The organic produce store switched their Keys delivery day to Thursday.  In my order this week arrived a bag of fresh peas in the pod.  I grabbed a collander and went out in the yard with Moe.  There is something very relaxing about sitting in an Adirondack chair shelling peas.

 I like peas, but it's a lot easier and quicker to stick a package of frozen ones in the microwave.  So, I haven't sat down and shelled them myself in years.  The simple action took me back in time.

Even though I grew up on a barrier island by the sand, when I was a kid, a fairly short drive off shore brought you to farm country back home in South Jersey.   Scoff all you want, Jersey came by the nickname The Garden State honestly.  Especially in the southern half many years ago.

In the spring and summer, my family loved getting produce from the roadside farm markets.  Peas, lima beans, the most unbelievable Silver Queen corn.  Ruby red strawberries.  Fat Jersey tomatoes.  Sweet, juicy peaches.  Nothing on a supermarket shelf ever tastes as fresh.  Ever. 

I remember shelling peas with both of my grandmothers and my mother at various times.  The veggies made me think of little people in green canoes.  There's something so homey about sitting on a  back porch splitting open the pods -- as bright a green as spring itself -- and letting the peas roll into the collander.  We'd sneak a few of the tender new ones raw into our mouths.

In blueberry season, Grampa and Grandma Stella sometimes took us berry picking.  Gramps drilled holes in coffee cans and knotted string through the holes so that we could wear them around our necks and pop in the berries.   We kids probably ate half as many as we picked right then and there -- but that didn't mean we didn't have room for one of Grandma's fresh-baked blueberry pies or Mom's blueberry pancakes the next morning.

Over the years, a lot of the family farms gave way to new housing, but enough remain so that farm markets aren't completely extinct in South Jersey.   Last summer when I was home for a visit, I stopped into one and picked up a fresh-baked pie to share at lunch with my aunts and uncle.   The memories are as sweet as the taste.

Memories you don't get from nuking a frozen package of veggies.

Wonderful memories, M. I grew up in rural Indiana--farm land. I remember many a summer day shucking corn and snapping green beans with my grandma. Priceless.

Mary, what beautiful memories. It reminded me of my father pointing out to me where all the wild berries grew when he was a kid before the housing moved in. Behind his grandmother's house, in which he still lives, was the largest raspberry patch in NJ, I think. Then he remember the giant farm in front of his childhood home before they built the high school, of which he was the first graduating class! It's neat to know what used to be in places.

Wonderful memories.

My grandparents had a farm my entire childhood. Loved to go pick strawberries and tomatoes fresh out of the garden.

That was me above. LOLsorry.