I'm just checking in, feeling so stuffed and lazy.  Pidder has worked her fingers to the bone this week doing lots of summer stuff like going to Washington County two days and picking peas on halves so we will have them in the freezer for the next 12 months.  Tonight she was too tired to fix dinner so she “threw something together” for the three of us (counting her dad).  So she fixed pork chops, seasoned with Tony Chasera's, rice and butter, a wonderful dish of squash fresh from our garden, fried green tomatoes and cucumbers in venegar, also both fresh from our garden.  Her “throwing something together” is a bit like calling a ship a rowboat.  I do love that cute lil thang I do.

My daddy used to have what he considered a witty way of complimenting my mom when she fixed a good country style meal.  About half way through the meal he would suddenly say “I wonder what the po folks are eating.”  He was right.  Eating veggies fresh from the garden is eating like a rich man.  Money can't buy better food.

“I have no idea what that means”

It means you pick peas for a truck farmer (small commercial raiser of veggies) but instead of being paid for your labor, you take half of what you pick as your pay.

When I met Pidder she lived in Fairford.  Each summer, when the veggies were ready for harvest a local friend/farmer would hire people to pick his peas, okra, butter beans, etc. and pay them by the bushel for their labor.  At some point in the harvest, it was common for her to take half the veggies for a day instead of money, an arrangement that supplied her with freezer goods without having to raise them herself or buy them from a retailer.  Because she was known as (in the words of the farmer) “the best lil pea picker in Fairford” she can pick a bushel per hour.  Therefore in a morning she can earn two bushels for herself in 4 hours and go home before the heat of the day is too intense.  Nowadays, however, that particular farmer sells his peas at 12 bucks per bushel and has to pay 5 bucks per bushel to pickers.  So he has stopped allowing “pickin on halves” for his laborers.   Except that Pidder has worked with him so many summers over the years that he still allows her to pick on halves.

Bacon bits, pickles and tomato sounds like a pretty good “sammich.”  I'm even lazier when Pidder isn't home and I have what she calls a “fender's night.” that's when everyone has to fend for themselves.  What I do is reach in the crisper for one of my Conecah smoked sausages and wrap a slice of buttersplit wheat bread around it after I nuke it.

Come on over the the farm.  I'll strap you to a plow and walk behind you so you can learn how to farm.