Last weekend Mr. Sanders and I stole some time away from Luke the wonder dog. We plied him with a red rubber Kong stuffed with a huge gobbet of peanut butter. We scampered out of the house to pile into the car which was packed to capacity. No, we weren’t sneaking out for an impromptu vacation or to a swanky club for the newest in artfully curated cocktails. No. It was a Saturday, and we were driving to the dump, with a load of broken pecan branches and fragrant grass cuttings. The dump is where we went on our significant 40th wedding anniversary, an occasion which we documented with a rare selfie.
Our drive to the dump is short. We leave the leafy neighborhood to travel past the packed Target parking lot, past the commuity college, onto a highway where we can gauge the seasons by the passing trees: bare, leafy, or blooming copses of crape myrtles, and rows of tall, blue-green pine trees that bend and wave in the wind. Off the highway, under some towering power lines, we see fields whose crops change seasonally: collards, tobacco, sunflowers, beans, and corn.
Then we see a couple of vine-covered, tumble-down brick buildings in what must have been a tiny town center – or more accurately, a crossroads, which, since we didn’t grow up here, has an air of mystery for us. Why were these buildings abandoned? Who lived there? Do moody introspective high school students come out here to take pictures for their yearbook portraits? I hope it isn’t Japanese knotweed cozying up to those buildings. Maybe it’s just Virginia creeper or kudzu. We never consider the more prosaic reasons of death, or taxes, as reasons why the buildings stand empty when we drive by. The abandoned hamlet is the stuff of Nancy Drew, or Stephen King, to our passing fancies.
The dump isn’t a vast cinematic wasteland, with piles of abandoned cars and hills of discarded soda cans guarded by snarling dogs. It is an about an acre plot with a paved fenced-in area, run by a staff of earnest, plump, boiler-suited men. There are about a dozen open shipping containers; all are battered and rusting, labeled CARDBOARD, YARD WASTE, METAL, MIXED PAPER with other corners in the yard designated for HAZARDOUS WASTE, HOUSEHOLD ITEMS, and ELECTRONICS. We deposit our branches, and grass, and the paper yard waste bags appropriately, and within minutes we are on our way again. This time we are extending our adventure, and testing Luke’s bonhomie, and are going to take a joyride ride to a popular farmstand.
White’s is a crowd-pleasing Instagram presence, which accounts for its packed parking lot whenever we visit. Besides their seasonal flowers and produce, in true entreprenurial fashion, they also sell ice cream and have a massive play area for children – it is quite the happening place. All they lack is a signature artisanal cocktail.
This sunny September weekend the display tables, and a large field, are crammed with potted chrysanthemum plants. White, yellow, pink, purple, red, and orange plants are packed onto all the long wooden tables, and dozens of people are loading up their little red wagons with mums, pumpkins and tomatoes. We are no different: we snatch up 3 HUGE yellow mums, 2 reasonably-sized slicer tomatoes for end-of-the-summer sandwiches, and one small festive pumpkin for the kitchen table.
I will not mention pumpkin spices again until Thanksgiving, which is the only decent time of year to invoke those words, à la Beetlejuice. We will not be preparing pumpkins for human consuption just yet. And when we do, we will be delighted to re-discover that pumpkins are not just for Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving pie. But not yet. It will be time soon enough to expand our repertoires and use some of our local produce with seasonal gusto. Right now we need to enjoy the transition from the tediously long and blazingly hot summer to the relative coolth of September, when we can catch our breaths and await the arrival of Halloween. And eat tomato sandwiches.
We buzzed home to Luke, who seemingly napped while we were out. He never missed us, and he did not appreciate our beautiful mums and pumpkin trophies. He did enjoy eating a juicy red tomato wedge. Luke likes some farmstand finds. And Luke believes in shopping local, and taking your dog to the farmers’ market. Good dog, Luke!
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” he observed as he sniffed round our ankles. “Excuse the noise, won’t you, but I have my job to do. Got to be careful who we let in, you know. But it’s a dull life and I’m really quite pleased to see a visitor. Dogs of your own, I fancy?”
― Agatha Christie
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