We had corn on the cob as part of our dinner last night.  The corn is grown at the local farm and sold at the farm stand.  It’s the best I’ve had since moving here – very tender and sweet.  Delicious!  It’s nearly as good as midwest corn.

My husband and I were talking.  We both grew up with mothers who would have been right at home in the kitchen with the recipes from James Lilek’s Gallery of Regrettable Food.  Not exactly haute cuisine.  Both of our mothers would buy corn on the cob, shuck them, break them in half and drop them in boiling water until they were over cooked to the max.  We had no idea how good corn on the cob could be until we finally bought our first little grill about 3 years after we were married.  It was a Smokey Joe.  (almost 30 years later it looks nearly the same as the one we bought all those years ago).

I don’t exactly remember, but I think in the little cookbook that came with the grill – they had instructions for grilling corn in the husk.  We didn’t have much money back then, so this was a real leap of faith to spend money on food and cook it in a way we never had before.  However, the results blew away expectations and all these years later, we are happy to see corn in season.

Gotta love it when it’s so easy to get great food with so little effort.

So how are the crops coming along?  Well, not too bad.

I can’t remember how tall corn is supposed to be about now.  I think taller than this, but I could be wrong, that might be a midwest thing.

We also have the squash that was under lots of plastic not too many weeks ago.  Now you can see they have the buckets ready because some of it is ready to pick.

Never having lived on a farm, I didn’t realize that the method for picking vegetables like squash is for someone to make a pass through to pick and someone else to come along and collect.  At least that’s how I think it’s done.  Because we have all these buckets and then if you look down the rows, you see many a squash lying on the ground.

Well, it’s a bit easier to see when you are there in person.  But there it is, the limitations of the internet and pictures.

In the meantime, someone else is leaving champagne bottles laying around.  Somehow I don’t think someone will be by to pick this up.

Gotta love the blue state “greenies”.  Keepin’ it clean.  Of course the bottle IS green isn’t it.  Hmmm…

It has begun – the annual pilgrimage to the local strawberry fields to “pick your own”.   One of our walk routes goes directly past a pick your own farm and thus for the rest of the summer the road will be busy.

Being the first weekend though, things were rather quiet today.  I was surprised because it was a beautiful day.  But perhaps (if you’re one of those peeps who do this every year) it’s a bit early yet.  I expect things will pick up and become frenzied over the next 2 or 3 weekends.

In the meantime, being as I’m pretty lazy, I just stop at the farmstand and grab a quart of strawberries that someone else picked for me.

Hmmmm… need to work on the WP picture thing.  I’m still getting the hang of this so they’re off a bit.

Our local farmstand store (at 2 miles from our house, it’s the closest store to us but is closed from January – March) sells fruits and veggies that are raised right here in these fields.  We walk past the farm often.

Yes folks, there is actually a bit of level land around here and the farmer owns it!   This is small scale compared to the Midwest farms.  I’m not sure if they sell to other stores in the area, but they provide lots of produce for their store.

This is the sweet corn.  (we know because the farmer drove by in his truck as I was taking pictures of the fields and stopped to talk, so we asked).

You see… there is an actual cut off at the back where the trees are – that would be a downhill slide back there.

I think this might be… oh drat I don’t remember what’s under the single rows of  plastic,  but some vegetable that will be most excellent.  I’d love to see the machine that puts down the plastic and plants.  They manage such nice straight lines I’m always impressed.  My rows would be a tad more squiggly.  I can drive a straight line when I have lines to follow – don’t make me “freehand” it.

Then under the large bit of plastic is the summer squash – that’s the other one I remember.  I didn’t get the tomatoes – they were already staked and there are no stakes in these pictures. (have to keep it straight somehow)

One assumes that once it’s sprouted sufficiently and the danger of frost damage has passed (we had frost last night) they’ll uncover the squash.   When I took the picture, I knew it wouldn’t “really” work.  I was going for the ripples in the plastic the wind was blowing.  Unfortunately, there is no good way to grab that look in a picture and I don’t carry a video camera.

Last of all – an old piece of equipment or yard art?  You decide.

I don’t think they’re using it anymore… but who knows – it is New England and these people hang onto everything.

Happy farming!