Page 73 - ECOlogic Book

Harvest
(Fall, 1993)

This week we start with beets. Some are red as radishes. Some purple as
plums. Occasionally a surprise beet the color of a tangerine shows up. My
boss is David (pronounced “Dahveed”) whose English is only a little better
than my Spanish. We communicate with rubber bands, which are the
medium for counting the harvest. When my ten rubber bands are gone,
each around a bunch of five or six beets, I go find David, to see if he has
more tuber bands for me. If David shows me the empty rubber band bucket,
I’ll know we’ve picked enough beets. Then I’ll hop up on the end of the
flatbed, waiting to be given a ride to the basil.

The red beets tend to e bigger than the purple ones, so when Vicente,
picking in the next row, shouts “Grande!” I know it must be a red beet. But
I’m not prepared for the size of it. The red beet Vicente holds up is the size
of a softball. His brown wrinkled face beams, showing all his teeth.

Later, as we bounce over the trail alongside the garden, David gestures
toward some lettuce. “You like luchuga?” he asks. I learned last week that
when David asks if I like something he means do I want that one. Knowing
that I’ll be picking up my bountiful allotment of the harvest later in the day,
I decline. “Non comprende,” David remarks to Vicente, nodding in my
direction with a pitying look on his face. I try to explain that yes, I
understand, and I do like lettuce, but I don’t want that one because I’ll be
getting more than I can use when I pick my allotment later in the day.
Maybe David understands, maybe not.

Next is the parsley and basil. I’m to do parsley while Decent and David do
basil. I know from last week that they both like to do basil. They’d buried
their faces in the first bunched they’d picked, inhaling deeply. And then,
when the picking was done, they’d smelled their palms with the same look of
ecstasy. Me too. I can believe that my hands still carry the fragrance of
basil of last week’s harvest. And my palate still carries the taste of the pesto
sauce I made from it the next day. Just waking by the rows of basil I’m
overcome with the fragrance of it reaching into my soul.

Later, David and Vicente join me to help me finish the parsley. I’m much
slower than they are, but they do not complain. At least not in English.
Occasionally, I pick out the word “senora” from the Spanish blur I hear
between them. Then I wonder.

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