Mom called last Thursday morning with urgency in her voice. Chili peppers were about to be plowed under. Dad was at the field and could I make a hasty journey to meet him there to pick a few bushels of peppers?

I was in the middle of a 50 mile bike ride, but chili is important to my family. So I headed to the local bike shop, called Kay to arrange a rendezvous and showed up at the field about 30 minuted later.

My Dad has grown peppers in the past. But a few years ago he became friendly with a farmer in the western Davis County area who grows chili peppers commercially. Since then Dad stopped growing peppers and started gleaning from these fields each fall.

These fields are huge. By the time I arrived the only thing left was a 50 foot strip that was a good 500 yards long. In just under 2 hours we were able to fill the entire bed of by Dad's truck. We rolled the back windows down in my Mom's car and filled the back seat with another dozen or so bushels. I'm not certain what the total will be. Last year we were able to get over 55 bushels by the time we finished.

The peppers this year are beautiful and large. The plants, after the commercial picking, still had as many as 10 peppers. This was not what I envisioned when Dad asked me to glean the fields with him. Finally, after we couldn't load any more chilis into Mom's back seat, we left. We gleaned an area that was no more than 30 feet 50 feet. On the way out we passed thousands of red and green peppers that were smashed into the newly tilled earth. Mom sighed and quietly said, "it's such a waste it almost makes me sick."

It is amazing that the earth can provide something so wonderful. And that these peppers have grown in such abundance that the farmer can make a decent profit, our family can get enough peppers to meet the needs of a rather extended bunch and that there are still an unimaginable number of peppers that were tilled back into the soil. And next year, God willing, it will happen all over again...........
8:56:34 PM    comment []