Flip Flop "Farming"

I have been out working in my yard MANY MANY times this summer. Usually I run out barefoot to check on a few things or water and end up weeding, deadheading, pruning, harvesting and/or watering while I have the opportunity. I finally realized that after we finished running sprinklers, laying our grass, and initial planting in the garden and flowerbeds I have done almost ALL of my yard work in flip flops or barefoot (the exception being mowing the lawn). I keep looking down at my feet and chuckling to myself as I trek through the dirt and plants barefoot or sometimes in "flips." I decided to call what I do out there "flip flop 'farming.'" I place the word "farming" in quotes because it hardly counts as farming, but the alliteration is nice.

Today this was even more ironic. I went out to see how our beans were doing. I had been putting this off since our pumpkin plants are INSANE and making it difficult to access much of our garden. The beans are now the least accessible part of the garden because they are so huge themselves, but are also surrounded by pumpkin vines. I had seen some beans on there that looked ready for picking (from the grass since I had yet to brave the pumpkin jungle), so I headed out with a container for the beans and my my seriously protective footwear: flip flops.

It's a good thing I am not scared of spiders or bees. There were lots of little creatures living in those beans, whose homes I probably destroyed. Sorry little creatures, but you did make me wonder for a moment if I might be bitten by something poisonous (since my protective footwear wouldn't really do much for that). I picked these beans in some serious heat and was all sweaty. I was also wondering if I would be able to straighten up again when I was done since my back had gone numb (numb is better than pain, right?). I was out picking for about 45 minutes and thought that was quite an awesome effort until I thought about the noises we were hearing in our house last night. Suddenly my flip flop "farming" seemed really pathetic and my mental complaints even more so.

When we look out the back windows of our house we see a nice big field. I like to glance out the windows to see what is going on out there. There have been lots of tractors out the last few days and it is always amazing to me when I glance out the window and the field looks completely different than it did a few hours before. Modern machinery is amazing. At the same time, I feel sympathy for the farmers as I see them sloshing around in the field with galoshes to clear out their irrigation trenches or sitting in the tractor kicking up all kinds of crud in the heat of a summer afternoon (like yesterday). Last night Paul and I were reading and there was definitely some commotion outside, so I checked it out (being the curious and slightly suspicious person that I am). The tractor was STILL running out there. It had been going on and off all day for a few days. It was 11:30 at night, we were going to bed, and some diligent person was out in a tractor bailing until who knows how early in the morning.

My mental complaints while picking beans come back to me as a very pathetic, whiny, sob story coming from a girl who does all her work in bare feet or flip flops. My thanks and respect goes out to the farmers who work through both the day and the night in the rain, mud, heat, dirt, darkness, and crud and have to deal with broken down tractors (they were fixing it earlier this week), exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and much more to make food for all of us to enjoy with practically no effort on our part. I am sure they would never even imagine trying to work in flip flops. I think I will choose to continue to "farm" in my flip flops and try to cut back on my complaints!