harvest – a time of plenty …

A great bounty.  An abundance of tasty flavors and bright colors.

Even though our survival is not dependent upon what we can set aside … it is nice to have food in the freezer prepared with my own hands. 

Tomato sauce used as a base for soup, chili or pasta meals.

Apple sauce – not something that I ever thrilled about … I would rather eat apples fresh but these apples are small and tart.  Meant for baking.  So a lot of work and slightly more than one quart is made.  Not really worth the effort in the general scheme of things but my daughter will pack it in her lunch.  She will know that despite all of her moaning and groaning she is loved and so I process little tiny apples.

I stay up late slicing tomatoes and apples … letting them cook slowly over night in the slow cookers.  Thank heavens for slow cookers, I have many … three I used one night two full of tomatoes and one of apples.  I will transfer things to the freezer after labeling and dating carefully so that there are no mysterious containers of unknown gunk.

I do acknowledge that freezers may not be the best way to preserve the harvest; however, for a person who barely has enough time to turn on a slow cooker, it will do.

Come December it will seem miraculous when we can take out the applesauce for lunches and tomato base for soups … it will be like a fresh taste of autumn.

Information Processing in the Middle Ages …

I read something this morning that made me think.

It said something about how we have dealt with more information this morning than a person in the middle ages had to think about all year. I want to say it is wrong. Sure we have thought about different things this morning than a person did back then … but it is September. Any person from that time period would be thinking of how much fodder was already put aside and how much more needed to be set aside for the animals that you wanted to keep. How much food for your family? How much taxes to the land-owner? How much tithe to the church? Would your child be apprenticed out to the (fill in the blank)? Just because the information was different, didn’t mean it was inconsequential. More than likely … the decisions then were more life threatening if answered without serious thought.

Sure when we are contemplating federal taxes and changes in deductions — it seems very important and it is. The last thing anyone wants is to be audited by the government and find out that things were done incorrectly. We all know stories of fraudulent tax filers and people loosing houses and businesses; but there is a process that is followed in those cases. Most times it takes years to actually loose your home. During the middle ages if the land-owner decided to raise rent or taxes … it was done and if you couldn’t make it – you had to move.

If you didn’t set aside enough fodder for your animals, they died of starvation for there wasn’t a Blue Seal store around the corner or in the next town where you could purchase more food. If you didn’t set aside enough turnips, oats, or grain … your family went hungry.

Maybe people didn’t read or maybe people couldn’t do calculus; but figuring was important and information processing helped get them from one harvest to the next… and the truly intelligent and forward thinking people kept things for when the harvest developed poorly and you needed help from a previous harvest.

So maybe people are more educated now and we can think about comparative religion and the pros and cons of hybrid cars … but could you go to the middle ages and prosper?