Yes, I Still Like Asparagus

A late April morning, quiet and still, always evokes a memory from my childhood. At the age of five, my father taught me to drive a small Farmal tractor that pulled an asparagus picker. Ours was a two row picker. Mom and Dad sat on the back in seats that rode close to the ground. As I pulled them through the field, they harvested the beautiful thick stalks of asparagus. This all had to be accomplished before school started and adults had to go to work. During the heaviest harvest in the warmest days, school started a couple hours late to accomodate the asparagus growers and their help. Our family got up before light and ate our breakfast while the morning dawned. We always had eggs and bacon for breakfast. The only exception was Sundays when we had warmed coffee cake from the bakery where my dad visited on Saturday evenings to get the left overs. It wasn't that he couldn't afford to have bought it in the morning right out of the oven, but it was that he would be in the area in the late afternoon just before they closed and he knew he would be able to buy the goods at a fraction of the cost. My dad has always been on the look out for a bargain and that may contribute to his success in business. My father was always in charge of breakfast. He fried the bacon and eggs and he was also the one that warmed the baked goods on Sunday morning. I have to wonder at this point in my life, why I don't have very high colesterol. Every breakfast of my growing up years was filled with fat. But it tasted so good and it gave our family the energy it needed for those early morning workouts. By the time my siblings were old enough to help in the asparagus patches, we had graduated to a larger picker. This one held four people so everyone could get into the act. Their growing up pushed me out of the driver's seat and back onto one of the seats where I then snapped off the stalks. My dad planted another patch of asparagus and when it got mature enough to pick, we imported my girlfriend to fill one of the seats on the picker so that we could harvest quicker each morning. You see, I've heard it said that when it is warm enough, one can almost see the asparagus grow. The asparagus season begins in late April and continues until the fourth of July. Then the plant is given the opportunity to grow into bushes which gives it a rest and allows it to feed the root through photosynthesis. I have picked asparagus in my winter coat, hat and scarf and I've picked asparagus in my swim suit. That would suggest the temperature changes that occur in this area in the spring. One of the most memorable reminiscense is the words of my father. When I drove the tractor beginning at age five, he would yell at me from his seat on the back, "Keep the pot over the middle of the row!." What he meant was that when I would space off and forget to watch where I was going, the tractor wheels would run over the asparagus. This was NOT what he wanted, of course. The "pot" was a round pot where the bottom of the steering colomn was encased. When it was positioned over the middle of the row, I would not run over any of the precious asparagus. Another of his famous quotes was applied to me when I was a "picker". He would yell to both me and my friend, "Get your fingers down to the ground, don't let a little dirt scare ya!" It was better to snap the stalk close to the ground as the weight is in the bottom of the stalk and we got paid by the pound. Another reason was that if you left tall stumps, they would interfere with picking new stalks close to the ground the next day or so. Once I was married and had little ones of my own, I rented a couple of asparagus patches. I was a stay at home mom at the time and needed some extra money to pay for my eldest child's Christian education. I recall being out in the field with my eldest, Sherri, who was a kindergartener at the time. My young family didn't have the luxury of a tractor or picker so we walked the field bending down for each piece. While Sherri and I picked across the field, my three year old slept in the car at the end of the rows. I didn't think a thing of it then. I didn't feel I was being persecuted either. Private education was a choice we were making and God was providing a way to pay for it. I was thankful. The reward when the patch had been covered was carrying the boxes to the trunk and bringing them to the receiving center where it was weighed and I could begin my calculations. I think we got about 19 or 20 cents a pound then. Today in the grocery store it is approximately three dollars a pound. Most of the asparagus farmers have given it up. Two of them remain and sell mainly to area stores and the general public. An era has gone. It was a lot of work but an experience I wouldn't have wanted to miss. Bring on the creamed asparaus on toast. Love it.