Farmer's Market and Beyond

The early strawberries and flats of plants are now behind us in early August, and the summer fruit and vegetable explosion has begun. The rain has been steady but fortunately not overwhelming this summer--out in the woods, the wild mushrooms are threatening to form a society with elected officials and a Miss Lamellae award for prettiest gills.

Just an aside--fungi are so different from plants and animals they sometimes overlap behaviors and really shouldn't be lumped in with the plants. In fact, the taxonomy of living things goes: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Protists, Eubacteria (Monera), and Archaebacteria. Most of what's alive isn't visible to us without lens. Investigate slime mold behavior for a hoot. Not a big hoot like the refund check from the government, but a hoot of huh.

At the market, the early peaches are in their second week of appearance, the summer plums are here, and corn. Corn, corn, corn, which has come to $4.50 a dozen and worth the price of admission. Tomatoes are just starting. One farm has a good old pickup truck that has the wooden slat framework rising from the bed, so they just drive it into the field and toss the ears in till full up. It was half gone by nine-thirty. After corn, they'll load it with cauliflower, after that, pumpkins and cabbage.

They get up at 3:30 a.m. to get out in the fields and pick fresh, involving the whole family, sons and a daughter. The wife grows gherkin cucumbers for pickles, but I use them for eating as the nicest, crisp, non-bitter salad cukes you can find. Less expensive and tastier than the long, hothouse cukes that you get charged $2.00 for at the supermarket. Great in a homemade yoghurt dressing of tzatziki :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzatziki.

There are many husband and wife teams that load up the truck even before the chickens think of their morning coffee. One couple stands out for they are both in their seventies, and have the sinews and tanned complexions to show for their days in the field. They have a small plot of land that supports a few fruit trees, a garden plot of vegetables, and chickens for eggs that they haul the results of to market in a rusted blue van. Sometimes one lone squash or beet or potato sits on their folding table, with hand-lettered slips of paper stating the price.

I know, that is the one you would like to buy from. Me too. All they have depends on their weekend sales, all their lives they have watched the sky for sun and rain. There are several others, old men and women, that bring their produce from the small farms they still own. Dirt is under their fingernails, their faces are wizened and lined, their backs are bent forward so that they naturally look towards the earth. Stewards, they are, who coax abundance from soil and sun. Lucky us. How humbly lucky, us.

The small storm has passed and the wind has changed to the east, and causes the chimes hung at the kitchen window to clang and mutter. Lightning is visible, jumping from cloud to earth as the darkening clouds roll towards the farther horizon. It is evening, and the farm folk have been to bed earlier than I; they lay listening to the rains fall to ground. Sleep at night, wake refreshed.