Mariposa is our hostess for Fun Monday this week. The category is simple: Kids Say the Darnedest Things! Please visit her site and check out the other participants.
I may have told this story on my blog before, but here goes: my niece, M2, was walking with me to pick up field corn after the harvest. These fields surround my parents’ house, but don’t belong to them. As the farmers themselves do not come out and pick up corn, nor do they turn cattle loose, they will turn it under during the spring and plant beans the next year, therefore any corn left on the ground will become ‘weeds’ the next year. In my estimation, by ‘gleaning’ their fields, we do them a favor. The corn is for goats, squirrels, whoever picks it up pretty much will tell you who the gleanings go to. When we lived in IA, we picked up a trash barrel full and kept rabbits and squirrels, as well as a myriad of birds happy all winter. So my niece and I are walking along, the best thing you can do, besides look for yellow (obvisouly), is to step on any full-looking husks that are on the ground. If it squishes, no good, if it’s solid, you have a piece of corn! So we are walking along, and my niece says, hey, here’s one, it’s still in the plastic!
I’m pretty sure she was about 9. I said, plastic? You silly girl, you mean it’s still in the husks? Yes, that’s what I meant, she says. We had a conversation then about how food doesn’t just come from the grocery store, that people plant food and it’s processed and eventually ends up at the store (in plastic!).
Too cute! When I was teaching elementary school in the city years ago, I found it fascinating how many kids had no clue where food actually comes from!
In a way this is sad that she didn’t know about fields of corn, farm animals and such and had to learn through plastic. But in any case, it is STILL adorable. The wonders of kids I tellya, you just gotta love ’em.
Sad that modern kids know so little about natures ways… but cute.
makes good sense to me! Still in it’s wrapper —
(If one misses the math verification and hits submit, the whole comment dissappears. Damn)
It does surprise me the number of young children who have no idea about how some food is grown and what happens before it reaches the supermarket shelves all neatly packaged. It’s sad really.
I guess it still is in its packaging! ha ha cute.
You were a good mentor to educate her on where food comes from. Thanks for sharing this cute story.
I remember how my cousin reacted the first time she saw a rice growing on rice fields…same thing with M2! 🙂
Too, cute. You certainly used your teaching moment, well.
City children sometimes have real problems. Once a little girl told me that steaks were growing on trees !
I only wanted the peaches that “grew in the can” when I was little.