Happy New Year!
I was thinking about the expression hill of beans today as I shelled the dried beans from the summer. At varying times, I heard that expression used negatively. Your dreams won’t amount to a Hill of Beans was one of the refrains I grew familiar with. As I sat there today, I thought how wrong that sentiment is.
The beans I was shelling with my daughter were Good Mother Stollards. These are some of my favorite beans. They’re gorgeous. Mottled crimsons, reds and creamy whites swirling together on each little oval. When cooked, they have a fresh, crisp pop and a velvety finish as you eat each one to contrast with the crunch of hot cornbread – the best accompaniment in my opinion. As important as the eating – is the way they get to the pot.
Instead of being nearly worthless, the process of planting, growing, harvesting and processing them increases their value. How incredible it is that you can take something you grew the previous year, place it into the ground and have a robust vine with beautiful leaves in less than a month. At summer’s end after the beans have taken over the plot – creating a living green teepee – bean pods hang everywhere. We leave those beans on the vine to dry and harvest them in Early November after they have had plenty of time to lose any excess water. What’s left are what you see in the photos below. Wonders of beautiful and biodegradable packaging – especially poignant after the excess plastic and packing peanuts of Christmas time. Each pod felt like a gift, loaded with beans and the satisfying crackle of the dried pod crumbling in my hand as the beans fell into the bowl. These are real results – you don’t see all the work that went into them that I just described. Sure they’re a Hill of Beans – and what a story they tell about planning, family time and the tangible and intangible rewards of the garden and a relationship with the earth. That’s the beauty of dreams for me. Dreams are not about results, or things, they’re the breath from the places between that moves me to make those other things and to pay closer attention to the magic that surrounds me everyday.
