Our summer was dry and warm, 90 days with no precipitation. Then The First Big Storm was predicted for last Monday with heavy wind and rainfall. That means that the dry ground, full of air pockets, can be drenched so fast that tree roots grow loose and the taller trees, still full of leaves, can fall and take power lines down with them. We did in fact get a thorough deluge, two power outages, and a very wet week.

Before the weather blew in, the neighbors and I were in serious deliberation: What about Captain Wing and Mrs. Wing and their prized stand of Sunchokes? We didn’t know what day of the week the family would be back from their little vacation. Would the storm wipe out the whole patch of these thick top-heavy plants? Were we supposed to dig up the whole bumper crop in the family’s absence? Would the tender chokelets be ruined by flooding? Would the family be upset to return and see their prized armament of stalks beaten down, and the chokes rotted from the wet? I was all motivated to run out and start digging as the storm front grew closer. It was hard to hold off and do nothing. But some instinct whispered that perhaps I’d better leave it to the family. If there’s one thing we knew, Captain would have a plan A, plan B, and plan C. If his executive decision-making included reaching out to us for help, he would.

We’ve all been eagerly anticipating their return. What a happy moment it was a couple of days ago, when Mrs. Wing’s soft friendly voice called from their kitchen door. I started jumping up and down and hollering greetings, wishing it were appropriate to rush over and give her a bear hug. She had gifts all ready: a large bag of sweet ripe plums, and a gorgeous gift-wrapped tin of Moon Festival cake made with salted duck eggs and lotus seed paste. She also asked me to please wait a moment for what she was pleased to call “a slice of squash.” Then she disappeared for several mysterious minutes, while inside the kitchen there were sounds as if she were breaking cinder blocks with the side of her hand. While waiting I imagined that “a slice” meant a teacup portion. In Mrs. Wing’s view, it was this:

The egg (hen, not duck) is there for size perspective. This gold ingot of squash “slice” must weigh five pounds. A Clydesdale could wear it as a collar; I tried it on, and my entire leg fit inside all the way up.

Doubles as an attractive planter, too.

I can’t wait to cook it up. “Very sweet,” Mrs. Wing assured me. “Like chestnuts.”

Captain looked pleased to be back. He called me over to the raised garden bed four feet high, and on top of that the sunchoke row of plants six feet tall. “Look, all the way up at the top.” He pointed ten feet up to the sturdy saplings waving proudly all down the raised bed. The rain brought out a real surprise: yellow buds, all over the tops of the plants! “When those yellow flowers finish blooming, it means the sunchokes have grown and are ready to harvest.”

Well, that is the difference between an uninformed pessimist and an enterprising optimist. Here I was, afraid that the dry summer had left the chokes with no flowers and no crop, expecting that the family would be disappointed. But all this time they weren’t worried at all! They had faith that summer would be summer, and that Nature was right on schedule. Meanwhile we neighbors have been greeting each other with the words “Wings are back!” We are just happy they are safe home again.