From This Labor Day On

From this day forward, I am declaring a tradition.  The tradition is called on Labor Day, we shall all meet at the farm in the morning and can homemade graden salsa.  The official title is From This Labor Day On. 

 

Momma Debi will chop the onions and garlic while Sil peels and slices the tomatoes during which I dice the green and hot peppers.  With Sister Pister doing her college homework at the counter and the four kids running underfoot. 

Dad-o and Brother will pop in and out from testing the flax to see if it is ready to combine and the two little boys will insist upon going along for the back and forths.  Dad-o will have to almost run me over with the combine before I realize mid-running stride he is behind me because the music and the sun and the gravel road are doing it right.  The kids will play outside and find treasures to show Nana.  We will all visit and catch up with each other.

I'm declaring a new tradition because that's exactly what happened this morning and I think it should happen again.  That's the way it is with traditions; they start from something that makes you go, "This right here?  This is the life I want."  And then you recreate the good stuff over and over again. 

 

Yes, Labor Day is now forever going to be precisely what it was today.  Productivity, family, and life loving.          

 

The smell of the salsa cooking brought on my final feelings of fall.  It's here.  The air is crisper, the grass is crunchy underfoot, and the leaves are thinking about it.  They are.  So naturally when I walked in my door in the late afternoon with a box of jars in my hands, I ignored my unpacked suitcase from earlier weekend travels and I ignored the clean dishwasher which needed emptying and I ignored the laundry and I ignored the stack of work business brought home on Friday and I ignored that I could see footprints on my floors.  Ignored all of that to take a few moments to tie some pretty string around one jar of salsa. 

 

Ignored all of that to dump old fashioned oatmeal which had been sitting in a canister on my counter for too long in a vase to magically become a candle holder. 

 

 

Ignored all of that to place the not quite ripe squash to top off the start of my fall table.  It's totally September now so I don't even feel any shame.  My happy fall dance is officially rolling. 

   

Maybe I love this time of year so much because it brings about these feelings of gratitude inside me.  Of being more than thankful my family is all close and that we can gather at the farm to do something like can homemade garden salsa.  Sure it's amazing to have jars of fresh salsa to crack into anytime I want, but what's better is knowing all of the action which happened behind the scenes of that tomato slicing and green pepper dicing. 
  

Now that's in the late hours of the night, I know I put my nose the grindstone after the table episode and everything has been crossed off the to-do list.  Another reminder of sometimes it's alright to do the pretty-ing up stuff first before the work is done. 

Add to my From This Labor Day On tradition:

Decorate the table for fall.  Only the table.