hot potato

Our plan was to meet in the garden early and harvest the potatoes before the heat and humidity got bad...

The temperature was hovering at nearly hundred, and the humidity was surely even higher than that. By the time we’d finished harvesting potatoes on Wednesday, there was no part of our clothes that weren’t wringing with sweat.

Texas has gone easy on us so far. Everyone says it’s been an unusually mild, long Spring for this part of the Lone Star state. So enjoyable in fact, that our family had begun to wonder what all the unbearable Texas heat fuss was all about. But upon our return from Tennessee, we quickly realized that the heat of Summer had arrived… just before we did.

Our plan was to meet our neighbors in the garden early, and all get to work in the beds before the heat and humidity got bad. But I’m not sure there is a time that isn’t dark this part of June early that’s enough for that to happen.

Still, there was a certain amount of fun to it. Being drenched head to toe, out of breath, wondering if each row was ever going to end.

There’s something about being miserable together, that makes things just a little more bearable.

Rebecca and I aren’t strangers to digging up potatoes. We usually have a good sized bed full of them back home that we harvest each year, but the needle-sharp stickers, and the fire ants that were mixed into this Texas soil was new for us, and took some getting used to.

A short time later, the bed of our gator was filled. And by evening, as the majority of the harvested potatoes were drying in a pile of sawdust in the shade our neighbors porch…

We were all gathered around a table inside enjoying the first fruits of our day’s labor…

Besides the delicious potatoes, our plates were piled high with tomatoes and onions from the garden and Salisbury steak, made from beef that we’d raised on our farm back home in Tennessee.

It was a wonderful home grown, home cooked meal.

For most of the families, it had already been the third meal using the potatoes we had dug up in the early morning heat… following fried potatoes for breakfast, and homemade potato chips for lunch.

I think we’ve got plenty of potatoes to last us all for a good while.

And even more than, some special garden memories that I think are going to be around a while too.