vegetable abuse

Most of the time, it is possible to go through the process of vegetable harvesting with a certain dignity, a "Who shall live and who shall die?" solemnity appropriate to the High Holy Days. In the fields, we assign each vegetable its ultimate fate. If it is well-formed and of a good size, then it will be brought into the packing shed to be cleaned and boxed up and sold either to the vegetable delivery services or through the farmers' market. If it is too small or not yet ripe, then we leave it to harvest on another day. If it is slightly misshapen but still edible, then perhaps we bring it into the house for our own consumption. For the truly deformed or rotten vegetables, though, we must be stern in our judgment and cast them aside on the ground, for they are fit to be nothing more than mouse food.

A heavy responsibility, harvesting vegetables. Yet sometimes, as on Monday afternoon, it turns a bit ridiculous.

After lunch we headed out to collect all of the winter squashes that were ready for harvesting. Harvesting winter squash, as I soon learned, is a team effort. Since the squash plants are grown so close together, and they tend to spread out all over the ground, it is not a good idea to walk in and out of the squash patch more often than necessary, since each step can potentially damage the plants. Instead, one person walks through the squash patch, and whenever they harvest a squash, they toss it to their partner outside of the patch, who collects the squashes into baskets and hauls them up onto the truck.

At first, we were working in two teams of two: me and Colleen on the inside, Arnold and Sophie on the outside. But then Arnold and Sophie had to go help Sue load up the trailer for a delivery, and Colleen asked me to step outside the patch to be her catcher.

Playing a game of squash catch is not so difficult when you're using an acorn squash, or even a red kuri squash, which is round and an orangish-red color and looks like a small pumpkin but is not. But I had to be a little more alert when a bona fide pumpkin was involved. They weren't quite as big as jack-o'-lanterns, but some were close.

As Colleen heaved the pumpkins at me (sometimes she used a shot-put motion, but usually she threw underhand), I was brought back to my not-so-successful days on Larchmont-Mamaroneck Little League. I hadn't worn my glasses, of course, so my depth perception was a bit off. Pumpkins are a fairly sturdy vegetable -- they can sit in storage, unchanged, for months at a time -- so I'm not really sure how necessary it was for me to catch the pumpkins before they hit the ground, but I guess it makes it easier to clean them. My number one concern, in any case, was not to allow these hurtling pumpkins to hit me anywhere in the body, least of all in my head. I had just been reading a book I got for my birthday -- or rather, a series of books, The Deptford Trilogy -- about a woman who goes insane after being hit in the head with a snowball, and I was pretty sure that a pumpkin could do more than make me lose my mind (perhaps take my head off altogether). So I made sure to stay attentive. And I let the bigger pumpkins fall to the ground.

No squash-related injuries, I'm pleased to report, except for some fleeting soreness in my hands, the necessary result of absorbing the impact of a ten-pound vegetable hurtling through the air.