A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [37]
Lindsay drew in a deep breath of night air. “Yeah,” she agreed softly, “me either.”
Bridget said, “Who needs coffee ice cream?”
They touched glasses, and drank to wanting nothing.
8
In Which Bridget Gets into a Jam
For Cici, there was little more beautiful than the way the early morning light stretched across the kitchen. It had a rosiness that suffused the ancient bricks and brought out shades of gold and cerulean that were embedded in the mud from whence they came. Yet there was a mistiness to the light, a softness that combined with the sweet, damp air of early summer and reminded her of just how many sunrises this kitchen had seen, just how untouched it had remained. To walk into this kitchen, to see the way the light graced the soft blurred patterns of the Delft tile and the weathered soapstone and the worn brick floor, made her feel ageless.
On this particular morning, Cici came into the kitchen in her pajamas and robe, stretching sore muscles and combing back her hair with her fingers, to find it filled with strawberries. There were bowls piled high with them on the island. A wicker basket overflowed with them on the counter, surrounded by half a dozen tin pails and an enormous galvanized tub, all filled with strawberries. The aroma swelled through the kitchen and seeped out into the corridor: strawberry, strawberry, strawberry. When Cici licked her lips she could taste them.
Cici said, “Let me guess what’s for breakfast. Strawberry blintzes.”
“With strawberry compote, strawberries and cereal, and strawberry muffins for dessert,” added Lindsay, popping one in her mouth as she carried a bowl of freshly hulled strawberries to the stove. “Apparently, it’s strawberry season.”
Bridget was at the sink, washing a sieve full of strawberries. “These were going to go bad if I didn’t do something with them. I just couldn’t stand to let them rot. So I’m making jam!” She shook the water off the strawberries in the sieve, poured them into an empty bowl, and handed them to Cici. “Help me hull these.”
Cici took the bowl, flicked a ladybug off the rim, and went to pour herself a cup of coffee. “There are enough strawberries here to make jam for the whole state.”
“Everything grows so well here,” Bridget replied. “I think it’s the ladybugs.”
Lindsay asked, eating another strawberry, “Do you know how to make jam?”
“There’s nothing to it. It’s just fruit and sugar.”
Cici poured herself a bowl of cold cereal and sliced strawberries over it. Every other slice went into her mouth. They had been enjoying the strawberries for weeks as they ripened, but still every taste was a surprise. Like most consumers in the United States, they had forgotten what strawberries were supposed to taste like. They knew the smell, and the color, but the taste of the ordinary supermarket strawberry out of the carton was like cardboard. The strawberries of Ladybug Farm were so sweet they were a confection unto themselves; they practically melted on the tongue and infused the senses with the taste of sunshine, the essence of strawberry.
“Well, all I can say is that if you can bottle this taste, you’ve got yourself a gold mine.” Cici poured milk over her cereal, then dipped a strawberry into the milk and ate it with her fingers.
Bridget turned from the sink with a happy, speculative look on her face. “Wouldn’t that be something? To bring back the Blackwell Farms jams?”
“Well, I don’t know if we’re ready for a national ad campaign,” Lindsay said, “but it would be a shame to let all this fruit go to waste. Do you have a big enough pot, Bridget?”
Bridget hauled out a stockpot, two Dutch ovens, and a crockpot, and they spent the next hour washing, hulling, and slicing strawberries. Bridget filled the pots, covered the fruit with sugar, and the entire house began to fill with the aroma of strawberries as the fruit came to a simmer.
“Now,” declared Bridget, giving the countertop a final swipe with the sponge, “all we have to do is let