Gleaning, July 20-21, 2015 (full size gallery)
We participated in gleaning July 20, 21 in support of Feed More in Richmond which supports our produce supplier Northern Neck Food Bank. Johnny, Cookie Davis and Jim and Elizabeth Heimbach participated on July 20. Those fine people plus two more joined in on July 21.
We decided to leave Port Royal at 7am to start early by 7:30am – a wise decision based on the heat which was hitting 90 degrees plus this week. Parkers Farms was the gleaning site. The main field is off a road beginning at St. Peter’s Oakgrove that weaves through beautiful fields on both sides of the road. Ingleside winery was on the left. You enter Parkers Farms through a nondescript dirt road that said "No trespassing" in both English and Spanish. (What no Chinese?)
Corn harvesting works like this. They go after the tops which are cut off first. There are machines to do this (and Parker Farms has these) but typically done by hand! This is the best harvest destined for the consumer. We began with the rows that had the tops cut off. So we are second into the field. As part of our lesson on gleaning, Johnny explained the difference between a #1 piece of corn and #2 corn. Johnny tried both to organize into specific rows so we wouldn’t duplicate each other’s work.
Into the fields ! Very hot work with uneven ground and the sun constantly advancing (particularly after 10am) burning off the early morning clouds. We did not have enough buckets to gather the corn but Johnny had his truck in the field to follow along as we advanced in the field so we could gather an arm full of corn and then drop it in the truck. There is a rhythm that develops as you are doing this and it is hard not to stop to just appreciate the beauty of these fields. Jim Heimbach had an amazing arm to toss corn from 20 feet or more accurately into the truck.
We worked for about 70 minutes getting our first full truck load which included a well deserved water break. We then rode in the truck with the corn below us to an accumultation point. That’s the way to stay cool. There was a Uhaul truck with boxes ready to be assembled (watermelon lettering on the side, ironically). We had to move our truck contents full of corn into the boxes. Meanwhile another two groups arrived, one from Lynchburg and another Jacob’s Ladder from a variety of places. These are younger students with a mix of adults. They do this for a month! That’s dedication. They were hosted by St. Margaret’s
Then, it was back into the fields for our second load. We took about 7 rows at a time. It was hard keeping your bearing as you gleaned, took your corn to the truck and then returned back to your spot. Was it this row or the next ? We needed to add color markings to the row. We were more disbursed in the fields for our second hour and a half and possibly took longer. After 10:30am the sun was advancing and frankly we were getting weary after 3 hours of work. Back to the accumulation point where we dropped our load.
This was a worthwhile day. You gain a new appreciation for agricultural workers that work many hours in the heat, day after day for little pay. The corn will certainly taste better in the future. Looking out into the vastness of the fields upon row upon row of corn there was a beauty and a satisfaction of many hands providing a beneficial harvest.