"Do you realize that if we played by the rules, right now we'd be in gym?"

[larryhammer]

Inspired by this comment, a family story.

My father, a farm boy, is a vegetable gardener. As an educator, he's interested in heirloom varieties, and as an organic chemist, in growth hormones -- a mix that has produced some ... interesting tomatoes, but that's neither here nor there. Not when there's his history with squashes.

When I was young, Dad planted zucchini for the first time. That first year, he played it safe and planted seven hills.

I will now pause to let anyone with zucchini experience recover enough to climb back into their chairs.

For those without, let's just say that zucchini plants are notoriously productive. And these hills, he'd fertilized with his best compost. At peak production, which lasted over a month, we were harvesting a couple squashes the size of my thigh every day. My mother's considerable cooking skills couldn't cope -- a double-batch of zucchini bread only disposes of so many, and can be given away to only so many neighbors. Not even forcing zucchini on all his graduate students was enough to keep up. Everyone became thoroughly sick of the stuff. It was a plague of zucchini.

You laughing guys back yet? Good.

Anyway, during Passover, I'm reminded of that summer. I never mention this out loud, because it would trivialize the Seder, but I sometimes silently alter the lyrics of the Haggadah's Frog Song:

One day when Pharaoh awoke in his bed
There were zucchini on his head
There were zucchini in his bed
Zucchini on his toes
And zucchini in his nose.
Zucchini here, zucchini there,
Zucchini piling everywhere!

Because, yeah, it was like that.

But that's not the punch line of the story. See, the next year, my father thought he'd learned his lesson and planted only two hills.

"Only."

---L.

Comments

[marith.livejournal.com]

OK. I am giggling first because I had no idea there was a Haggadah's Frog Song as part of Seder, and that is so cool, and second because I am picturing your zucchini version being sung by Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales. (With, of course, Archibald the Asparagus as the Pharaoh.)

[larryhammer]

*blink* *blink*

Oh dear. I did NOT think of that.

*blink*

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Seven kills of zucchini is enough to feed an entire nation. *g*

I will try to stop laughing now.

[larryhammer]

That is an ... interesting tyop there.

---L.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes it is. Oy...

[janni.livejournal.com]

The role of the zucchini in the War with Faerie, while not widely spoken of, is nonetheless remembered still by those who were there. Which is, of course, why it's not widely spoken of.

[larryhammer]

Remembered in the wee hours of the morning, shuddering and sweating, as they try to return to sleep again?

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

There's no returning to sleep when one wakes from such dreams.

[larryhammer]

Not without the help of a considerable quantity of grain alcohol, perhaps.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

The substances strong enough to induce sleep after so great a trauma are long gone.

The zucchini, alas, are not.

(shudders) (okay, I'm creeping myself out now)

[janni.livejournal.com]

Also, I don't think zucchini references would be at all out of place at a holiday observance that involves four glasses of wine.

I mean, the frogs made it in there, right?

[jennifer-j-s.livejournal.com]

If your dad were in Tucson, he could dispose of the zucchinis by dropping them off at Project FEED any Thursday or Sunday. Or give them to the Community Food Bank.

Is there a food bank in Santa Fe? They might be happy to take excess zukes off his hands.

[larryhammer]

He hasn't grown zukes in a while, that I know of. His garden is nowhere the size it was in DC -- I think it's been a couple years since he planted even corn -- and has an emphasis on local, drought-resistant crops.

---L.

[jennifer-j-s.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I missed the part about it being a zucchini reminiscence. Must be because I know your dad is a whiz at gardening. I tried to talk my husband into making horse manure tea. He looked at me like I had lost my mind.

[larryhammer]

Most people get a little overcome upon seeing his tomato greenhouse. It tends to fluster the memory for the other things.

---L.