Green Beans

I hate green vegetables. Yes, I see the irony in wanting to raise a garden without any green vegetables. Bryon likes green veggies and Grace will eat anything but a green bean. For two weeks in a row we bought green beans for Bryon at the farmers market in Marshfield and I cooked them up for him along with some of our new potatoes from the garden (after Mom showed me how). I guess I should have paid more attention all those years Mom was cooking, canning and gardening as I was growing up because now I just keep learning the hard way. Of course, that is, I've realized after 40 years, my nature. Somewhere along the line, I've developed an independence that some might misconstrue as stubbornness. Either way the results are the same. Some one tells me something or shows me and I do it my own way until it's obvious that isn't working and then consult other "authorities" books, co-workers, strangers, basically anyone but my spouse or family.

Riding my wave of my carrot canning success, I decided I'd try to can some green beans for Bryon. I bought $12 of green beans at the farmers market the day I killed the chickens and took them home. That was about four Wal-Mart sacks of green beans by the way. Of course I was sick that night so the beans stayed in the crisper until the next day. I finally started getting all my stuff together on Saturday to get down to the business of canning them and Bryon started to snap them when he goes, "Hmmm". "What hmmm?" I asked. "Well these aren't the right kind of green bean" he said. "Excuse me? What do you mean they aren't the right kind of green bean? They are green and a bean, what's wrong with them?" I asked starting to get a little testy.

"Well my Mom always called these shell beans, see this string? They shouldn't have that and see these big beans inside, well those aren't going to be any good to can. They just aren't the right kind" he said.

Cricket chirping silence here.

"Fine" I said, "I'll call Mom." I called. They weren't the right kind. How the crap was I, a non-green bean eater, supposed to know there are different kinds. I told him to feed them to the pigs. He did. The pigs wouldn't eat them either. They are now slowly composting in a big pile. Maybe the chickens will eat them.

I feel like I was tricked by the nice farmer's market lady. She probably saw an easy target and an opportunity to foist off her lame old green beans on me. I had even told her I was going to can them. Fool me once...

Tomorrow I'm going to go to Bakers Seed in Mansfield and get my own seed and grow my own dang green beans. Ha!

Take that farmer market green bean lady.