Thursday, September 22, 2011

Heirlooms can be pigs.


When I sent an email to my team at work telling them I'd be out of the office for a dorky reason which I'd talk to them about offline, I immediately had six people at my desk.

Come on, dork. You can't just put that in an email and then *not* tell us. Freak.

Thanks, guys.

But then when I told them I was going to an heirloom seed expo, the looks went from anticipated awe to confusion and not a few raised eyebrows.

Apparently I'm the only one around here growing things from seed. Or interested in food not created in a test tube. Or keeping bees. Or not buying plastic wrapped tomatoes at Costco. Or hungry for a really good grilled cheese sando with local Gruyere, heirloom tomatoes and a mixed green salad with freshly pressed Gravenstein apple juice on the side.

I could eat this again right now. Like, five times.


WEIRD I KNOW.

But whatever. These are the same people who ooh and ahhh satisfyingly when I bring tomatoes into the office, so I forgive them for their name-calling. I mean, I barely ever punch any of them.

Though I have punched at least one of them.

But she deserved it. And, strangely, I'm pretty sure she liked it.

Who's the freak now?

And then...I went to the Heirloom Exposition and took pictures of squash.

People - they don't fuck around with squash at this thing.

We get it. You have a lot of squash.

We get it. Your squash are big.

We get it. Your squash wear hats made of squash.

We get it. Your squash are so plentiful, they don't all fit on the table.

We get it. Your squash look like they have a communicable disease.

We get it. Your squash look adorable in a big metal basket that's probably a plow of some kind.

We get it. Your squash need sunscreen.

We get it. Your squash need a shot of penicillin.

We get it. Your squash could take me in a fight.

Also, won't this make a nice holiday card? I think so.

These grey/blue squash (which  *may* be Hubbards, but I don't really know for sure) are just lovely. And freaky.

You get the picture now, right? LOTS OF SQUASH.

Lots of HUGE squash.

Also known as Biggest Pumpkin EVAR.
Though I'm a fan of giant and plentiful and weird looking and adorable and albino squash (I mean, WHO ISN'T?), I need more in my life.

Specifically, tomatoes.

And, really, this thing was about tomatoes about as much as it was about squash. Though without the pointy tower, which I understand. Can you imagine? Messy. OR - with the right application of olive oil and buffalo mozzarella - delicious. But still messy.

Anyway - there were tomatoes aplenty for my hungry eyes to ogle.

Learned a new thing at the expo - big tomatoes go stem side down.

So that their juicy fatness doesn't smash their pretty asses.

Notice here - lots of buttside up-ness.

Though, who knows which is the butt side on this alien being masquerading as a tomato.

The tomato has a boner. I'm not even going to make any other inappropriate observations here. I can't do everything for you people.

One of so many tables of ONE MILLION TOMATOES. Buttside up.

They even made a little rainbow from the cherry varieties, which is ridiculously cute. Even though I'm sure I'm supposed to make a comment more meaningful than that.

What these guys are trying to say is: We grow a lot of tomatoes.

Tomato boner! Good times.

Wait...is that a pepper? Rip off.

Winner of the Biggest Tomato ribbon. Because it's big. The biggest even.

Probably the prettiest tomato at the show. Though it had not yet been ribboned because some people are assholes and don't do what I say.

*wolf whistle*
So, yeah. When I was done eye-fucking the tomatoes, we went over to the other heirloom things that were not vegetables at all.

Not vegetables! you say? Yeah. Pigs, goats, cows, turkeys, chickens, sheep...all heirloom varieties.

Heirloom hens with heirloom bandannas.

This was, from my recollection, an heirloom Shetland ram

An heirloom egg of some kind though IT'S HARD TO TELL WHEN SOME RUDE KID SHOVES HIS FOOL HEAD IN THERE.
Heirloom sheeps' wool.
And fleeces. Don't forget the fleeces.

Nuzzling heirloom cows of some variety I didn't note. Who DOESN'T love that?
Hello, lovelies. These were purported to be docile and good milk producers. I did not buy one because I want to stay married to Bubba.
Just try and tell me that this isn't the prettiest cow you've ever seen. JUST TRY.

Heirloom buns.
Heirloom monster.

Rumpless chicken. Seriously. It's a thing. A funny, funny thing.

This is the Best. Dog. In. The. World. Around hundreds of chickens and turkeys and no reaction whatsoever. I didn't know dogs like this existed.

Probably my favorite display of the whole thing. Even though the sign next to it said that keeping eggs in a basket is the worst way to store them. I think the irony added to my enjoyment. As did the funktastic handwriting.

Beeb.

 So, yeah - I went to the Heirloom Expo, ate some fabulous all natural and local foods, listened to some farmers talk about the evils of GMOs and Round-up, ogled some cute heirloom piglet buns, tomatoes, squash and bees and then I sat on this pumpkin and pretended I was five.

MOM! Take my picture!
Me - at about 5.
Bubba - at about 5.

Our appreciation for heirlooms goes back a long ways.

11 comments:

  1. OMG I SO want to be you!

    WAY COOL! WAY JEALOUS!

    Look at all that sexy sexy stuff. Admit it - you molested some of them (hence the tomato boners?).

    Those are a lot o really cool pictures.

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  2. Since I'm a stalker and this looks way cool I was trying to figure out where it's at (for next year so I can go!). Is that in Sonoma County?

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  3. Great pictures! Even the x-rated ones! But now I want an heirloom bandana.

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  4. Oh, wait... I am so lame. I thought that thing about heirloom bandanas was a funny finny joke. But it's not? I just found out that regular old bandana print really IS called heirloom bandana. (?!) Who knew? Oh, wait. I guess everyone knew that (except me). Oh, well. It turns out I already have a bunch of heirloom bandanas. Lucky me!

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  5. I wish I could've gone with you!! And I will definitely email you my pictures of carrots--why? Because a few of my carrots looked like Barbie legs with wieners! Woo-hoo! Who doesn't love a hermaphraditic carrot?

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  6. I think you know how I feel about this post - specifically the tomatoes- in awe, shock, and might have slipped a few in my purse and blamed it on my kid. I might need a greenhouse to get er done next year. Looks like so much fun!

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  7. This would never happen here. Pretty, artfully arranged things like this NEVER happen here. But I really, really wish they did. Because holy shit, would we be there IN A SECOND. Instead we just get acres of ugly, boring farm machinery.

    P.S. I don't think those are Hubbard squash. At least, they're not the same shape as any Hubbard I've ever seen. Same color, though. Maybe a relative?

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  8. Oh Yeah. I totally see where this is going. Does your town have any ordinances against having pigs or sheep or goats in your backyard? Hmmmm??????

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  9. I think the blue squash is actually a New Zealand Blue; I got a couple from my winter CSA last year. Which is why I'm not doing the winter CSA again--we were (almost literally) buried in squash and neither one of is a major fan.

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  10. okay, so I was going to be so funny and comment, "That's a lot of fucking heirlooming going on there" because you love the f word. And it would make you giggle.
    Then I saw the pig buns and melted. And the public health dork in me delighted at the penicillin comment. And then the photos of you two squash mounting little ones?
    Well. Damn. I can't be snarky and sarcastic because I just want to feed you and rob your garden of seed.

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  11. and I don't know who Jeph is, but squash boners? HILARIOUS.

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[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.