Fig preserves and memories

FIGS:

the fruit of my childhood memories

I have always loved figs. When I was young we lived in south Louisiana and were blessed to have a large fig tree in our backyard. The tree grew right beside an outdoor patio. I was the unofficial fig picker in our family. After climbing up the tree and gathering from underneath, I would climb on a ladder to the top of the patio and pick the figs from the top of the tree. The leaves of a fig tree will irritate your skin and my exposed arms and legs would itch for some time after I climbed down. But in my mind, it was well worth the discomfort. Usually the fig gathering would happen when my granny was visiting. She would take the figs and make fig preserves from them. I couldn't wait to open the first jar of preserves and spread that sweet, gooey goodness onto a biscuit or a plain piece of toasted light bread. I know I was strange child, remember fried chicken liver was also one of my favorite meals...

Many years went by and I had pretty much forgotten about the figs of my childhood. I moved on to other delicacies. However, it is strange what happens to trigger those long repressed memories. It is also strange what craving pregnancy will produce.

When we lived in Arkansas and I was pregnant to with Noah, I developed a craving for figs. I searched high and low and couldn't find the first jar of fig preserves in any of the local grocery stores. It wasn't until a spring trip to the Bluegrass festival in Mountain View, Arkansas that I was able to satisfy that desire.

Tucked away in a little shop, along with the jars of local honey and pickled okra, were beautiful golden jars of fig preserves. I couldn't believe my fortune. I ate fig preserves on toast for weeks. When the jar was empty the search was on again to find more. After Noah was born I begin to visit the Farmer's Market in Little Rock and to my great fortune a vendor there carried a wonderful fig preserve. Since moving to North Carolina I buy a small jar of preserves from Harris Teeter, a local grocery store. I eat them spread on an Arnold's whole wheat Sandwich Thin with natural peanut butter. I often make a meal out of just that. When I do, I close my eyes and am once again transported back to my carefree childhood days when this wonderful brown, sweet treat grew in my backyard.

In the last few years since reacquainting myself with the delicious fig, I have thought of having a fig tree, to grow my own and put up preserves the way my granny did. Because of our "gypsy" lifestyle I didn't think that was possible. Then I began to read about people growing small fig trees in pots on their decks and I knew this was something I had to try.

Last weekend while Andrew, Noah and I perused the lawn and garden area of our local Lowe's store, I found it! Tucked away with some blueberry bushes, there were fig trees. These trees were about a foot and a half tall and and looked very healthy. I debated; should I, shouldn't I? I really wanted to but being a skeptic, I wondered if you could actually grow figs this way. I saw that they were marked down to ten dollars, so I figured, why not find out?

We purchased two large pots to bring home to re pot what we refer to as "our twins." They are two ficus trees that someone gave to our family seventeen years ago when my brother, Daren, was killed. We have had them ever since. They have been moved many times in those years and they have been re potted several times into bigger and bigger pots. They have had times of plenty and times when they dropped so many leaves I didn't know if they would make it. However, last spring when we moved here and they found their place on either end of our front porch, they have thrived like never before. I suppose the climate and conditions are just right for them to really grow.

Bringing our new little fig tree home we re potted it into one of the large terra cotta pots that we took the ficus trees from. It now sits proudly on our little deck. The leaves look great and it seems to like its new home. I go out regularly and speak encouraging words and imagine the day that I can walk out and pick fruit off of its branches and taste the incredible flavor and sweetness of my very own figs.

Last night Andrew and I sat on the deck in the light of a full moon rising behind us, with the flames of the tiki torches wafting citronella scent across our little backyard paradise, and we agreed that we wanted to go back and buy another fig tree to fill the empty terra cotta pot from the other ficus tree. It only seems fitting that we would have two figs growing together just as our ficus trees have done all these years. We will now have two sets of "twins" to carry with us through the coming years.

