Status Update and Harvest Boxes Song

I spent almost exactly two hours in the Friday Market, shivering in the wind and earning $10 while most shoppers didn't even venture out of their cars. They drove through the open-air market with their windows up and their heaters blasting. Right about the two-hours mark, someone who was not bundled up in four layers of blanket-weight yarn got out of a truck to trade with the Vegetable Man. Before he'd loaded the food into the truck this customer was not merely shivering but shaking. Meanwhile two other vendors and I had each had a turn to chase down each other's plastic bags and bin lids as the wind blew them away, and the customer asked me if I wanted a lift home in the truck before I froze solid. I decided a lift to the cafe might be a good idea, so here I am.

$10 + that $5 for the Lady Day post, plus another $20, this week. $4 last week. If your income so far this month has exceeded $39, you need to support this web site. You do that by hiring me through any of the writing sites listed in the "Greeting" post; Guru is by far the most efficient (at least from my end), but that site prefers a minimum payment of $25; if you can only afford $5, let me know on which day you and I will be online at the same time and I'll reactivate Fiverr for that day, since Fiverr has started keeping accounts active for a day at a time. If you want to risk $10 plus the site fee on Freelancer just to take away their excuse for not paying me money they've owed me since 2016, please do. Alternatively, if the new Paypal buttons work for you, you can use them to buy a book or just support this site generally. Or just send a postal money order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, VA 24251-0322, which is by far the safest option; you can wrap around the money order a note about what you'd like to buy, commission, or see more of.

Phenology, for the readers who like that: Last night's freeze leaves some plants nipped in the bud, some in the flower, and my neighbors' forsythia just half-bloomed, which may be as much as they'll get this year. My forsythia, higher up the mountain, remains in the bud. In town, most forsythia bushes, several Prunus species, and a few clumps of tulips, were already in full bloom and had peaked before the freeze. This is not a new thing in the Blue Ridge Mountains--in fact it happens to some plants more often than not--so it's not evidence of climate change, only of sub-optimal prospects for fruit harvests in the genus Prunus, which is sort of normal. My parents never expected to make much money from the orchard.

Anyway, I'm hearing what may be native sparrows singing, another vendor in the market saw the red-tailed hawk who lives near Route 23 on the way in to market, and everyone who was watching saw the great blue heron flying around the creek...and I finally finished that "Harvest Boxes" song. I don't know how many readers know the tune called "Staten Island Hornpipe," which is usually played at reel pace these days; it's a delightful old fast tune that offers lots of possibilities for adding emotional expression to the words "Harvest Boxes" in the refrain...

I learned the "Staten Island Hornpipe" from John McCutcheon, who used to live in Gate City, and I'm tagging him in case he or fellow fans want to perform this song.

About forty or fifty years ago
The food packers put on quite a show,
Scraping up the scraps from off of the floor
And packing them up as gifts to the poor.

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the dog won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

The sides of the boxes and cans used to say
"Product of the U.S.D.A.,"
Because Dole and Del Monte used to beseech,
"Don't put our brand on that nasty peach!"

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the cat won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

You might think I'm trying to pull your leg,
But they used to send poor people powdered egg!
You could beat it in to make some batter thick;
If you tried to fry or boil it'd make you sick.

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the goat won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

Down around the depot, people stood all day
Trying to give that nasty food away.
Poor people opened each box and sack
Saying "Keep that bad stuff! Send it back!"

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the pig won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

So the workers took home that surplus food,
And they found that it was not very good.
Said, "Please Mr. President, make a way for
Folks to buy normal food from a normal store."

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the chickens won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

Mr. Nixon agreed that that would be fair.
Food Stamps were the answer to the people's prayer,
And by way of answer to the people's thanks,
That old reject food went to new "Food Banks."

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the rats won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

So I really thought it had to be a joke
When I heard a proposal to send poor folk,
Instead of Food Stamps for the month, week or day,
What the Food Banks are having to throw away.

And they think, if they give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!--
People might not notice it's the same old game:
If the possum won't eat it, send it to the poor! 

Food packers want to get that stuff off the shelf;
Say, packer, why don't you just eat it, yourself?
Let the welfare class choose what they want to eat
And the working class show them how to make ends meet!

'Steada thinking you can give it a brand-new name--
HARVEST BOXES!
'Cos the people can tell it's just the same old game:
If the roaches won't eat it, send it to the poor! 



(Let the greedheads eat cake wrecks.)