Harvesttime
An Ode to Missoula’s Autumn
By Brianna Randall, 10-22-06
I picked a peck of peppers. And then I made them into jelly. The spicy green goo joined a chorus of jam jars already on my shelves, made from the mounds of peaches, apples, plums, and cherries dripping from Missoula's trees a few months ago.
The colorful jars light a little glow in my belly on these cold, rainy days. Harvest's bounty lends a warm cheer to the house, making the snow-topped hills less forbidding as winter slides toward Montana.
As a born and bred southern California girl (where concrete and endless summer mock attempts at fall harvest), I'm still proud of my newfound "grub-shedding" skills. I never would have pegged myself as someone who would enjoy spending large chunks of time hunting for fruits and veggies near my home, and then figuring out ways to make this booty last through the long, dark winter.
I have dried hops from local vines in airtight bags, ready to make homebrewed beer. Frozen pesto made from my garden's basil sits alongside frozen soups from fresh-plucked carrots and potatoes. A few bottles of wine rest in my rack, rewards from a day spent clipping grapes from the vineyard up the street. Onions and garlic bulbs wait in dark drawers like presents, their pungent juices wrapped in papery, brittle skins.
I even helped a friend extract honey from beehives a couple of months ago. We sliced through the wax on comb after comb to reveal the amber sugar beneath. Then, trying to ignore the drone and threat of angry bees, we spun out the honey in a metal cylinder under the late afternoon sun. I have some in my tea every day, now that the mornings are hovering at freezing.
I was also born and raised a vegetarian. I stayed one, too, until I spent a winter in Montana—a common story, I know. Mine goes like this: I'd been living in Missoula only two months when a friend asked if he could hang his deer carcass in the big maple out back. I watched him saw off the buck's head and let the blood drain into our lawn, figuring I may as well see if the taste was worth all the hassle.
It sure was.
Now, I find myself craving that first taste of fresh autumn elk. While I'm not quite ready to kill one myself, I like to pretend I'm Daniel Boone and help my friends scout for ungulate sign in the nearby woods. I like the satisfying crack of the rifle when I can convince someone to take me shooting. And this fall I'd like to help butcher one of the rich, lean animals that will feed me through the winter.
It's marvelous that all of these treasures can be cultivated, plucked, and transformed in just a few short months. And the fact that even I—in my sanitized-grocery-store-induced ignorance of hunting and gathering—haven't killed myself with botulism or stray bullets borders on miraculous.
Autumn is a gift. Its brief flare of color reminds us to never take for granted the wealth of our home's land. I'm can't wait to unwrap my last papery onion and open the last jar of pepper jelly for a savory sandwich—let's hope I'm eating it in May.
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