Julie’s Main Squeeze #4

I have successfully made it through my experience as a seasonal worker in coastal Maine…for the most part! It is Labor Day and our time to say ’so-long’ to the days of summer are here. Luckily the weather is warm, crisp and sunny and I believe we might get an ‘Indian Summer’-how lucky! Autumn is by far my favorite season as it brings the most delicious harvest and even more so with this kind of weather. I also just love pulling out the sweaters and boots and hearing the crinkling leaves underfoot while dreams of apples and cider drift through my head.

Summer in Maine has been amazing. I am thrilled to say that living so closely to the fresh vegetation and being in daily contact with the people who grow or distribute the foods that myself and my community eats is a truly amazing thing. Maine is known for being very supportive of local business and boy is it true!!!

As business in the store has begun to slow, I will only work a few hours a day in the store and then, starting this Friday, head out to Isleford to help the store owner harvest her 2 large gardens and do some canning! I am so excited to learn how to do these things. I just started to read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the massive amount of information regarding growing seasons and preparation coupled with my time here and my experience in the gardens, I am finding myself often dreaming of having my own plot of land to tend. I long to be thumbing the seed catalogues in January picking out amazing heirloom varieties (ie open-pollination vs. hybrids) of tomatoes and melons with names like Crimson Cushion tomatoes and Plum Granny heirloom melon. I certainly still have a lot to learn between now and then but I can feel it in my bones that I am meant to be growing. For now I am but a rolling stone…not quite any one place to call my home. I honestly don’t know where I will end up in the next few months but for some reason I am not a bit worried about it. In fact I feel so FREE! I wish this feeling to everyone out there and I highly recommend to anyone taking a few months at some point to learn or to remember how to slow down…too often we speed past the beauty there is in life.

Stay tuned…in life, light, and love,
Julie