I suppose today's anniversary has me feeling kinda reflective.

We still have eight tomato plants and three pepper plants that are producing. This late in the year, it’s easy to feel sick and tired of fresh produce, so we remind ourselves how much we’ll miss vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh green beans and tender young peppers this winter when we’re eating frozen and canned foods that are only marginally fit to eat.

Wendy and I have been canning our own vegetables this summer. It's a new process for a Long Island girl like Wendy, but I grew up in this area and can well remember my mother, grandmother, and aunts spending long days and nights canning tomatoes, beans, corn, and home-made pickles. Hopefully, we'll have enough to last a while, although Wal-Mart will fill the void with Birds Eye, Green Giant, and the other flavorless staples.

This afternoon I gathered a big take of tomatoes from the garden and brought them in the house and sorted them out into three sections: Ones to be canned, ones to be “brown bagged” until they’re a bit more ripe, and ones too irresistible to do anything with other than eat in the next ten minutes. As the last harvests are gathered, we’re once again using up every bit of counter space in the kitchen for garden stuffs. There’s a cupboard in our dining room that usually only has a few family photographs on top of it, but right now is also providing temporary storage space for vegetables and mason jars.

I took an armload of small, red tomatoes to the top of that cupboard this evening, as the sun was setting, and took a moment to contemplate the still life in front of me there. There was just something about it that I found calming and comforting. That image of late summer veggies, mason jars and family photos all collected atop a kitchen cupboard somehow summed up everything I love about life here in South Appalachia, which is really all I know about America. I couldn’t let the moment pass undocumented.

I grabbed the digital camera (which I’ve come to think of as a better and better investment with each passing day) and took a quick shot. I don’t know if any one other than me will have an emotional reaction to the image below. It may be a regional thing, or an entirely personal reaction unique to me alone. I’m posting it anyway.

Call it “Autumn in South Appalachia.”