Here are some great reference sites to check out if your interested in figs...

www.pickyourown.org/figs.htm

http://bayouwoman.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/just-plain-old-fashioned-fig-preserve-recipe/

Another place and time

I just love days that are filled with relaxing and enjoying life. Some days are just so rushed and hurried that you actually forget to just take a breath and enjoy being alive. One of the disadvantages to growing up and becoming an responsible adult is that we are often so weighed down with our load of responsibilities, our worries, and all the "necessities" of life in our society that we forget to just enjoy living.

I remember the simple pleasures of being a child. Waking up each morning with a renewed sense of adventure. The thought that anything was possible and fun waited on every turn.

I think that feeling of endless possibility and the sense of wonder are the two aspects of childhood that I most miss. I can almost remember the point when I crossed over that threshold, the place of feeling anything was possible to the new reality of adulthood, feeling limited by life and its circumstances. Fully understanding the weight of reality and the fact that dreams don't always come true, no matter how hard you wish it to be.

But there are moments, although they are only fleeting now, moments that it seems as though I am breathing the same air and have been transported back to the 1970's when I was still a child. I can feel that feeling that is free of the load of life, free of the responsibilities of adulthood, and the capacity to believe that anything is possible...

I was reminded of this when I saw Noah sitting in the chair mindlessly watching TV, with Bentley the guinea pig on his lap. I was for a brief moment caught up in the wonder of childhood and enraptured by the simple art of enjoying each little moment that life offers.

Last Saturday Megan and I drove to Cameron to the Antiques Festival they hold there every May and October. This was our third time to attend. We had an enjoyable day although we didn't find much that caught our attention and even less in which to spend our money.

I did end up buying a wire basket with Farmers Market painted on it. I really didn't have anything special in mind for it, I just liked the way it looked. I thought it would be a good basket for gathering the veggies from the garden when it is harvest time. I also decided to purchase a sign that I had seen both times I had attended the festival previously. It is a framed sign that says:

Help Wanted

No Irish Need Apply

I plan to find a better frame to put it in and hang it in my bathroom upstairs. I don't know exactly why, but it caught my attention last May, and I saw it again in October. So I decided to finally buy it this time.

Here are a few more images from Cameron that caught my eye:

A little boys dream! If I had several hundred extra dollars to just blow, I would have brought this home to my little man, even if he is nearly to big to fit in it. But I figured there was a more sensible way to spend that much money...

Here are a whole fleet of boy toys

This house was actually the most interesting thing I saw

Unfortunately, it wasn't for sale

I loved this old gas pump. The colors were great!

This brought back some memories. We use to fight over who got to crank the handle. I also loved the blue color. Would have like to have had this to put on my front porch. But it is hard to have a minimalist lifestyle if you keep bring things home.

Old roller skates

An old tricycle

I don't know why I like old things so much. I suppose it has to do with being nostalgic for the past. The memories of another place and another time. An attempt to bring back those days and the people with which they were shared and enjoyed.

When I am around these relics from the past, I can conjure in my mind the life that these items have had and seen. I can for those fleeting moments be carried away, back to my childhood, back to that place when life was simple and carefree, when I was young and unencumbered by the weight of life and the adult world. When my mind was not burdened by the reality of a world that is full of hate and unhappiness, mistrust, lies, hurt, pain, and loss.

I lived a very sheltered life, a life full of love and peace. I was around adults that were kind and loving, who would never think of hurting a child. I feel very fortunate to have lived in a place and time where children could run freely about, playing and enjoying childhood without the worry of being exploited or abused.

We grew up in a idyllic world where we were able to dream good dreams, and have pure thoughts and not know of anything bad or fearful. A world before all of the modern day conveniences but also a world absent of our modern day perils.

Of Summer Days and Memories

Some of my favorite memories from my childhood are connected to one place; my Grandma's house. Actually we called her Mawmaw and her house was actually the house she had grown up in from the time she was very young. In the early 1900's my great-grandpa and great-grandma moved to a community that would later be known as Reids community, or Blackjack. They bought around 140 acres that had three houses on it. They lived in one of the houses while they worked on another one. After a time they moved into the big house at the curve.

