A breeze carries the sweet smell of plowed earth across the clovers from the edge of the freshly plowed field where knee-high family farmhands stand shoulder-to-shoulder with empty burlap sacks once used for races on Easter Sunday. Today, the potato sacks fulfill their name. Thanks to the vintage Allis Chalmers tractor that pulls a rusty plow disc cracking clods of alluvial clay to reveal a scattered minefield of red potatoes. Like a sheriff posse, farmhands march into the plowed field plucking the red russets upended from their alluvial slumber.
Marching, bending, picking–filling the long bag. To the tree line and back again as mothers and farmer wait. Watching the work of their offspring bring in the bounty that God and Mother Earth provides. Long bags drag to the finish line then dumped and sorted and divided and cleaned. Bounty divvied in sevenths and sent home as farmhand wages. For next Sunday, we will savor the fruits of our labor converted from farm to table, boiled, cubed and mashed into a salad alongside fried chicken and homemade vanilla ice cream after 10:30 mass.
