Making quince jelly at 7 AM, just me & my 2-year-old, while the house steps through a rainy morning fitting for the seasonal transition to darkness & reflection.
First fruit off a quince given to us by a neighbor when we first moved in, a child of her 120 year old shrub, which are ubiquitous in front of the old houses here—but our place didn’t have one
…until our 3rd or 4th year tending this ground, when a section of the front yard turned to quince! It’s about the length of a pickup truck—must have been a beautiful hedge at one point in the century&quarter of its life. The root system slept while the previous owners mowed, but now it grows slowly in height, thigh-high as of this year and blooming happily in the spring. It gave its first fruit this year too but I left it for the squirrels and fairies.
Quince jelly for my babies lunches from this place’s persevering ancestral shrubs, at the cusp of the dark turn of year. Food as medicine for perseverance, patience, hope, & thorny protection.
