Diary of My Country Life-August 23rd, 2025

08/23/2025 Saturday 58-83F Sunny

Days ago, when I checked my loofah plants, I happened to see two grown loofahs hanging on the branches hiding behind some large leaves. They were my first fruit! Overjoyed, I cut them off, and cooked a simple dish with them for dinner: Stir-fried loofah and eggs. It’s a very simple dish, yet popular in China. But for some reason, perhaps simply because I planted them and let them grow naturally, I felt that they tasted better than the ones I had before in my teen hood. 

How should I describe the flavor of this dish? Sweet—the natural sweetness from loofah; and umami, the combination of the loofah and eggs (these eggs were from home-raised hens). Just a touch of oil, salt and pepper could create a beautiful complexion yet as a whole piece. Because of this gourmet dish, I started to check the loofah plants more often, expecting to find more fruit.

One morning when we sat on the porch drinking coffee, our neighbor went out. She saw us, offered: “We really don’t mind having your pumpkin in our yard; I like watching it grow.” She mistook our loofahs for pumpkin 😃, and they had gone too crazy, not only crossed the fence into the neighbor’s yard, but also spread widely on their lawn—the loofahs shot out long spiral strings which grabbed basically everything they could find including grasses so they could hold onto it. They were too aggressive.

We thanked our neighbor, explained to her that it’s loofah not pumpkin, and that we were delighted to share the fruit with her. I wondered whether she knew how to cook loofahs or not; perhaps after harvesting more fruit, I could film a video to show her (and others) how to cook my simple loofah-egg dish.

But not only loofah—this spring I planted a small patch of garlic chives, then I totally neglected them. One rainy day when I was too lazy to go shopping and there were no vegetables home which could inspired me for dinner, I thought of the chives: How about make scrambled eggs with chopped chives then eat with fresh, home-made biscuits? 

The result was surprisingly good. The chives grew so well so they had a clean taste rather than being too garlicky. And my biscuits, this time I purposely made the dough thicker, so they rose higher and were more flaky. I think they were the best biscuits I ever made.  The dinner was a very simple one, but clean and healthy, and took me only about thirty minutes to prepare (another thirty minutes to rise the dough but I was actually free).

After several days’ rain and cold, yesterday the sun finally showed up. I swept my courtyard and the back patio in the morning so I could take my comforter, blanket, and futon out for basking. Though it’s not American people’s habit to sun bask these beddings (except sun-bathing themselves), I did like bringing them in the sun. Especially in colder seasons, as long as the weather permitted, I would like to take them out every day. Yes, the color of my sheets and covers did fade more quickly, but once at night I slept in my dry, warm bed and could smell the sunshine left in my comfort and futon, I considered it the happiest moment of the day, not even to mention that I built my drying rack last winter with fallen tree branches which gave my yard a rustic, authentic touch.

And we grilled duck yesterday as well in the back yard. The smoke, the charcoal flames, the smell of the grilling duck parts, the sun, the breezes, and the flickering butterfly in my Russian sage…everything just tried to deliver one message: The image of happiness.

This morning I read something about Claude Monet, which reminded me of one painting of his: The Red Kerchief. This is my favorite painting—it was on a lonesome winter day. The painter sat in his dark room, the only light source being the reflection of snow piled outdoors on the ground. When he felt dull and found nothing to do, his first wife Camille passed, and shot a quick glance at him through the door. Looking hesitant and worried, yet she didn’t knock on the door, nor stopped. She passed by, but her red kerchief lit up that gloomy day.

Then the painter spent six years on this painting, hung it in his bedroom, and never sold it. It was many years ago when I first saw this painting. A nameless sorrow and helplessness captured me almost instantly. Perhaps because of that snowy day, the dark lonely aura of the room, or perhaps just because the look on her face—it was Monet’s early, down period; he was undiscovered yet had a family to raise. She came when the snow was thick; probably she was worried about him because he had shut himself in that room for too long, or probably she needed some money from him to buy grocery for that day. Then she saw him, sensed his distress, so she chose not to bother him and just walked by. 

To us ordinary people, art and literature can be considered luxuries. While speaking practically, they can therapize our pains, help us realize that there are still beauties in this world thus we are not alone.

No matter whether you are happy with your current life or not, one undeniable thing is that it’s full of graces, little ones or big ones, like the loofahs, the chives, the sun-basked futon, and the painting. Be courageous and be grateful. All the little steps will lead you somewhere, although no one knows where it will be, YET.