I Write A Lot About Vegetables

Today, I was lucky enough to discover just how beautifully bizarre Brussel sprouts actually look in the stages before they are consumed. They grow on stalks with large, symmetric, purple tinged, singular leaves that sprout radially. They look practically alienesque compared to their relatives of the cabbage family – like one of Dr. Seuss’ characters.

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/l1b7962fgott8y2/Screenshot%202015-10-01%2022.43.22.png?dl=0

 http://www.tastefulgarden.com/store/pc/Brussels-Sprouts-18p126.htm

           http://www.planetnatural.com/growing-brussel-sprouts/

            Once I somewhat recovered from what I was looking at, I got to working on harvesting them. Kianee, myself, and two workers from the farm, first ripped off the leaves while one of us used a large pair of shears to cut the stalks above the roots. The rest of us loaded the trailer with the harvested stalks. When it was my turn to clip the stalks, I couldn’t help but enjoy how satisfying it was to chop them off. Something about beheading vegetables must release endorphins because I felt as though some kind of innate, animalistic desire was fulfilled. Kianee even said to me, “I don’t even recognize you right now.”  

           

            I can’t picture myself causing any harm to an animal, (I did choose a vegetable farm, after all) but maybe this was my taste of what it might have felt like to be one of the ‘guys-being-guys’ we have been reading about these past few weeks. They hunted and fished the very creatures that they marveled at, something I didn’t understand. However, today I found those plants mesmerizing and still thought to myself, “I WILL SHOW YOU WHO’S BOSS, YOU SHRUB,” as I hacked away. This was quickly followed by, “Oh wait, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t trying to assert my dominance over nature!” Perhaps in a way I have come one step closer to understanding Hammond and his contemporaries; I only hope that I can channel this energy into something productive, like combatting invasive species or destroying things to relieve stress.