring, fights on the dance floor. Good honest fun.

After that, whenever I made the trip, I would report on the condition of the Cajun Café and assure my friend that nobody had slipped in and bought it out from under him, that it was still available.

Until last winter. A fire had severely razed the site. I felt too sad to report this tragic turn of events. But recently my friend drove out to see me and took the northern route. My phone rang, “It’s gone,” he said. “A fire. Still I wonder who the guy was who built a Cajun restaurant way out here.”

I’ll be driving that same route soon. I’ll leave flowers at the site, flowers to commemorate a dream gone, someone’s hopes and aspirations up in flames. But dang, I can still picture the fire roaring in the cast iron wood-stove in the corner, shrimp and catfish sizzling on the grill, my friend pulling nozzles and filling beer mugs, his wife carrying heaping plates of jambalaya to the customers sitting at trestle tables in their mukluks and Carhartts, snowmobiles clustered outside the door, zydeco on the jukebox; in short, a community center where neighbors meet, wild game is bartered for firewood, deals are made, disputes are settled and young folks fall in love. Let the good times roll.

Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 12, 2009

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