For most of my growing up years we lived on part of what was originally some of the family land that had been sold to other family members. My parents bought a piece of it back from an uncle. Then again later in my life, my husband and I bought an acre of land from a cousin and we lived there for several years. So my kids, the girls, were the fifth generation of my family to have lived on the land.

As a child, I ran and romped all over from one end to the other; through the woods, across the fields and down to the creek bank. I picked flowers, climbed trees, crawled through hay bales in the barn and picked vegetables from the gardens. We rode bikes up and down the county lane, played on the tractor and learned how to drive in Uncle Ford's truck. We were country kids who were carefree and played from sun up to sun down. We swam in the creek and rode on the tail gate of pickup trucks, and jumped from the tops of the barn. Some how we all survived.

My mom grew up in that house and in her time it was unpainted. But for as long as I can remember it was painted green. The porch ran the length of the front and was a place that welcomed visitors. There was a large tree that shaded the porch and the roots spread out across that half of the yard. On the other side, was a Camellia bush. Which was much more like a tree than a bush. It had the prettiest pink flowers that we always loved to pick. I remember breaking off a handful and bringing them in and Mawmaw would put them into an old mason jar and set them in the windowsill or on the table.

My grandma was always in the kitchen either cooking or cleaning up after a meal. Every Sunday the family would gather there after church and eat and visit. Often times the pastor and his family would come to eat and there would be other cousins and family members and neighbors dropping in for coffee and a visit. There was always a pot of coffee for the adults and a pitcher of cool-aid for the kids. The coffee was Community dark roast and the cool-aid was usually grape flavored. There was always something good from the garden to eat. One of our childhood favorites was what we called Mawmaw beans and rice. It was actually lima beans but because Mawamaw cooked them, we called them Mawmaw beans. We would often add ketchup to the beans and rice and it was delicious.

Another wonderful memory was going to Mawmaw's on Saturday morning early and helping her make biscuits. She would give me a piece of dough so I could roll my own. We would put them in a pan and cook them along side hers. But somehow mine never turned out as good as hers did. I loved nothing better that to eat those hot biscuits with cold Steen's Cane syrup. It came in a yellow can and tasted like heaven on earth. I would pour some onto a plate and it would slowly fill the middle of the plate. Then break a piece of the biscuit off and drag it across the bottom of the plate, loading it with that thick, cold syrup. By the time you finished your fingers were sticky and syrup dripped down your arms. She would also cook bacon, not the kind of bacon you buy in the store these days, but thick, fatty pieces of bacon. The left overs would sit in a pan on the stove all day and if you were lucky you could come in later after being outside playing and sneak a piece of that cold bacon. It was delicious even when it was cold and hours old. Sometimes we would take a piece of it and put it on a string and go down to the creek bank and use the bacon to catch crawfish. I can remember a few times bringing back a few small crawfish and Mawmaw would put some butter in a skillet and fry up the crawfish for us to eat. Of course they were usually so tiny that you really only got a taste of them, but it was great, because we had caught them ourselves.

There were many days after the garden came in that we would all sit around on the front porch, to catch a breeze, and shell peas or beans. We would have a dish pan in our laps with a bucket filled with whatever happened to be ready that morning sitting on the porch at our feet. We had a ball just sitting there together seeing who could shell the most. Kids today just don't realize what they are missing out on. I wouldn't trade any of those times for all of the electronic gadgets that my kids have today. There was nothing like it.

Long hot summer days spent down at the creek, swimming with cousins and neighbor kids. Swinging from the rope that someone had hung from a tree in the deep part of the creek. Sitting on the log that had fallen across one end of the swimming hole, running down the sand bank splashing into the creek for the first time; wonderful memories fresh in my mind as though I did them just yesterday.

