Wise up

Some of you may not realize this but I live on a farm. I don't work this farm. I just live here and watch the action. I have all the benefits of farm life without any of the drudgery, unless you consider mowing 3 acres of lawn, maintaining the gardens, and chopping firewood drudgery. The gardens are pretty much self sustaining and the lack of rain allowed me to mow the lawn only a handful of times this year but chopping firewood is an annual thing, if you don't want to heat the house for well over 3 bucks a gallon. There were times when I was outside chopping firewood before sunrise in February wearing only a bathrobe and sandals, just to get enough heat to take a hot shower. And let me tell ya, February in Pennsylvania is goddamn cold and chopping firewood at the crack of dawn dressed like William Wallace will let you know the finite extremes of temperature a human can tolerate. Using 72 degrees Fahrenheit as an optimum temperature you can easily see a 100 degree change in either direction will either freeze you solid or cook you in your own juices. No wonder we're not colonizing space. We can't handle temps going from house to car, let alone leaving our three mile thick biosphere. Our color spectrum is woefully inadequate and our sense of hearing is just as bad, and most "lower life forms" can smell a hot dog underwater three miles down stream and our sense of taste is directly linked to our pitiful sense of smell.

Which brings me back to the events of this beautiful morning in Pennsylvania. It's potato harvest time and the fields in front of my house are active with humans and human machinery unearthing spuds of the perfect size for Wise Potato Chips. The very large spuds are left in the southern end of the field near the tree line and the small ones are dropped through the grates of the harvester to lay on top of the fields like golf balls on a dirt driving range.
There's a back to the earth feeling you get while strolling the fields at night, picking these golf ball size spuds under the light of the full moon, in the crisp, autumn air, with some people you care to share these moments with.

If you happen to be in the area, come on over for some free potatoes. It's cool. It's not theft. It's foraging and it's free and there's enough spuds to feed the IRA.

It's a shame that half the harvest goes to waste when so many people on this planet are starving but business doesn't allow food banks unless there's a profitable incentive involved.

If anyone out there has a better idea than to pick the leftovers for personal use I'm all ears.