Tomatoes

Today I spent the morning at the Two Rivers Center for Sustainability in Montpelier. Their farm grows four crops (potatoes, tomatoes, onions, carrots) for the Vermont Food Bank. Each week, they send 2000 pounds--that's two thousand, yep--of produce to the food bank. They welcome volunteers to help them harvest, and I have been yearning to do some farmwork. I picked tomatoes from plants in the greenhouse, wiped the dirt off tomatoes that were grown outdoors, and cleaned and bagged onions. The best part of the day was talking with the people who were there. One of the paid workers is a woman who lives just up the road from me, I've walked by her house a hundred times and we'd never met. There were two boys who were reminded me that kids really are great when they are given the chance to be. Zach, who is beginning 7th grade, already knows that he wants to be a farmer and grow his own food, and considers his volunteer time as an internship. Ari, who will be in 10th grade, has traveled to South America where he saw sustainable permaculture farms and cloud forests. At lunch time, these two self-possessed young men got out their insulated lunch boxes and sat with the farmers, eating sandwiches and yogurt. I got into my car to run Very Important Errands In Town. You know, the errands that are more important than harvesting fresh, organic produce for the food bank.