Working on an organic farm in France, you never know what your daily activities will be. Maybe you'll be planting tiny seedlings for something the French call courgette (which features far too frequently in our dinner menu if you ask me), maybe you'll be putting the new honey into jars for the shop, maybe you'll be planting sunflowers in spirals with a guy who is in the midst a midlife reawakening who just wants to "be in the soil", maybe you will sit with friends cleaning and trimming the spring onions, or sitting on the back of a tractor with an alcoholic schizophrenic who is rarely seen without a joint (I think he is trying to get so high that the voices can't reach up to him) planting potatoes and discussing why it is that we call them 'French' fries, or you might be picking buckets of crisp, snappy snow peas. Every day is different.
Three things are almost guaranteed though.
You will have slightly strange and awkward conversations in a hybrid English/French/Spanish that has developed with everyone using a lot of their own language and a little of everyone else's and almost everyone will understand almost everything.
You will be filthy; maybe only your knees, or only three fingers on your right hand because apparently that's all you use to pull out weeds? but somewhere, definitely, and it is impossible to be clean before dinner, if indeed ever again.
And finally, weather permitting - but sometimes even when it is not - you will spend a few hours weeding the carrots while having philosophical discussions.
I love picking the snow peas. It's slow and tedious, yes, but it's quiet and it's lovely and warm in the greenhouse even on miserably cold and wet days. There is plenty of quiet time to think. Also, my hands are totally clean after picking snow peas which really just means that I can get straight into eating when I'm done without spending half an hour scrubbing my hands into a more palatable layer of soil and mud.
Snow peas grow on vines.
The first time you look at the vine and take all the snow peas you can see you'll think you have found them all and that you are ready to move along to the next section. You will, however, be mistaken. Such a conclusion is actually a sign that you have missed about two thirds of them and you should look again. There are always more snow peas to be found. Sometimes they are so low you can't see them at first or they are hiding behind other parts of the vine. Sometimes they are right in front of your face but camouflaged. So you look a second time. This time you pull back the little tendrils of the vine and peer around to find a few more, previously hidden from view. You get down really low and find the sneaky ones that were hiding underneath. You give the branches a little shake so that the snow peas which move more vigorously than the leaves are exposed and you take them as well.
The second time you think you have got them all, you are much more confident and you move along the vine a little to the next section. Once you are comfortably arranged kneeling next to your bucket all ready to start again, you glance back at the previous section with a sense of accomplishment only to discover to your surprise that there are more snow peas hanging there, waiting for you. Some things can only be found when looking back.
After grabbing the few remaining snow peas from the previous section of the vine and returning to the messy tangled greenery in front of you, you work happily for a few minutes. Then Maeva or Willy or Sandra walks towards you, passing along the vine you have just stripped of all its fruit and instead of praising you for your attentive work and bounty of greens, they reach down and pick even more snow peas from the area you thought you had cleared 3 times already. Sometimes we need the perspective of another to see or gain more.
Like I said, there is plenty of time to think while you are picking snow peas, and I found myself thinking about how what is true in the green house is true in life generally.
There are always lessons to learn, and beautiful moments to experience if you are looking for them. Sometimes life is incredibly tangled and messy and complicated and you are sure there is nothing good left in it. Look again. And if you can't find anything right at the time, wait a little while, move along a little and look back. Maybe your shift in perspective will help you to see. Life is humbling. Sometimes if you invite someone else over, show them the mess you are in, and you let them sit with you they can help you to see what you couldn't on your own.
So this is what I learned one humid morning on a happy French farm. And I wish you all happy snappy snow pea picking, in whatever way makes sense to you.
Three things are almost guaranteed though.
You will have slightly strange and awkward conversations in a hybrid English/French/Spanish that has developed with everyone using a lot of their own language and a little of everyone else's and almost everyone will understand almost everything.
You will be filthy; maybe only your knees, or only three fingers on your right hand because apparently that's all you use to pull out weeds? but somewhere, definitely, and it is impossible to be clean before dinner, if indeed ever again.
And finally, weather permitting - but sometimes even when it is not - you will spend a few hours weeding the carrots while having philosophical discussions.
I love picking the snow peas. It's slow and tedious, yes, but it's quiet and it's lovely and warm in the greenhouse even on miserably cold and wet days. There is plenty of quiet time to think. Also, my hands are totally clean after picking snow peas which really just means that I can get straight into eating when I'm done without spending half an hour scrubbing my hands into a more palatable layer of soil and mud.
Snow peas grow on vines.
The first time you look at the vine and take all the snow peas you can see you'll think you have found them all and that you are ready to move along to the next section. You will, however, be mistaken. Such a conclusion is actually a sign that you have missed about two thirds of them and you should look again. There are always more snow peas to be found. Sometimes they are so low you can't see them at first or they are hiding behind other parts of the vine. Sometimes they are right in front of your face but camouflaged. So you look a second time. This time you pull back the little tendrils of the vine and peer around to find a few more, previously hidden from view. You get down really low and find the sneaky ones that were hiding underneath. You give the branches a little shake so that the snow peas which move more vigorously than the leaves are exposed and you take them as well.
The second time you think you have got them all, you are much more confident and you move along the vine a little to the next section. Once you are comfortably arranged kneeling next to your bucket all ready to start again, you glance back at the previous section with a sense of accomplishment only to discover to your surprise that there are more snow peas hanging there, waiting for you. Some things can only be found when looking back.
After grabbing the few remaining snow peas from the previous section of the vine and returning to the messy tangled greenery in front of you, you work happily for a few minutes. Then Maeva or Willy or Sandra walks towards you, passing along the vine you have just stripped of all its fruit and instead of praising you for your attentive work and bounty of greens, they reach down and pick even more snow peas from the area you thought you had cleared 3 times already. Sometimes we need the perspective of another to see or gain more.
Like I said, there is plenty of time to think while you are picking snow peas, and I found myself thinking about how what is true in the green house is true in life generally.
There are always lessons to learn, and beautiful moments to experience if you are looking for them. Sometimes life is incredibly tangled and messy and complicated and you are sure there is nothing good left in it. Look again. And if you can't find anything right at the time, wait a little while, move along a little and look back. Maybe your shift in perspective will help you to see. Life is humbling. Sometimes if you invite someone else over, show them the mess you are in, and you let them sit with you they can help you to see what you couldn't on your own.
So this is what I learned one humid morning on a happy French farm. And I wish you all happy snappy snow pea picking, in whatever way makes sense to you.
