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Feeling Sharon:Getting Down & Dirty
My friend asked if I could put in her garden seed order for her. Of course. No Prob. Her computer is down and she can get $15.00 off by ordering online and using a special code. She is one of this company’s best customers. She entrusted me with her Mastercard number too! She knows I am good. No worries there.
I put in her order for French Breakfast Radishes, Kuroda Carrots, Perfected Detroit Beets, Simpson Lettuce, Chicago Pickle Cukes, Dill’s Giant Pumpkins, Kong Sunflowers and 12 other veggies. So also ordered hops for her husband.
I love the varietal names of the veggies.
I can grow flowers and herbs and shrubs to perfection, but veggies elude me. Okay, yes I can grow tomatoes, both the big Beefmaster’s and Tiny Tim’s. Still my veggies last year kind of disappeared under a mound of weeds. I need to do better. I need to spend more time ass up to the sun, head to the ground, fingers picking away.
Farmers have equipment to do all of this stuff. I have a hoe but that only works at the wide intersections. Another pair of hands would be nice, especially if they were attached to a storyteller. We could finish the weeding so fast and be happy too!
This reminds me of a wedding I went to when I was in high school. The cousin of one of my friends was getting married in an outdoor ceremony at the family’s farm. My friend was going to be playing at the affair. Did I want to go?
YES!
The wedding was way out in Sharon, a little town stuck in the middle of vast acres of cropland.
When I arrived the guests were sitting down at long white-papered tables decorated with pink-twisted crepe paper bows. Huge bowls and platters of food were sitting on two butted-up tables in the center of the yard.
Everyone was snazzied all up. Men in ill-fitting Sunday suits, and women in beautiful flowery-patterned summer frocks.
Those giant white bend-out honeycomb-shaped paper-wedding bells swayed in the trees. Tall vases of red and white hollyhocks were everywhere. It was delightful!
And the aroma of cow manure filled the air.
I met up with the band and followed then to the serving table. We ladled up mounds of food and sat down at one of the long tables.
Yum! I couldn’t wait. Farm food! This has to be the best in the world AND it looked very delicious.
Well, Haha! ALL of the food tasted horrid. It was off. Perhaps it was using margarine rather than butter, or …well, I don’t know. The ingredients had to be the freshest possible. I’m not sure why it failed. Even the band, a group of guys that lived on potato chips and Red Bull, didn’t like it.
I asked about the bride and groom. I wanted to see what kind of dress a farmgirl would choose. I thought it would be something light and lovely, off-the-shoulder, and pristine white. They were nowhere to be found. Then a kid about 15 turned from another table and said that the newlyweds were up in the haymow.
The band started playing and suddenly the couple appeared behind them. They were both wearing white; their faces were all flushed hot pink. Guess they couldn’t wait.
I danced a fake reel with a couple of farmboys just to be neighborly, and then drove back home. I was thinking about the newlyweds being so eager. I think that is because on a farm you see a lot of “activity” with all of those farm animals, so people that live around all of that steamheat feel like they need to do the same thing.
So now certain food always makes me think about that day on a farm and sex. But if you want tasty food just buy the veggies from the farmers and cook it yourself. Or better yet, learn how to grow your own veggies. There is nothing sweeter than waking up very very early on a late summer morning, and walking out to your garden still in your pajamas, bare feet, uncombed hair, and snapping a tomato off a vine and taking a big juicy bite. And as you stand there munching away, the hot sun scorches away the fog that seeped into the valley over the night.
Now that is the best!
I’m off to start my own seed list.