Often times we would have a watermelon floating in the water to chill and someone would use their pocket knife to cut it open and cut off pieces to pass around. The taste of that cold melon, the feel of the creek water and the sound of squeals and laughter; pieces of a happy childhood that I wish I could bottle and keep forever. I can remember riding in the back of Uncle Ford's pickup wet from swimming, the hot sun and summer wind drying me as we headed back up the road to Mawmaw's house. There we would often be greeted by the smells of the big Bar-b-Que grill that sat in the back yard by the car shed. Uncle Ford would be standing there with his little mop, mopping his homemade Bar-b-Que sauce onto the meat. If I close my eyes, I can smell it now.

His grill was a huge metal barrel looking thing that had been hand fashioned and welded onto a base of four legs and had a large smoke pipe coming from the side. It has long been left to sit unused for many years now. In 1986 Uncle Ford was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and passed away in 1995. The bar-b-ques that he use to host are only memories of those who were blessed enough to be a part of the family or the community. But when I sit very still and quiet, I can close my eyes and visualize it all again. I can smell the smoky smell of the grill, and I can taste his bar-b-que sauce.

A couple of years ago, after my grandma passed away, I begin to remember little pieces of yellowed paper that she would keep stuffed here or there in her kitchen. Some were in a small box that she kept in her pie safe in the dining room. These pieces of paper were recipes that she had written down through the years. So I had my mom, who still lives just down the road, start going through her things to find the recipe for Uncle Ford's famous bar-b-que sauce. She searched and went through things a little at a time until one day she happened upon the recipe. It is written on a piece of notebook paper. Yellowed and spotted by age, written in pencil. The handwriting is the familiar script of my grandma.

As I sit and hold this recipe in my hands I am taken back to a place, down a country road and around the big curve, right back into the 1960'and 70's. The memories of good times, simple times when people didn't have much, but were rich just the same. When love, family and community was everything. The pace was slow and easy, people were warm and genuine. The air was cleaner and water was purer, and life was good.

After all the complaining about the winter weather, summer will be upon us before we know it. I am making plans to plant some vegetables in a raised bed and I am getting ready to prepare the grill for summer cooking. Now that I have Uncle Ford's Bar-b-Que sauce recipe I am going to cook up a large batch to keep on hand for those summer evenings when for a few moments I can conjure up some long held memories of another place and another time. In a small way, I can share with my kids a piece of the past, a part of their family history. A time when days were long and carefree and the world was a much friendlier place for kids to live.

The Joys of Childhood

One little ritual that Noah and I have when getting in and out of the car at night, we always look for the moon and talk about the stars. Many times we will recite "twinkle, twinkle little star."

Recently we came home from church one night and while getting him out of his car seat, I told him to look at the moon. It was a waning crescent moon and a very cloudless night so it was clearly seen.

Noah looked up at he moon and said, "Momma, the moon is broken, we need to fix it."

Oh the joy of childhood innocence!

Reminds me of a poem by Billy Collins. For those of you who have read my blog for a long time, you will know that I am a Billy Collins fan. Some people don't get him, but I so get his---I hesitate to say sense of humor--because it is poetry, but I suppose it would be his thought processes...

My favorite is Forgetfulness.(click on the link to read) But there are others that I equally enjoy.

The following is about a child aging and understanding the changes taking place in their life. But it is only the beginning...

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel

like I'm coming down with something,

something worse than any stomach ache

or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--

a kind of measles of the spirit,

a mumps of the psyche,

a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,

but that is because you have forgotten

the perfect simplicity of being one

and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.

But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.

At four I was an Arabian wizard.

I could make myself invisible

by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.

At seven I was a soldier,

at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window

watching the late afternoon light.

Back then it never fell so solemnly

against the side of my tree house,

and my bicycle never leaned against the garage

as it does today,

all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness,

I say to myself,

as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.

It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,

time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I could shine.

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees.

I bleed.

~Billy Collins ~