Weekly Update: 6.28.25

The familiar greasy, salty flavor flooded my taste buds as soon as I popped the piece of fried okra into my mouth. It was the first batch of the season, and the taste evoked dozens of summer memories.

Suddenly I'm standing in my Memaw's kitchen, a teenager again, watching her scoop the corn meal and flour onto the okra as she explained the recipe her mother, my Grammy, used when making the Ozarks favorite.

Then I'm in our first garden in Missouri, in the tiny backyard of a Springfield rental. I was 20, and I couldn't believe how our okra had taken off -- towering over my head and producing more than we knew what to do with. I remember standing in our kitchen in my Tinkerbell tank top, helping my mom fry batches of okra for lunch almost daily.

I'm walking home from a shift at the Rib Crib in Branson, the summer evening just settling over our neighborhood. I'm carrying a Styrofoam doggy bag full of okra to share with my family. I worked less than a quarter mile from my house, and I enjoyed the opportunity to take a stroll to and from work -- the thick Ozarks air lulling my busy mind.

And I remember dozens of other happy times, enjoying the local favorite at home or in restaurants. Fried okra was a rare treat growing up in the Pacific northwest, but it's everywhere here in the Ozarks. It was one of those things that made us feel right at home when we moved out here more than two decades ago.

All of those memories and emotions flooded my senses as I walked through the kitchen last night and sampled a piece of okra Bonnie-Jean had just fried. She used Grammy's recipe with a substitution of gluten-free flour. It was a delicious as always. We just started harvesting okra in our garden earlier this week, and after a few days, we already had enough to serve with dinner. It felt like a meaningful sensory reward for all the work we've put into the garden this year.

Our garden production seems to increase every day. We have several zucchini and a few cherry tomatoes in the fridge. We have several batches of pesto in the freezer. There are jalapenos ready to pick on the bushy plants. Yesterday, we sisters and our sister-in-law spent the rainy afternoon making 14 quarts of pickles -- 10 quarts of refrigerator pickles and four quarts canned. We tried three different recipes to see which would be our favorite. Our fresh dill struggled this year after we made the mistake of trying to separate plants growing too close together, so we ended up using some freeze dried dill as well.

The abundance feels good, as we have put hours upon hours into the garden this week. The hot, dry weather made watering a necessity almost daily. Everything is growing so fast, we keep having to secure vines to various stakes and trellises. The pests are starting to descend, so we have been checking for squash bugs and horn worms daily. We have been gathering as much mulch as we can to help our soil retain moisture.

Using leftover wood from our interior siding, we built four more trellises and planted 19 honeynut and 18 butternut squash starts into the ground. We put together 27 squash boxes and filled them with pattypan squash plants. We planted several cilantro, dill, and parsley starts. Yesterday, we put out about half of our pumpkin starts -- all of our Godiva and part of our Connecticut varieties. Hopefully, we'll plant the rest of the Connecticut and the Big Max starts this weekend.

With all the rain forecasted for next week, we pulled some really long days to finish everything. While it was encouraging to accomplish so much, we were amazed at how much time just maintaining the garden is taking. After a family discussion, we decided to invest in a drip system. We hope to order one and install it in the near future.

Early in the week, we had a little family heartache. Grace's kitty passed away. She found Strider walking in the woods last summer. He was hurt and very skinny, but she nursed him back to health. He became the favorite of the various stray cats on our homestead, even being allowed to live in the tent during the winter. This week, it seems he got into a fight with a wild animal -- probably a raccoon -- and didn't make it. I love living close to nature, but there are some aspects of the lifestyle that are just difficult.

Because we did so much in the garden, we sisters didn't get as much done in the bunkhouse as normal this week. Grace and I did finish putting up trim in the half-bath and our bedroom. We installed miniblinds and an oscillating fan in our room, which made a huge difference in our comfort level. With all the hot weather, we have struggled to keep our room cool. Even though we sisters were not inside much, Levi made quite a bit of progress on his family's rooms.

Along with the gardening, Bonnie-Jean and Grace cleaned out under the house and tent. We have totes with tools, work boots, gardening supplies, and a few odds and ends. My sisters pulled the totes out, reorganized several, scrubbed them, and replaced them in a much more orderly fashion. They also tackled our sheds and several supply areas. We are still living in a construction zone, but it's a much more tidy construction zone than it was.

Last Sunday, we celebrated our sister-in-law, Erin's, birthday. For fun, she wanted to try making wine. I helped out, sanitizing tools and being moral support. The recipe is simple -- juice, sugar, and yeast. Erin decided to experiment with fermenting the wine in mason jars with pickle pipes. It was incredibly easy, and I can't wait to sample it when its done. We finished the day with fettuccini Alfredo served with homemade sourdough bread and herb butter. We were too full for the lemon pudding dessert, so we saved it for breakfast the following day.

As a whole, it was a thoroughly summer week. We all broke out our water-friendly garb and hosed down throughout the day. Several of us ended up sunburned -- myself more than a little bit, despite my best efforts. We drank iced tea and iced coffee, and we took more walks down to our spring. Wildflowers and butterflies abound in all directions, drenching us in beauty while we work. We snacked on cheese marinated with fresh herbs from our garden. We tasted of first ripe wild blackberry, and we look forward to more foraging in this near future.

At night, the fireflies twinkle so brightly it appears the starry night sky comes down to earth. It is the same as it is every year, and yet, more lovely because of the sameness. Nature's annual liturgy has a way of making present the best of our past -- the warm feel of grass between my toes is the same now as it was when I was seven. The balmy night air wraps around me the same way it did my first Missouri summer when I was 19. And the okra grown in our garden and fried in the kitchen we built tastes like the thousands of lovely summer days I've already lived.

Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.

Psalm 74:16-17