you know you are a farm girl when...

this makes you laugh:

This is sweet corn...
ready for planting in your garden...
Yes, this was a cell-pack for purchase at the local garden center...

This little container of sweet corn makes me laugh because,
well, because it is just too cute.  And sweet.  And small.
And, because corn doesn't have to be started in little cell packs.  You just have to drop seeds into the earth and as the soil warms, the seeds sprout...in just a few days...
And, it makes me laugh because this quantity of plants would not feed me for dinner (I will admit that I really like sweet corn).
I guess you can never get the dirt out from under you nails.
To me, sweet corn is planted in at least a 2 acre field
in rows at least 1 foot apart,
dropped into the warm earth
by a corn planter
being pulled by a John Deere tractor that putt-putts it's way across the field,
with the sun shining down and the earthy smell rising up to greet your nose.

And when it's picking time...
You head to the corn patch after the sun has had a chance to dry the dew...usually between 9 and 10 a.m.
You and another two person team take a couple bushel baskets...
one person being the picker, the other two people are the runners.
The picker, well he or she picks...picks two rows at the same time, and pitches the corn ears into the basket of the second person on the team, who is backing down between the two rows.
When that basket is full, person #2 heads to the pickup truck to dump his load, and team member #3 comes in with his basket and backward-proceeds the "picker" until that basket is full and he heads off to the pickup truck.  By that time, person #2 is back and the process continues down the two rows of corn.  It helps if there is also a truck driver and that person keeps the truck moving down the side of the field at the same speed as the picker. 
You stop picking when the rows that are ripe and ready are all picked and/or the truck bed is full.
Then you all head back to the shade of a large tree and start husking corn, sitting right there on the back edge of the truck bed sides. 
At this point, when neighbors pull in, you can bet that they want some of the fresh corn, they're not just stopping to help husk!
After there are a couple of bushel baskets husked and silked, a couple of the corn-pickers head to the house and start the cutting/cooking/chilling/freezing process.  This usually leaves at least two folks still out under the shade tree, husking corn and visiting with the neighbors that stop by.

And lunch that day???
Fresh corn on the cob!
(More corn than those little cells packs will produce!)
Yum! 

Still, it did make me smile!

Enough about corn that makes me smile... here's the latest quilt I meandered across:

(it also made me smile)...

Joell's cats. 

I really need to get back to work, so this farm girl (with just a little bit of dirt left under her nails) wishes you a happy, smile-filled weekend.