Back in the 70s Euell Gibbons was a popular spokesman for Grape Nuts cereal. Even today it is hard for me to think of asparagus that I don't think of Mr Gibbons. He wrote a book that was titled "Stalking the Wild Asparagus". I never read Mr Gibbons book and I really don't know why I think of it at all. Except it is a catchy title.
When I was growing up, I was privileged to live on a dairy farm. Along with all the hard work there was also many rewards. One special thing we were privileged to have was a huge garden. I am sure I didn't see it as a privilege then. It was a lot of work.
I can almost smell the newly turned soil in the spring. That was after a lot of cleaning in the barns. The manure was forked out and hauled to the fields. This may seem very distasteful to many of you but the smell of manure on fields in the spring was not an unpleasant smell to me. I can almost see some of you turning your noses up at the thought. The smell of the manure on the fields signaled spring in the air. It was a time that we drove with our windows down. No air conditioning in our cars made it necessary to get the fresh air through the windows.
Then next came the smell of newly turned soil. Oh what a wonderful smell that was. Recently when Bob was working Code of Honor along the side of the barn, Cody's hooves turned up some fresh soil and the smell came back to me. Then we were treated to the wonderful smell of fresh cut hay. What a scent in the air. Did I just hear you sneeze?
I can never find an air freshener that satisfies me. I think because I remember all too well the real smells of spring.
But back to the garden. After the manure spreader had done it's work and the plow had turned the soil, then came the planting. Yes all of it was hard work but the rewards were great. Mom spent the spring and summer picking and canning for the next winter. The first reward from our garden was the new potatoes and asparagus. Mom would cut the asparagus and dig new potatoes. Then for supper we would have new potatoes with asparagus and it would be creamed with a wonderful cream sauce made with rich cream from our Jersey cows.
Those memories were still fresh in my mind when we bought the farm from Dad in 1971. My mother had died in the previous summer after a bout with cancer. We moved here in January of 1971 and I knew I had to have an asparagus patch.
Planting asparagus is a work of faith in many ways. First you dig a hole about 18" deep. The mix the rich soil with a generous amount of dried manure. You then spread the asparagus root out and barely cover the new planting. As the shoots begin to come through the soil, you then keep covering the plantings until the hole is fully filled in. The first year you do not cut any of the new crop. The second year you only cut it lightly. The third year you are beginning to get the benefit of the hard work you put into your patch several years before.
I had a tough fight on my hands with my new asparagus patch. We had a stray dog who found her way to our house. My husband almost never saw a dog he didn't love. Of course she was adopted and fed table scraps along with our own dog, Ginny. Now the new addition to our family loved to dig in the newly planted asparagus bed and I would rant and rave over the roots I was finding that had been dug up and laying on top of the ground.
Finally our visitor left and followed someone else home. We only saw her once more and that was at a neighbors house. I denied any knowledge of her and I never saw her again. It was good riddance and I was once again calmly attending my new asparagus patch.
Soon we began to see the fruits of our labor. Every spring I would watch carefully for the new fat shoots and cut them and we would have new potatoes with creamed asparagus. By the way we also had a Jersey milk cow. But my dish just did not compare favorably with Mom's creamed asparagus.
Time passed and we moved to Taylorsville into a house in a small subdivision. I cried every time I went home to the farm and Bill hated to take me with him. I guess I had it coming but eventually I got to the farm less and less often. I would always check my asparagus patch and it slowly disappeared over time. Asparagus suffers when cows graze it and a lawn mower does it's devastating work on it. Our renters didn't have the taste for asparagus that I do so they continued to mow that troublesome weed until it finally didn't come back.
When I moved back to the farm in 2008 my asparagus patch was completely wiped out. We had not had cows in the fields for several years and the pastures had tried to go wild. The first summer I was here, I spent hours on the tractor with the bush hog. I mowed until the bush hog broke and I couldn't mow any more.
But along with getting the weeds and various other growths knocked down I found a new asparagus patch. There is not doubt that birds carried the seed from my old asparagus patch and dropped it into one of the pastures. Because the field had not been mowed or pastured the asparagus had grown up and thrived.
Yesterday i was stalking the wild asparagus. I had looked for it last week and found nothing. Yesterday I got a text message from Bob while I was at the dentist that said "The asparagus is ready to cut". He had been out on Satin and seen the patch with the beautiful mouth watering shoots poking their beautiful heads above the grass.
This is the time of the year when all sorts of wild edible foods can be found. There is a an abundance of greens growing. Some of you may be familiar with poke greens. My son loved this time of the year when he could gather poke and we would mix it with kale and have a big pot of mixed greens.
I know several people who hunt wild mushrooms. I was always fearful I would pick the wrong ones.
Tomorrow is Easter. God is good. He has provided us with an abundance of good food to nourish our bodies. We find them in the wild when we know what to look for.
But God is good to us because he sent his one and only son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us on the cross. Aren't we blessed.
May God bless and keep you in his loving care. And may you know the joy of Easter and what it means for all of us.
Regards
Mary
Luke 14:46 And said unto them, Thus is is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day.
God is so good to us.
