It is harvest time where I live. Although I’m not on a farm I have a garden and small orchard, so I am reaping the rewards of my summer’s labour. Our storage bins are full, I’ve given away boxes of apples, and still the trees are loaded with fruit. My shelves of preserves look like sunshine in a jar. On a cold, wet, dark night in January, we’ll eat strawberry jam and it will taste like summer. An apple pie at Christmas time will come straight from our own trees. Truly, we live in a bountiful land.
In my book, The Man for Her, I talk about that feeling of harvest and plenty, and the satisfaction of laying in stores against a season of want. Lottie Graham lives more than a century before me, her harvest is essential to life, whereas mine is a hobby, but the sense of well-being, the urgency to pick and preserve, the permission to rest when it is all done — those things are common to my life and to the life of my character.
As I enjoy this beautiful Indian Summer in British Columbia, I think often of Lottie and her Pine Creek Farm. I imagine her safe and warm with children at her knee and Sean, in from the fields, washing up for dinner. I do love a happy ending.
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