In which I get new ears.

My sweaty spouse clumped his way up the porch steps and peeked around the door. "Well, everything's pretty much dead, but we got some corn. Oh, and here's some tomatoes!" He handed me one large yellow and one medium red tomato. I eyed the thumbprint-sized gouge in the yellow tomato.

"I see something's been enjoying this one already."

"Well, yeah. But you can cut that part off, right?"

Larry is convinced that if we'd intended to raise weeds, we would instead have thriving vegetables. As it stands now, the lack of water has ensured a lack of bountiful harvest. But hey, several dollars' worth of organic veggies is a great return on a few cents' worth of seeds. We're not complaining.

We took our day's harvest home. My contribution to the produce effort was about to begin. I filled the big pot with water and set it to boil before turning to the ears waiting in the sink. After wrestling with and swearing at the trash can (When, oh WHEN will they make a 14-gallon bag to fit in my 13-gallon trash can? Just an extra inch of fold over would be nice.), I started shucking the corn.

I was pretty gleeful at this point, stopping just short of yelling, "Wow! It looks like real corn!" I nearly did a happy dance. Whilst peeling the seventh ear, I looked under my thumb and DID do a dance. I also came close to dislocating my elbow as I hastily returned said ear to the sink.

"Hey, this one's occupied! I'm gonna give it to the squirrels."

The water finally achieved boil and the corn was blanched. Into a zipper bag, suck out the air, toss it in the freezer. Our first corn. Bask with me in this moment of quiet triumph, sharing a bond with our global ancestors who taught us the secrets of storing food for an uncertain future.

That's nice. Now pass the butter.