Sure seems like a full moon. A customer wants as many cucumbers as we can deliver. I've been away all day at an out-of-town meeting. It's time to call in the varsity harvesting squad. That would be Elizabeth and Debbie. We arrive at the farm some time after seven-o'clock. The sun is low on the western horizon, and it dwindles long enough for us to fill a wheelbarrow and a teal plastic wagon with fresh cucumbers: slicing and pickling.
By the time we finish, the moon has risen. Debbie and Elizabeth are transferring the cukes into shopping bags. It is almost pitch black.
"You guys sorting the slicers from the picklers?"
"No."
"No?"
"Do it tomorrow," Debbie suggests.
"Yeah, we have to get ice cream," Elizabeth adds.
For a moment, facing Elizabeth and Debbie, the warmth of the moon on my back, I realize that there is amazing fun in sharing the miracle of farming with a kid. I hug my daughter, thank her for her hard work. I note the pride in her face as she gets into Debbie's car. I have to stay behind and do a few chores while they go for their ice cream.
About the bush beans. I haven't mentioned them for a while, and have wondered when we'll see beans. While I've been marveling at the orchid-like flowers and the tiny bean forming at the top of the bush, there is an entirely different world hidden below. I finally discover fully formed beans at the bottom of the bush, much in the same way that the ripest cherry tomatoes
are found from the bottom of the vine. This seems logical, as the bottom of any plant is the oldest part. Therefore, "low-hanging fruit" gets eaten first. While Debbie and Elizabeth harvest the cucumbers, I go after the bush beans, realizing that the labor to harvest a few pounds of bush beans is priceless. There must be a better method, and why do some bushes produce no beans?
Time will tell. It always does.
No comments:
Post a Comment