Peas on Earth

I have picked a lot of peas in the past two days; consequently, I’ve had a lot of time in the hot sun to think. In keeping with my nascent yoga practice, I was trying to be fully present in what I was doing. So, I had a lot of time, in the sun, thinking about picking peas. I learned some lessons about picking peas that might even be relevant to other things. I’ll leave that up to you to decide. (Remember, I was in the hot sun.)

Sometimes the thickest tangle conceals the most rewards. The trick is to
be willing to pull apart the vines to see the fruit.

Make time to
put up the trellis. Having your supports in place before you need them
makes the job much easier later on.

Use as many of your senses as
possible. Sight, touch and even hearing help to find the pod that is
ready.

Take time to reward yourself. A few pea pods, fresh
off the vine help to remind me that a difficult job is
worthwhile.

It’s always helpful to look at things from a different
angle. No matter how thorough I think I’ve been, when I look at the same plant
from a different place I’m almost always rewarded with a few more pods.

A corollary to the rule above: Someone else will always see
peas you missed. It never hurts to get a second opinion.

Know when to say when. Walking back through the row, there are always peas that were missed. It’s important to know when to call a seemingly endless job done enough for today!