SWEET POTATO HARVEST TIME CAN BE SO EXCITING

Let the cold winds howl around the corners of my house, stopping to whine at the windows and shake the shutters. Let the cold rains drizzle, the twilights come early, I'm ready. Sorghum is on the kitchen shelf, hulled walnuts are waiting, apples have been dried and are in the freezer. Coal oil has been purchased for the lamps. I have electricity but what is more cozy on an early cold evening than to light a lamp and let it burn for a while? It seems to make a path of light connecting me with the good things of the past when it was very important and a family endeavor to prepare for the winter days.

I'd like to say I have in my winter wood, since that was something of prime importance in my past, but I have nothing in which to burn it. So I have to be satisfied with the cold, unromantic ordeal of putting aside enough money to pay the heating bill. The odor of a stack of dollar bil~ls cannot compare favorably with a woodhouse full of aromatic oak and pine.

In late October I take on the characteristics of Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin, who tucked away all the acorns he could find so he could live to enjoy another spring and summer. I especially feel like Squirrel Nutkin when I go to visit Lou. She does not like to drive in winter, hardly steps out of the house. So, when I make my October visit, I help her get in supplies. She has sh~elves in places you'd never dream of that hold~ cans~ and cans and boxes and bunches of things. She buys by the case, which saves money and storage space, but we can neither manage the weight of a case so we have to unload, take in, and then load the boxes again. And with each can I take in I feel more and more like Nutkin taking in an acorn.

My saw-toothed oak, which is about 20 years old, has, for the first time, produced big beautiful shiny acorns in pretty little fringed hulls, almost like a burr acorn. Each morning I go out and gather up handfuls of both hulls and acorns and spread them around the pumpkin, crooked neck squash, potted mums and a ceramic owl that decorate~ my back steps. I hope that some moment of some day I'll see a squirrel on the steps munching on an acorn and that I'll have a camera nearby. It will lend animation to my still life arrangement. Fritillary butterflies have already done that but the Monarchs just flit on by. They might stop at the marigolds for a moment or two, but something must tell them to get on south, tim~es a'wastin'.

When I saw the big beautiful sweet potatoes at the Farmer's Market I thought it time to harvest my crop. Remember? I put a sweet potato plant into a big hanging pot to see what might happen. Would it all go to vine and roots or might there be a sweet potato, even a small one?

"Today I'm going to dig sweet potato (notice the singular)," I announced. I almost hated to do it, the vines were falling down from the pot and then turning up again so gracefully. But there is a time to plant and a time to reap, I ecclesiastically reminded myself. So with big spoon (I wanted the pleasure and anticipation to last) I went forth to harvest.

Sitting on the ground and holding the pot carefully over the flower bed so as not to waste an inch of the good soil, I thrust in the spoon shallowly so as not to injure the skin of the potato if there be one. Slowly, too. Why hurry anticipation, even in disappointment.

The first half dozen spoonfuls of dirt brought up nothing but lots of dirt and fine roots. I dug more carefully, more deeply, almost like an archaeologist, until I felt something hard.

I came upon my first prize with a curious pleasure I cannot describe because I had doubted very much that the cramped quarters would produce anything but thickened roots.

I sought a smaller spoon and went carefully around the edges of this, yet unseen hardened object.

Soon a dark, almost red, skin appeared. I wanted to call in the neighbors but doubted if they would appreciate my impromptu sweet potato harvest. Only a nearby cricket stopped fiddling which seemed an appropriate overture to my excitement.

Round and round I went, blowing away attached dirt lest I disturb that beautiful skin. Soon I had it out, all in a piece. I rocked back and forth with muted laughter, wondering if anyone else in the world had tried such a thing.

~I dug further and found six more tiny potatoes. The were pressed against the bottom of the pot. Poor things, no room. But I harvested them and later, after cleaning, threw them into the cooking pot to boil, skins on. Later, mashed, with butter and brown sugar added, I got my daily requirement of beta carotene plus an inimitable amount of satisfaction.

My biggest one was six inches around and four inches long, nothing I would take to a fair, but I'm saving it, maybe for Thanksgiving or to hang on the Christmas tree.

REJOICE!