Let Them Eat Corn

I can only dream . . .

I’ve never been able to grow corn.

The planets are aligned against it.

Why am I thinking of this in the middle of winter?

Because it’s the middle of winter.

Moving on . . .

For over thirty years, I’ve kept a garden.

Oh, it has changed in that time.

Mostly gotten smaller.

For many, many of those years, I attempted to grow corn.

Corn-on-the-cob just says summer to me.

Most of the time, my tidy little corn plants merely peeked above ground.

Sighed.

And died.

Twice, they grew to maturity.

Developed ears, even.

And then . . .

Well, let me tell you about it.

I had a large garden behind our mobile home just outside of Orton, Alberta. (Near Fort MacLeod)

It was growing beautifully.

The weather had cooperated.

The rains had come when they were needed.

Plenty of sun.

For the first time, ever, I had mature corn plants.

Nearly ready to harvest mature corn plants.

Then, one sunny, but slightly breezy day, the county sprayer drove by.

Spraying the ditches.

For weeds.

Now, if there is any wind, the county sprayers are supposed to be cautious. Not spray near homesteads. Avoid people.

This sprayer . . . wasn’t.

Cautious, that it.

And the next day, I walked out into my garden and noticed that everything looked . . . wilted.

My first thought was frost.

Okay, it was July, the only month of the year when frost is . . . uncommon.

Then I remembered the sprayer.

Long story short – the weed-killer had lived up to its name.

My garden – and my beautiful corn – was dead.

Sigh.

A couple of years later, in a different small house and with a different garden patch, I again saw my efforts to grow corn rewarded.

Saw ears develop.

And then . . . grasshoppers.

In 1983, in Southern Alberta, we had a ‘plague of locusts’. A real plague – look it up. They were so numerous that cars were known to slip in the tide that constantly flowed across the roads. They devoured crops and hay.

And my corn. Drilled holes right through those babies.

Another sigh.

Oh, I didn’t give up.

I tried.

And tried.

And tried.

But never again did my corn amount to anything more than tall, attractive (earless) plants.

I still eat corn.

And corn-on-the-cob still shouts summer to me.

But, alas, someone else has to do the growing.

I will stick with the appreciating .

And devouring.

The two things I’m obviously best at.