Grounded In The Seasons

One of the many things that attracted me to Lick Honest Ice Creams was the focus on the seasons. I transplanted myself to Austin sixteen years ago from a place with four distinct seasons. I grew up with snow drifts in the winter and melted crayons on the sidewalk in the summer. Daffodils breaking the seemingly endless dismal drizzle in the spring and crackling fires on crisp nights in the fall.

Texas, especially Central Texas and farther south, doesn't have seasons the way more northern climes do and yet I found a way to ground myself into a sense of place and natural cycles: gardening.

Starting with a few pots on my apartment balcony in 2008, I dove in with gusto. I followed the instructions, I reached into the recesses of my peripheral knowledge from my childhood geography...and lost my three cherry tomatoes to a thirsty grackle.

Over years of trial and error, experimentation and failure, outsized celebrations of minuscule moments, I have learned the seasonality of Central Texas is nuanced and elusive, but just as present and grounding.

Tomato season is wrapping up here after a gang-buster season.

And just as winter can create snow drifts that cause me to disappear when I accidentally step into one and suddenly find myself immersed, staring up at the grey sky through a me-sized air-hole, the okra this year outgrew my reach and continued skyward until the rogue hyacinth beans pulled it to the ground. But the season was there nonetheless.

Soon it will be the season for sowing brassica and carrots, kale and beans. Then comes the winter squash harvest, the sweet potato unearthing, and the snow peas. Oh, the snow peas.

It was serendipitous to find a place like Lick Honest Ice Creams. A place that feels the non-conforming seasons in its soul. For farmers far more experienced, knowledgeable, and mindful than me, it's the end of melon season, it's fig season, it's plum, grape, pear, and shishito season. And how fortunate are we ice cream lickers, real food lovers, to bear witness to the seasons of our own communities through the passions and energies of people we know by their first names.

In such a world that glorifies busy and idolizes speed, having a sweet, delicious reminder that there is a natural cycle to life is truly a treat.