Canning Days

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5:42pm

Our windows have been in permanently open mode during this recent and uncharacteristically temperate burst of late August. It would be reasonable to mourn the opportunity for the boys to plummet their golden skin of summer into bracingly cool water, only to surface with delirious joy, and repeat until exhaustion seizes.

But these hydrangeas are a gift of late summer, and they almost make saying farewell to pool days tolerable. It's exceedingly rare to find such an aromatic variety, and luck would have it that my three bushes have grown to window height. Their fragrance changes with the air; maybe how perfume smells different on different people. When the humidity is high, the floral note is so thick it clings to the screen, asking for a push from the wind like a child on a swing. When the air is lighter, the scent is clean, uplifting, breathable, crisp, and you want to capture it in a bell jar like a peeled August tomato, throw in the cellar pantry and savor it in January.