Farmers’ Market:
Early morning therapy
Hands and knees soak up warmth from the dark, damp soil. Crawling slowly, carefully, like a child .. .hand, knee, hand, knee, move the box. Sun in your eyes and somehow, oddly, up your nose, a bit of a burn across the back of your neck, both sticky and slick with sweat. The scent of earth and hay tickles your nostrils and fills your mind. A whisper of breeze, then the buzz of some insect like an exotic sitar in your ear. You bathe luxuriant in early morning sun, silken as a shawl across your shoulders … all of summer tied up in your senses — eyes, ears, the soft touch on your skin, dewy moisture down arms and hands — early morning in the strawberry field.
Hands steadily moving now as you carefully part the leaves, seeking the undersides by touch where sight does not penetrate the darkness of morning shadows. The discovery of pale white blossoms, yellow centers ripe with pollen, promise a bountiful harvest … the best is yet to come. But sometimes, oh, rarely, a tiny strawberry no bigger than the tip of your little finger, yet blood-red ripe and burgeoning with promise beckons from the end of a row. You pop the treasure, sun warm, into your mouth. A skyrocket bursting in the darkness, a roman candle lighting up your taste buds with sweet juice.
Later, farther down the row, there will be baskets and boxes and enough to make a pie, to freeze, to cook up jam, to share … great swollen orbs that must be cut to fit neatly into your mouth. But just now, a single solitary fruit. Strawberry season … summer … perfection.
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net
