Walk Softly

and carry a big stick zucchini

I go through the zucchini patch every morning and pick the ones that have reached the appropriate size.  They are the ones in the basket, about 10" long, weighing around a pound or so, maybe a bit more.

Those things grow fast, so if I miss a morning, which I usually do on Sunday because we are in such a rush to get organized and off to the market that there is no time, next time I check there are sure to be a few oversize ones.  The plants are so big now, it's really hard to see all the fruits sometimes.  I got quite the shock this morning when I saw this whopper sticking out past the leaves, and wondered how on earth I'd missed it.  When I checked, it was growing on the ground, right underneath two of the fat leaf stems, so was really camouflaged well.  It weighs over 6 pounds.  Oh sure, there have been lots of zukes bigger than that, but considering that I go through the patch 6 days of the week, it makes me wonder how many days this one was merrily growing bigger without me noticing it.

There was a lady at the market looking for a big zucchini.  Well what it boiled down to was that she didn't want to pay for 2 or 3 zucchini to have enough to make her batch of relish, she just want to pay her $1 and get a giant zucchini (we charge $1 per).  Maybe I'll just use it myself for relish, or feed it to the chickens, just because....

And then there was the little old lady that tried to steal a zucchini....

No, she wasn't hard up for money, she saw an opportunity and she took it.  We were packing up at the end of the day.  I had been over to ask my friend the baker vendor if she wanted the few zucchini we had left to make some zucchini bread.  As I was coming back, I saw the old dear look at Larry, who had his back to her as he was sorting out jam in the trailer.  She quickly stuffed the zucchini into her bag and pushed her walker to the next booth.  

I thought, oh well, it's only a dollar zucchini....

And then I thought that that wasn't really the issue.

So I approached her, and she did pay for it. Kind of a weird situation.

Zucchini, bringing out the worst in us.