Sunday, July 10, 2011

Okra, Squash, and Hummingbirds

Okra and squash are coming in now.  I neglected the okra perforce while I was in Florida.  This is a risky thing to do.  If you've never grown okra, it really is a delightful plant.  It produces yellow blooms with lavender centers that turn into pods overnight.  The pods have to be cut from the plant, and in season they really need to be harvested every day; otherwise you end up with what we have - six-inch pods as woody as cypress branches.
The yellow squash, which unlike okra waits patiently until it's picked, is really pretty.  In my absence couple of tomatoes seem to have over-ripened and actually exploded on the vine.  But I believe I may have more tomatoes by this afternoon.
And the hummingbird has returned to the little red feeder outside my kitchen window.  He has drunk his sugarwater nearly dry, and I need to add more, but he was there this morning, hanging in the air, his blurring wings making him look like a floating bowtie, dipping his syringe beak into the tray for a sip, a sip, another sip.
Lord, I love this time of year, and I hate to miss even a day of it, but Tuesday I drive down to Florabama to do a series of readings and signings - Page and Palette Books in Fairhope, Alabama, the West Branch of the Pensacola Library, and then Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  I will refill the feeder for the hummingbird before I go, and cut the okra at least once more.  I will kiss my wife and pet my dog.  I will miss them all .