Click: Granny's Garden
I'm taking a week off from the shop to play housewife for some friends in Oregon (I love playing housewife. It's a good gig. It's somehow more fun when the home isn't your own). Being a city girl, country life is always a bit of a shock. The roosters start crowing at 4 in the morning, and cats are having kittens under the table -- all very far removed from my normal city life.
On the way to town, my friend points out a flock of vultures on the side of the road. When I ask what they're doing, he tells me they're cleaning up the road kill. The girls in the back seat are completely unphased by the sight. They have no problems with the food chain. When I go to make dinner, the younger one wants to know not only what animal I am preparing but also exactly what part of the body am a sloshing around in the marinade. Seeing as I'm the type of girl who normally buys her meat already cut in pieces and neatly wrapped in paper, I was very lucky I was preparing Chinese-Hawaiian "Barbecue" Ribs and could provide her with an answer.
The other day we went to Granny's Garden to check the price on some petunias. The outdoor racks are filled with plants, but there is no shopkeeper in sight. I look around perplexed. "Are they open?" I ask. "It's an honor system," my friend replies, "You just put the money in the box." Ummm, okay. My friend explains that they are several small businesses that use the honor system up here. There are even places where you can go out into the field, pick your own fruit, weigh it, and put the required money in the box. I take a closer look at Granny's payment box and see a small sign tacked above telling the buyer to just pay a little more next time if they're a little short today. Hmmm, I wonder what our shoplifter would think about this
Granny's Garden
On the way to town, my friend points out a flock of vultures on the side of the road. When I ask what they're doing, he tells me they're cleaning up the road kill. The girls in the back seat are completely unphased by the sight. They have no problems with the food chain. When I go to make dinner, the younger one wants to know not only what animal I am preparing but also exactly what part of the body am a sloshing around in the marinade. Seeing as I'm the type of girl who normally buys her meat already cut in pieces and neatly wrapped in paper, I was very lucky I was preparing Chinese-Hawaiian "Barbecue" Ribs and could provide her with an answer.
The other day we went to Granny's Garden to check the price on some petunias. The outdoor racks are filled with plants, but there is no shopkeeper in sight. I look around perplexed. "Are they open?" I ask. "It's an honor system," my friend replies, "You just put the money in the box." Ummm, okay. My friend explains that they are several small businesses that use the honor system up here. There are even places where you can go out into the field, pick your own fruit, weigh it, and put the required money in the box. I take a closer look at Granny's payment box and see a small sign tacked above telling the buyer to just pay a little more next time if they're a little short today. Hmmm, I wonder what our shoplifter would think about this
Granny's Garden
posted by the grocer's daughter at 6:20 PM
1 Comments:
your shoplifter would think "buffet!"
isn't it refreshing to know that there are still parts of the country where the honor system and honesty are still values people hold? i often think that it wouldn't be such a bad thing to curb our "advancing" civilization and return to a simpler way of life. the more we move ahead, the more we leave behind...
Post a Comment
<< Home