Twenty six and seven, twenty six and eight, twenty six and nine...while my back and arms tend to get a little sore these days during harvest time, my mind could pick sweet corn all day long. I love the steady rhythm of counting the ears as I cut them. Ear after ear I hum to myself, first saying the dozen that I am on, then the ear within the dozen that I am on. Twenty six dozen and ten ears, twenty six dozen and 11 ears, twenty seven dozen. Twenty seven and one... The process captures all my attention, and I am never bored picking sweet corn.
This year's corn harvest is looking good so far. The crop grows well in the warm wet weather, and we haven't had a lot of raccoon or deer damage yet. It's fairly well weeded (as far as organic vegetables can be!) and doesn't have a lot of worms (which can happen in organic sweet corn!). And, according to members Chris and Dan, "In our combined 132 years on earth this is the best corn we've ever eaten."
Growing sweet corn was the specialty crop of my good friend and fellow farmer Bing Drewry. He loved to plant and cultivate his corn, and I used to love to go to his farm to help pick it. Even into his 90s, Bing was planting and cultivating his corn. When it was picking time, he would drive his garden tractor between the rows, towing a wagon behind him. I would walk along in the rows cutting the corn and throwing it into his wagon. His corn grew very tall, since he always put a lot of manure in his field. Once inside his corn patch I usually couldn't see anything except the stalks surrounding me and Bing on his tractor just ahead of me.
Bing was the one who taught me to count the sweet corn as I picked it, many years ago. I used to just count the corn after the picking was done, because that was easier to keep track of. Actually he didn't really teach me to count and pick. Rather, the first time I went to harvest with him he called out to me right before firing up the tractor, "don't forget to count!" Then he drove on into the patch leaving me to trail behind with my questions. Count? Aren't we picking a thousand or more ears? What if I lose track? Are you going to drive slower?! I cut the first few ears and threw them into the wagon. Wait, was that three or four ears? Okay, if I was going to count accurately I would need to focus on the rhythm of the task, so that is what I did. By the 13th ear I had decided on the system of saying the number of dozen I was on and number of ears I was on every time I cut one. From that point on I loved the counting game hidden within the harvest chore. And so the afternoon breezed by as I cut and counted, and cut and counted.
I got all the way to 96 dozen and 4 ears before we stopped for a break that day. As soon as Bing killed the engine on his tractor I called out the count to him. "96 dozen and 4!" I announced. He turned around on his seat. "What?" he asked. "We just picked 96 dozen and 4 ears of corn!" I said again. "You counted?" he asked, looking at me wide-eyed. And then he laughed, "I was just joking, you know."
Bing’s Sweet Corn.
Last spring, at 92 years old, Bing went into hospice care during corn planting season. One of the last things I got to tell him before he died was not to worry, because I would take care of the sweet corn. Maybe by the time I am 92 years old I will be as good at growing sweet corn as Bing always was.
We had our first corn harvest of the year this past Monday and it was a pretty good one. The only part missing was Bing to drive the tractor. Instead I had many wonderful harvest crew members here at my farm to help with it all. Six of us breezed through cutting the corn. I decided not to ask everyone to count while they picked. With so many different counters it seemed a bit difficult. It was more reliable to just wait and count afterwards, like we used to do. But I continued to count the ears I cut, just for fun.
Bing’s Tractor.