There are many things I have loved about this island forever. For example, there are stores here that have existed for generations and still have their original signs. People still have mailboxes on the side of the road, and many are decorated with hand-painted fish or squiggles or whatever the kids feel like. Lobster rolls. This list of things I look forward to year after year is endless. But now I have a new thing that I love: the farm co-op (affectionately known around my house, at least, as the commies). At the beginning of the season we “buy” our share of the Co-op, then every Friday I toodle off in my straw hat and clogs to buy whatever veggies are on offer that week. Here’s the picture:
a large expanse of farmland, a small dirt turn-around where you park your car (keys, of course, left dangling in the ignition, doors unlocked), a wooden shelter painted red and open on one side, a piece of paper on a table where you sign in with the pen hanging off the wall by a string. Against the back wall are tilted wooden crates full of whatever and labelled by crayon on brown paper bags. On the blackboard hanging from the wall has been written what you are entitled to take that week. Today it was
4 cucumbers (any sort)
2 squash (enormous, though — each one would feed a family of vegetarians for a week)
6 tomatoes
3/4 bag of mixed leaf salad
2 heads of lettuce
handful of radishes
8 potatoes
Out of that list you take as much or as little as you want and you put it all in one of the brown paper bags recycled from somebody’s supermarket shopping (although it’s even better if you bring your own bag). And then as if that wasn’t enough, each week you can go pick your own something. Today it was
3 sunflowers
half a bucket of green beans.
Picking the green beans is my most favourite thing of all. You walk down a long row between hundreds of plants, crouch down, spread apart the leaves and voila — long, fat, bulbous, sweet-enough-to-eat-right-then-and-there beans.
Nobody checks you out. No one makes sure you haven’t taken too much of anything. Nobody asks to see i.d. It’s all about trust, man, each according to his need, everybody’s cool. Then you get back into your car, turn on the local radio station which is inevitably playing a track from The Grateful Dead, and you’re off.
Now remind me….why do I go back to London?
Oh Sue it sounds blissful. I want to go and live there. I loved reading your post, it was like escaping into another world. What a contrast from London. But you probably appreciate it lots more because of that. Kat 🙂
Oh Sue…I am so homesick after reading this post…
Can’t answer the question because I often ask it myself. But London is the richer for having you here, does that help?
That sounds absolutely wonderful Sue. I would love to live somewhere that had such a sense of community (Not to mention fab fresh vegetables!!). I wish there were more places like that….would make the world a better place to live in!!
C x
Oh to have a place like that near me! So what would I grow for others? Maybe herbs…