Writhing With Joy

I am currently in my harvest paralysis. In the corner of the kitchen lies a basket of corn, picked 5 days ago, still waiting to be shucked, boiled, cooled, cut, bagged, and frozen. I'm signing it off as a starchy mess to be sent to the chickens.

However! Celebrations are in order partly because I actually got most of my corn into my freezer, and it was still tender, delicious, and sweet.



I'm not sure if my absolute joy and honestly is coming through in this photo. Seriously, about 75% of my two outside rows of corn presented gooey chewing worms having breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the garden. By the end, I had a cereal bowl half-filled with worms forked out of the corn, which were then thrown to the chickens (seriously, are you thinking you need chickens yet? They are awesome).

Last year? I probably would have been a little grossed out by this, and maybe disheartened that the corn was diseased or something.

This year? It was proof of good food insurance. It was a little annoying, but evidence I had grown organic food...as opposed to science.

Earlier this year we watched the documentary "The Future of Food". It was fascinating! I learned about the basic operations of genetic modification of food as well as the green revolution and the use of pesticides and herbicides. Then I learned that there has been developed corn that is actually registered as an insecticide. Every kernel has been genetically modified so that any grub, worm, or bug that eats it will die!

The result? Beautiful unblemished corn that looks healthy and ready for dinner. Which makes humans delight to eat it, because it's so pretty and because we are not worms. Also, science tastes delicious as opposed to food. Mr. Twinkie even told me so.

So this year? I delighted in my worms. I killed them quick with help from my chickens. We cut around the mess they made on the cob. But in the end, I knew my corn was food...not science.

Please watch this clip from the film. It's really long, but the part about corn is between minutes 5:00 and 6:00.



Enjoy!

p.s. sometimes I eat science. I try not to, but it happens. Cinnamon bears people!