Beans forever
Aug. 24th, 2017 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pen_gruntI am forever picking green beans.
From when I was 4 or 5, out in the field with my grandparents, to now. It might have started at an earlier age, but that was, I imagine, much more like Blueberries for Sal--one for the bucket, one for my mouth...the one in the bucket for my mouth...
With my mom's cancer treatments, bone marrow transplant, stem-cell stuff she can't touch the dirt. Too many bacteria, etc. My dad planted the garden this spring, late, anyway--partially at my nudging (they grow the BEST beans and the BEST cucumbers ever in their soil).
But my dad doesn't have the physical stamina to do all the picking of things and my mom can't--so I've been going out every week to pick the whole of their garden. It takes hours. One week I got 17+ lbs of beans, the next week I didn't weigh quite so fastidiously but I know from bag count that it was 22-26 lbs.
That's a lot of beans.
And it's a lot of childhood memory. It takes me back to being out in the field with my grandparents who--much like me--would just come and pick everything, take a little that they wanted/could use, and left us with picked and rinsed fresh beans. (Well, they didn't do it themselves--we all helped--but they were so head-down about it.)
It feels communal. This is our family garden. All family can come and take. It is no imposition. It is a given.
We had so much growing up that I would make $20 in a bean-picking day, sometimes. We sold excess beans at my dad's work--$1 for 1 1/4 lb. Hence me opening a bank account at age 6 because I couldn't fathom what I would do with more than $8. (My first deposit was $12...and I still have my little bank book.)
The work is back-aching and long and hot and dirty, but in exchange I get a break from the toddler as she runs around catching toads and climbing ladders and riding in wheelbarrows with grandma and grandpa. We go home exhausted. It's a fair trade, methinks.
But man. So many beans. Forever green beans.
From when I was 4 or 5, out in the field with my grandparents, to now. It might have started at an earlier age, but that was, I imagine, much more like Blueberries for Sal--one for the bucket, one for my mouth...the one in the bucket for my mouth...
With my mom's cancer treatments, bone marrow transplant, stem-cell stuff she can't touch the dirt. Too many bacteria, etc. My dad planted the garden this spring, late, anyway--partially at my nudging (they grow the BEST beans and the BEST cucumbers ever in their soil).
But my dad doesn't have the physical stamina to do all the picking of things and my mom can't--so I've been going out every week to pick the whole of their garden. It takes hours. One week I got 17+ lbs of beans, the next week I didn't weigh quite so fastidiously but I know from bag count that it was 22-26 lbs.
That's a lot of beans.
And it's a lot of childhood memory. It takes me back to being out in the field with my grandparents who--much like me--would just come and pick everything, take a little that they wanted/could use, and left us with picked and rinsed fresh beans. (Well, they didn't do it themselves--we all helped--but they were so head-down about it.)
It feels communal. This is our family garden. All family can come and take. It is no imposition. It is a given.
We had so much growing up that I would make $20 in a bean-picking day, sometimes. We sold excess beans at my dad's work--$1 for 1 1/4 lb. Hence me opening a bank account at age 6 because I couldn't fathom what I would do with more than $8. (My first deposit was $12...and I still have my little bank book.)
The work is back-aching and long and hot and dirty, but in exchange I get a break from the toddler as she runs around catching toads and climbing ladders and riding in wheelbarrows with grandma and grandpa. We go home exhausted. It's a fair trade, methinks.
But man. So many beans. Forever green beans.
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Date: 2017-08-26 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-08-30 04:04 pm (UTC)It's all coming together!