Humor

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I was picking zucchinis today. Other vegetables needed harvesting and we hadn’t paid much attention to them in the past few days. Anyone who’s ever grown zucchinis would know that, if left unchecked, they have the same potential to take over the world as cockroaches. Some of the big zucchinis were quite impressive. They were so huge and hardened that I was having a real struggle trying to cut them from the bush. Then I looked down and realised I was using the back of the knife blade.

But they were really immense. I wanted to leave them on the plants to see how large they would get. I presume it wouldn’t be long until they could reach across the Great Dividing Range and into New Zealand waters.

But then you’d get in trouble with quarantine, taking veges into another country. There’d be lots of paperwork, a big fine and possibly a jail sentence. (I’ve seen that show on TV about customs police. I know how strict they are.)

So anyway, I had to cut off zucchinis. In our little vege patch we farm organically, which means we have a whole ecosystem happening around us. I keep looking over my shoulder expecting to see David Attenborough and his film crew.

It was nice when I started picking the zucchinis. I could see little frogs hop away under the leaves, and watch the superb fairy-wren perched on top of the plants, calling to his girlfriends with a twitter – or is that cheep? (I’m not really good at describing bird calls, but I’m pretty sure the noise a fairy-wren makes is not a hee-haw, or even a bellow. Although even the word cheep is a bit misleading – I mean, how many birds do you come across that actually sit outside your window, fluff their feathers and say, “cheep”? I guess you could say the closest a bird-call is to being a cheep is the ch-ch-ch-ch sound some of them make. Oh, and maybe some of them do say chip, chip. Okay, perhaps I am splitting hairs here. There are probably heaps of birds who do say cheep quite distinctly. And maybe they are all employed to sit outside a discount shop and call out to passers-by: Cheep, cheep!)

Where was I? Oh yes, the wildlife. It was nice and relaxing, pulling off the colossal marrows while being a part of the nature around me. The sky was blue… the sun was shining… the temperature was somewhere in the 50 degrees Celcius range….

Soon I was feeling pretty warm and rivulets of sweat were trickling down my back and arms. Being fully prepared for zucchini picking, I was dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and cotton gloves. Those plants are scratchy! (And if you think I’m a bit of a girl for worrying about a few zucchini scratches, well, yes – I am a girl. And my skin is soft.)

Sweat is designed to cool us down – the body produces fluid, which then evaporates on the skin and makes us cooler. The process of sweat running down from your armpit is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can make us feel refreshed, just as if someone had sprayed us with a hose – a hose that has been lying in the sun and is connected to our slimy dam water supply. Okay, it’s not that bad.

So this sweat was actually refreshing me, as the breeze came across and dried the moisture. Ahh! But in that split second after the refreshment, I could feel the salt of my perspiration seeping into the various tiny scratches on my forearms where the shirt had crept up. OW!

As a consequence, the whole sweating and picking vegetables off a spiky plant scenario turned from a delightful nature documentary to a bittersweet torture, which in my mind went, “Ahh! …Ow! Ahh! …Ow!”

Needless to say, I was glad when it was all over and we were able to call the mill to come and take the overgrown zucchinis to cut into timber for a new housing estate. Meanwhile there were veges to wash and pack and boxes to label and get ready for sending off to the markets.

When I was younger I thought going backpacking around the country would be fun, getting fruit or vege picking jobs here and there. Then I had a little think about my philosophy of life at the time, and hard physical labour didn’t seem to get a mention. I didn’t do the backpacker thing.

Even now, if I think about getting some casual work elsewhere… (Because the boss here is a real tyrant and the pay is terrible! Oh, here comes my husband. No - the working conditions are excellent, much better than anywhere else I’ve ever come across, in all my days swanning around in well-paying, easy to handle jobs.)

Anyway if I ever look at casual work, farm work is one area I do not even think of applying for. I’m not very fast, I’m not very dedicated to a full day’s work, and I have a habit of getting cosy with the boss. …This could become awkward.

(For those of you who are aghast and haven’t been paying attention – I work with my husband. See… it’s okay now.)

But for this particular work enterprise on our vege patch, it seems my work is sufficient to keep the boss happy. And when he’s happy, I’m happy.
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“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…” Ecclesiastes 9:10

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