Asparagus.

Hopefully after this post you will understand my absence. This past weekend was packed with asparagus. My cousin Luke does organic gardening and that is where you will find me most of the time during the summer. Spring came pretty early this year and so things are really growing. Asparagus usually starts the season off and boy did it start with a bang! 

We had, and still have, sooooo much asparagus! Friday afternoon we picked for 4 and a half hours and got the most asparagus we have ever gotten. I'm not even going to guess how many pounds it was. Saturday night we picked for 5 hours. We got finished at a little after 1 am Sunday. And yes, my positive attitude had left by then. I was cold, tired, every part of my body ached and it had been so long since I ate supper that I was hungry. ha But it needed to be picked! Sunday was another day full of asparagus. There were lots of helpers around though so I mowed the yard and studied most of the day. I only helped for a few hours. 

To give you a little idea of what we do...

On the left is where the asparagus is.

There is about 5 acres of it I believe.

It grows like this... 

We have purple and green.

This machine was pretty much handmade and it is how we pick. 

 This way we can pick three rows at a time. Luke, or whoever is in the middle, drives with there feet so that they can pick at the same time. We just bend over and pick between our legs. This is the biggest problem for me. I can never quite decide where to put my legs. We just snap the asparagus off as close to the ground as possible. So, pretty much, you are digging your knuckles into the ground the whole time.

Picking in the dark... with headlamps... and a face covered in bugs attracted to your headlamp...

It really isn't that bad, and I don't actually mind picking most of the time. Unless it is waayyy past my bedtime, then I will be cranky no matter what I'm doin'! There was just so much this weekend it was really hard to keep up. It was like a wall of asparagus coming at you and my hands only go so fast. I would just be throwing it into the crate sometimes. It did not always look like this... 

Nice and neat and easy to sort later on.

 After it is picked, it's sorted and sold! 

This weekend was full of other farming as well. We transplanted some sweet corn...

Sorry it's so far away... the corn is to the left. You can kind of see the rows and tiny plants.

 My dad finished spreading manure and started planting field corn like a madman. He planted pretty late into the night on Monday. It was supposed to rain Tuesday and he wanted to get as much seed in the ground before that happened as he could. It didn't actually end up raining very much but every little bit helps. 

I have spent the last few days just catching up on school and eating asparagus! 

As you can tell it has been busy around here! But busy is good!! :)