Laboring Into Fall

Labor Day.  The unofficial close of summer, the very official eve of returning to school for students and teachers.  The great irony of Labor Day, in the world of a teacher, is while normal folks use the day as a mini vacation from their year-round jobs the teacher labors like crazy, either in his/her classroom or at home, desperately trying to finish up all the things that somehow couldn't get done during the previous three months of workless bliss.

Which is exactly what this teacher did on his final day of vacation - work around the house and yard.  Summer had a nearly perfect pace through the middle of July.  The days were full but not hectic, the weeks rolled by but didn't disappear without a trace.  Life was good.  Then the blueberries ripened two weeks earlier than usual and ignited a ferocious firestorm of day-filling activities; a combination of food processing, basement finishing, landscaping, and volleyball devoured August.  Gone.  Never saw it coming or going.  Didn't take my boat out of the garage all month, and never once felt there were minutes to spare for writing.  So busy that, in a rarity, returning to the day-to-day grind of a real job will be a welcome relief....a vacation from hard labor, if you will.....

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With today's round of dish washing my produce preservation for the year is complete (unless someone shares fall apples with me).  The canner is cleaned, my kettles are washed, and for the first time in a month every measuring and mixing utensil I own is in its correct place.  In a final flurry of cooking and canning last night the last of the tomatoes became spaghetti sauce, and a remaining gallon of chokecherry juice became two batches of syrup and one batch of berry sauce.

Earlier this summer I wrote about making fruit preserves like jams and syrups...but my kitchen does more than churn out sweets.  Over the last month I froze dozens of quarts of blueberries, several quarts of shredded zucchini, numerous bags of diced tomatoes, and over a gallon of sliced apples.  I canned a gallon of chokecherry syrup and another gallon of chokecherry/blueberry sauce.  I have nearly 20 quart jars of spaghetti sauce on the shelf and 18 pints of salsa.  For the first time ever I tried my hand at making pickles, borrowing a recipe from my sister to make a simple batch of refrigerator pickles which now sit in three quart jars on the top shelf of my fridge.  This all is in addition to the strawberry/rhubarb sauce I made earlier this summer, at which time I also froze several quarts of rhubarb.

A ton of work, yes, but at least August was stiflingly hot so the house could be unbearably warm while I stood over steaming pots on a hot stove.  Admittedly there are (were) many times when I wonder aloud why I spend so much time and energy making what could easily be purchased.  In the end there's really no debate - I do what I do because I enjoy the process and love the results.  Full shelves, full freezers...all by my hand...are year-long reminders that summer was bountiful, reminders that carry with them a little warmth and hope on those long, cold winter days ahead.  And now that the plant life is processed, thoughts can turn to the harvesting of meat....

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So yeah, school starts tomorrow and brings with it a set schedule, a cadence of days and routines that might just save my sanity after the whirlwind that was August.  A new month that begins a new year in time for a new season sounds like a bunch of good reasons to get my fingers flying on some new posts for this blog.  Volleyball season is off and running, deer farming is about to turn into deer hunting, I begin my third decade of teaching....so much to write about!

I hope your summer was memorable, your Labor Day restful.  If you're a teacher, I hope your return to school life is painless and the school year becomes one of your best ever.  If you're a student I hope you enjoy the heck out of the next nine months - these days are some of the best of your life, so don't waste 'em!  If you're a parent of school-aged kids I hope you, too, will enjoy the school year alongside those kids.....my eldest begins her senior year of high school tomorrow so believe me - the years will disappear in a hurry if you let them.

Have a great fall everyone - let's go!

The First Last

Milestones.  It's hard to escape them anymore; not sure if it's 'cause we love to celebrate so much or we are just that starved for attention, but every time you turn around someone has reached a magical moment that needs to be recognized.  "Congrats on your 200th day of not falling down the stairs!"  "You've just notched your 50th speeding ticket!"  "Was that the 75th cheeseburger you've eaten this month?  Party time!"  The "big moments" in life are accumulating so rapidly......well, if they're all special, can any one of them really be big?

Luckily we still have a few age-old milestones that hold nearly as much significance as they always have.  Graduating from high school comes to my mind because it hardly ever leaves my mind anymore, as eldest offspring soon begins her senior year.  With that senior year come many, many lasts....and tonight we observed the first one: the last night of summer league volleyball.

I won't rehash or link you to any of the numerous posts I've written here about my family's life as volleyballers.  If you've read my ramblings long enough you know that the sport pretty much dominates our lives nearly all year long.  Three years ago Daughter One was given an unexpected opportunity to play in a summer tournament; she performed well enough to be extended an invite to play in a weekly league the rest of that summer, and has continued to do so the following two summers.  And tonight, that part of her career, that part of her youth, came to an end.  No tears, no cake, no hoopla....a mini-milestone in the grand scheme of things.  But it was the first of the lasts that are going to mount in frequency and emotion as the next ten months pass.  So we took some pictures and I congratulated the dad whose only daughter is also a senior (his summer league days are over, lucky bugger) and we called it a night.  No biggie.  But yet....

Time slips away and leaves us with nothing.  Daughter Two has three more years of summer ball and right on her heels will follow Daughter Three so I've got plenty of opportunities ahead of me to sit on bleachers in the summer.  And, truth be told, I've never been a weekly attendee at the games - I make it to most but don't lose a lot of sleep if I have to miss a week now and then.  Even now with Daughter One being done I'm not feeling any regret at missing those games.  But tonight was a bit of a jolt, this first last, knowing that the march towards her big last, graduation, has begun.  All the little pieces that make her who she is right now have begun to fall away - to be replaced by new ones in time, of course - taking the girl I love so much with them.  I must have missed the chapter in the parenting manual that explained how hard this is going to be.

I no longer believe that time moves too fast.  Time moves at exactly the right pace - it's we who move too fast.  We are in charge of how we handle time, how we savor its moments.  If you've got school aged kids or younger I'm not going to issue the standard cliches about their school years being over before you know it; I just don't think that's true.  Yes, the days will pile up and suddenly become months before jumping together as years, but they will only fly by if we let them.  Be present in the moments, meditate to memory the highlights, find ways to clear the schedules now and then, engage in conversations about the activities....and you'll find a peaceful (but still hectic) rhythm to a child's passage through your life.  The lasts are going to arrive one way or another - they can appear too fast with regrets attached or they can be seen and prepped for, and enjoyed upon arrival.  You're in charge of both options.

So with the first last in the books we look forward to the last first practice, the last first game, the last first day of school, the last parent night, and so on....and on and on and on.  It's gonna be a tough year for Dad but I am so hopeful her year is nothing but wonderful.  Since, as we all know, life after high school graduation is nothing more than a slow descent towards our own grave.  Again with the greeting card material!

Daughters One, on the right, and Two played their final summer league games together tonight, and walked away with victories in both.