Carrots

I love carrots- firm, crunchy tasty carrots. My granddaughter, Emily is not so enraptured. At four years old her reasoning was, “Papa, you know, I’m not a rabbit!”

I haven’t had a lot of luck growing carrots. Either the soil is too hard, the resulting crop looks like a bunch of tortured, arthritic fingers, or the seed fails to germinate, or they are so thick they never make any size.

This year I was determined to succeed. I picked that special spot and added enough peat and sand along with copious nutrients to guarantee just the right growing medium. Then with the soil nicely warmed up I seeded- not too thick, or deep- and gently covered the precious seed. And waited. And waited some more.

When only weeds came up, I checked the seed packet. It was dated 1998.- apparently a hold over from my pre-Rainy River days.

Quickly, scurrying around Drizzle Creek to get some fresh seed, I soon discovered “sold out” was a common theme, with the next delivery truck scheduled for March 2009. A trip to Fat Frantic, and Emu- home of some really strange birds- was similarly unproductive.

Nearly sobbing I laid my tale of woe on Len who solved the problem in short order.

“Why didn’t you get your order in early, you ninny? But you’re in luck. Here’s a couple spare packets. Now do a good job,” he lectured as he returned to his own patch.

Lovingly, I reseeded. The gentle rains came. The sun shone. And voila, a week later I was treated to a few wisps of green emerging.

Every day I checked on the six rows. Carefully weeding out the volunteer poppies and sunflowers. “Gently! Gently, now,” I cautioned myself taking care not to damage the precious seedlings.

I was similarly dedicated to watering my patch. Just enough. Don’t over do it. All summer my carrots grew like gangbusters and I religiously thinned enjoying the first tender roots- boiled and slathered with butter or raw- straight out of the garden with a careless swish under the fawcet- after all a bit of good, bacteria-laden, dirt is just the thing to challenge the immune system.

Finally at the height of the harvest season, I put on the heavy boots, got out the fork and set to. Carefully I levered them out of the soil making sure not to injure or break a single perfect root. Out the beauties came in great, orange clumps. Nine inches long, gently tapered, perfect in every way. A bumper crop!

I shook off the fertile soil, snapped off the tops, and gave them a final wash. Proudly I presented the bounty too my wife, the Pearl of the Orient. She was suitably impressed and took charge of the crop. After all, it was my first really successful carrot crop.

A week later the Pearl announced we would be having honeyed carrots, a real favourite of mine.

“Bring in some carrots, before you go for coffee,” she directed.

“Sure thing. Where are they?” I asked as I headed out for the Bakery.

“They’re in the garage in that garbage bag, next to those wormy apples, I asked you to throw out,” stated the Pearl, referring to my recent apple sauce production project.

I stopped short remembering how thorough I had been at gathering up all the garbage bags the day before. I’d had a real mountain out for Frank and per usual he had cleaned up every last bit of it.

I don’t suppose anyone has any surplus carrots, eh?

Secrets, hunt camps, and headaches

It was a quiet weekend followed by a slow news week here in Drizzle Creek. It had taken most of the previous week to recover from the Thanksgiving celebrations, which included a week of cleaning up leftovers. That meant there was not a lot of extra blood to send to the brain as the stomach had first call on all reserves.

Then by the weekend a major segment of the male population had loaded up and headed for moose camp. This left the Bakery devoid of surplus bread and some of the best liar….er, conversationalists, the town has to offer. The truckloads of supplies and equipment that were headed out of town in the convoy suggested a major military excursion, or a mass permanent exodus. Outfitting a full brigade with tents, and ATVs, as well as enough food to last a couple of months was obviously complete. Ample medical supplies to ward off snake and frost bite was also in evidence.

But by late Monday the entire crew was back arranged around the debating table, holding their heads and reliving the adventure- that is the parts they could remember. Moose were of course absent from the mix. This is not uncommon, but it is rumoured Pickle’s annual solution to this lack of meat is to stop at brother Gherkin’s farm at Hooterville on the return trip. For twenty bucks apiece, the crew is allowed to drop one cull cow, drag the carcass around the pasture a couple of times to simulate usual moose extraction techniques, before loading it on the pick up and taking it in for processing.

No one will ‘fess up’ to this actually happening, but the rumour persists, and what’s that they say about ‘where there’s smoke.’

The Runt was also at the debating table, again foregoing this year hunt, preferring instead the safety of a soft bed where there is far less chance of being mistaken for a Sasquatch. He did however manage to break into the moose discussion to brag about his new car.

“Runs real sweet, but the missus has pretty much taken claim of it and is personalizing to suit herself,” he stated as he looked longingly at the latest tray of chocolate long-johns being delivered to the display case.

“It has only a metric speedometer- no mph numbers, so I see she’s made up a little conversion chart for the equivalents and pasted it to the dash. She’s got it topping out at a 110 mph,” he explained as a puzzled look crossed his face.

“I wonder where she’s figuring on doing 110 mph? Maybe there’s something she’s not telling you?” I observed as I sheltered my cookie from the Runt’s lust-filled eyes.

“I don’t think I’ll ask. Husbands and wives should keep a few secrets from each other,” concluded the Runt philosophically as he pushed back from the table and gave the long-johns one lingering, wistful glance.

As I rose to leave, Pickle picked up the aspirin bottle that had been seeing more combined service than the sugar dispenser, and shook out a couple of tablets.

“Boy, I can’t figure out how we all came down with these terrible headaches. Must have been a virus going around that hunt camp,” he stated as the assembled crew nodded in agreement.