"Mom, we're on the way home from the Farmer's Market with some vegetables we'd like to drop by," my daughter-in-law Joanna said over the phone. I was drying my hair, so I said, "Good! Give me 15 minutes," to which she repied, "We're almost to your house right now!"
I met them on the porch where they poured out a bounty of cucumbers, new potatoes, huge sweet onions, corn, and lots of green tomatoes on our wicker table top. "We asked about the prices, and the man said, 'You can just have it all; we're ready to go home!'" Joanna said. Apparently, the morning rush was over and it was getting hot outside.
They divided the spoil with us, so the first night we had new potatoes, fried green tomatoes and corn on the cob to go with the rest of the pond-caught bass in the freezer that I rolled in cornmeal and fried up. It all tasted scrumptious!
Today there was a knock at the door, and I was surprised to see our friend David with a large bag in his hand. "Cindy sent you some vegetables from her garden," he explained. Peering into the bag, I saw beautiful, long ears of fresh-husked corn, plus squash and zucchini. "I don't have a green thumb, but my wife does," her proud husband admitted.
Well, neither do I! But I'm glad Cindy loves to garden, even though it must be hard work, but from her comments about it on Facebook, I can tell it's a labor of love. We had some of the corn with supper tonight.
There is nothing like harvest! My husband has referred many times in sermons to how his father loved harvest time. "Harvest meant payday!" he would exclaim. He told of watching the farmers' parade of trucks go past his dad's store on the way to the grain elevator in Blackwell.
One of Howard's favorite memories is of the increased trade in the store during that time. He paints a vivid word picture of a farm lady jumping out of her car almost before it came to a stop, running into Harry's Market and calling out her order, for she had harvest crews to feed. "Three pounds of barbequed ham!"(An expensive delicacy in the fifties.) Steaks, thick cheese carved from the wheel, chops and all manner of cold cuts were purchased with reckless abandon. The cash register rang merrily all day long to the young boy's fascination.
The Bible speaks about harvest, too, in John 4:35 which says the fields are already white to harvest, speaking of souls in need of salvation. Then, during the Messianic reign when David's kingdom is restored, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed..." Amos 9:13.
There is a sense of urgency in harvest. If crops are to be saved, they must be harvested at the optimum time. Another verse in the Bible says, "The harvest is past, summer has ended, and we are not saved," Jeremiah 8:20. A timely warning to all!
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