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Illustration by Juliana Neufeld
Every time I go to the family farm near the town where I live, I end up spending $35, no matter what. That’s part of the magic of the place. Thirty-five dollars, and I leave with a cart load of watermelon, peaches, cherries and corn instead of goldfish crackers and ginger ale.
I park my station wagon under the same shady tree in the parking lot when I visit, and I take my time inside the store to window shop the homemade ice cream, caramel corn and local chocolate. I also take my time on the way back to my parking spot when I’m done, because it always seems to be nice out here where the air is so fresh and the sky is so clear.
But it’s not just the place I love – it’s the people. Or rather, the way people are encouraged to interact. It’s a small family farm, and you just know the kids at the cash registers are friends of the family, so you want to keep it cool, because no one wants to fall out of favour with the procurers of the best produce just outside of town.
Even though ritzy people shop here, they’re not overbearing the way they can be at some of the swanky places in town. Here, this small, family-owned farmers’ market is run by a no-nonsense crowd, and any kind of attitude is met with raised eyebrows. You don’t want to ask too many questions you can figure out on your own, or be demanding or difficult in any way. This is the atmosphere at what has recently become one of my favourite places of business, since I stopped by the farm’s “Husking Station.”
I thought I would take my dainty three cobs (one cob each is plenty at our house) and shuck them before bringing them home. Our last corn experience had been the last straw for me, and I needed to take control of the corn situation at home. My husband, Henry, expresses his emotions via food preparation, and the last time he made corn, he must have been displeased, because he’d left all sorts of corn hairs all over the cobs. This interrupted my enjoyment to no end – between the corn hairs and the typewriter fashion in which he devours the cob, I was left apoplectic by meal’s end. So I figured I would intercept in the only way I knew how, by at least addressing the corn hairs with some shucking of my own. What I did not expect was the beautiful experience I had next.
First of all, the Husking Station is not called the Shucking Station. The significance of this phonetic subtlety cannot be overlooked. The soft consonant combination of the “sk” in “husk” is far more appealing (no pun intended) than the hard “ck” in “shuck.” While the Husking Station suggests delicate, thoughtful work, the Shucking Station sounds like a stop on the subway line of a criminal enterprise.
The Husking Station is a modest venue with a few large bins in a covered corner of the parking lot, on the precipice of the fields where the corn has just been picked. People gather here in the kind of repetitive labour that invites conversation, and everyone’s hands are occupied, so technology does not interrupt.
“I love this place,” I said out loud to no one in particular. The overburdened woman to my left, towing a huge cart of corn, looked at me, perhaps stunned, perhaps not expecting to engage with a stranger. We had both started husking our cobs by this point. Her surprise seemed to wear off, and she nodded her head.
“Yeah. I like it, too.”
“This is my first time here,” I said. “I thought I’d try it. To keep the peace at home. My husband leaves the hairs on.” She turned her head to me and looked into my eyes with what I can only describe as overwhelming empathy. She stood for a moment, so the impact of her statement could be felt: “I hear you,” she said.
And I truly felt heard.
“You’ve got a lot of corn there,” I said, motioning with my chin to her cartful of cobs. Both our hands were busy husking.
“There are six of us,” she said. I made a face to indicate “ouch,” and she nodded her head and kept husking.
“Yeah,” she said, “I need to maintain the order at my house.” She motioned with her chin to the mountainous pile of haphazardly strewn husks in the bin in front of us: “My children are feral.”
It was an unexpected revelation, delivered in an unexpected way, and we laughed – I think I threw my head back in laughter. It was a divine moment of joy in the presence of all the husks representing all the humans who had stood in this place and commiserated and been joyful here before us. Let us always husk our corn together.
Monique Montgomery lives in Waterloo, Ont.