Change in the Air

I fear the change of seasons is near! Already we have cooler mornings and evenings (very comfortable now), and cloudy skies in the dark evening (beautiful with the moon, a "ghostly galleon" on the waves of fluff up there, which has given us some enjoyable chances to admire the night sky and try to explain the moon to Anya). This morning we woke up to an already-drying rain-spattered courtyard. Only the second rain we have witnessed since sometime in June, when it stopped.

My own personal yardstick for the end of summer is the anticipated End of the Melons. I don't know when this is going to come, but I'm bracing myself. The sweet torpedo-shaped yellow Persian melons have been my absolute favorite part of summer in Dushanbe, and the way they laze about in huge piles on the roadside or in entire sections of every bazaar is such an amusing part of the season for me. It was during the last week of June that they appeared, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, and although they are still plentiful, I am dreading their disappearance. The only potential silver lining to this loss is the arrival of the persimmons, which I missed last year because of our October arrival and my general lack of experience with this fruit.

Fruit and veg was generally the highlight of the season, from my point of view: soft-ripe, deep red tomatoes and bright green hot peppers that made a delicious version of Mexican salsa fresca together with the ubiquitous cilantro, regular onions and lemon juice instead of lime. Fuzzy peaches. Anya's new favorite: green grapes, although it is my deep disappointment that Central Asia has not discovered the seedless variety. (I have been advised that if you seek out the especially small grapes at the bazaar, that these are essentially and accidentally seedless. Will have to try it out, although I'm already used to halving them, scooping out the 3-4 seeds inside, and giving them to Anya, who gobbles them up quicker than I can complete each step on the assembly line.) Sweet little apricots, both orange and yellow. Those long-passed cherries of the late spring. There was honestly so much that I didn't even take advantage of the berries, which generally are only sold in the central Green Market here, and I can't manage to go there unless there is a very essential need, because parking there is a terror and when you go to that market there is a documented change in the space-time continuum that requires that you lose 2 hours of your life and never get it back.

Luckily the fall will still bring us good things, and cooler temps, so that we can get back into the yard more. And right about now is when those ziploc bags and tupperware containers need to come out -- I still have not learned to can, but we need to use the modern equivalent shortcuts to make sure we can enjoy some of the fruits of the warm season throughout the winter!