Figuratively speaking, first fruits.
Rhubarb is a vegetable. Herbs are herbs. Flowers are flowers.
I love what Wikipedia has to say about first fruits:
"First Fruits is a religious offering of the first agricultural produce of the harvest. In classical Greek, Roman, and Hebrew religions, the first fruits were given to priests as an offering to deity.
Beginning in 1966 a unique "First Fruits" celebration brought the Ancient African harvest festivals that became the African American holiday, Kwanzaa."
The birds weren't as noisy as they have been in recent days. Maybe that's why I slept in to 6:15. Perfect time to pick the first rhubarb and bunches of herbs which survived last winter. Global warming has some tiny benefits - for now.
So.... first fruits. Ted won't be offering them to the priests as in ancient times. He'll appear at the back door of FareShare and hope that it will make one family's day to be able to eat a rhubarb crisp or rhubarb muffins or stewed rhubarb. Maybe another few families will know they are thought of when they make a pasta sauce with fresh herbs. And, hopefully 9 families will feel some hope and love when they take home a bouquet of tulips or a posy of grape hyacinths, daffodils and forget-me-nots.
Fare Share map here. They accept fresh produce at their back door, next to the soccer club's back entrance between 8:30 and 9 a.m. on Wednesdays.
One of my favourite books is Flowers for Algernon. I've read it twice in recent years. I hope that each one of my grandchildren will read it while they are young.
“Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts.
But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love.
This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently.
I present it to you as a hypothesis:
Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown,
to neurosis,
and possibly even psychosis.
And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end,
to the exclusion of human relationships,
can only lead to violence and pain.”
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
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