Endless picking

Out of all the farm works, picking can easily be the most gratifying and the most monotonous job. Since June, we have begun picking quite a variety of produce from their viney or bushy plants: sugar snap peas, shelling peas, raspberries, blueberries, different kinds of tomatoes, fava beans, cucumber...... By virtue of the large and intensive production per plants, peas and raspberries (blueberries too, but we only have a few bushes of blueberries) requires the most frequent and rigorous picking. When the production of these produce peaked, picking could seem endless. Sometimes it felt as if these peas or berries were ripening by the hour. After I spent 2 hours going through a row of plants, I would come back to where I was and found a bunch of what seemed to be newly ripen ones! One slightly dangerous aspect of picking peas or berries is that these little babies are so sweet and irresistible that I just can't stop popping them in my mouth as I pick them! (one for the bucket, one for me, one for the bucket, one for me.....) Half way into the the picking session I often found myself consumed by this mechanical, compulsive snacking habit although I was already very full. And never underestimate how incredibly full berries alone can make you feel!
Luckily, I managed to entertain myself to survive the endless picking. I was introduced by my friend Ginger to this podcast called "stuff you should know" by two intelligent, witty, slightly nerdy guys called Josh and Chuck in May, so I downloaded tons of the episodes at once and listened to them as I picked all the peas in June.
If you ever get stuck doing mindless, repetitive jobs and your work environment is i-pod friendly, I will not hesitate to suggest listening to these guys for entertainment and random, quirky trivialities such as: "Do toads cause warts?" "Bizarre ways to die", "How alien hand syndrome works?" "How Agent orange works?" etc.
There was an episode about "Is it better to eat local or organic" which is quite relevant to the issue of sustainably farming, so if you want to know more about the debate between eating local and eating organic organic explained in a witty fashion, check it: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/stuff-you-should-know-podcast.htm

oh! and one of my favorite episode is: "Bizarre ways to die"