Peas to shell? Oh, peas to shell. Yeah! Gimme three boxes! Shelling peas is one of my fave things to do and there’s such a very short window in which I can get them. Sugar peas are available a bit before shelling peas and some people apparently get excited about them. I am not a fan. I mean they taste just fine but the pods can be kind of stringy. There were shelling peas yesterday and they are GORGEOUS. Great big peas all of them and sooooo sweeeeeeet.

I jumped around topping up Ninja’s tank and getting some grokkeries before Sunday Morning Jazz came on. Then I cooked up some tomato-based sauces to freeze to take up to the moomincabin for the summer. Two lasagne/pasta sauces and one enchilada. After all that, I got set up in the back yard to shell my peas. ‘hicken and Pekak guarded my operation during a powder room break.

If I am lucky, I will be able to buy one more load of shelling peas next Saturday. They may still be available another week or so but by the time I have a chance to get back to the farmers market, we’ll be swinging away from spring crops and into corn season. I’m sure I would quickly tire of shelling peas if my life depended upon doing it as a regular chore but as a couple-times-a-year activity in a beautiful green (a bit overgrown at the moment) backyard on The Garden Planet Ann Arbor, I savor it.

How Pekak got his name: Many years ago the younger beach urchin went to morning kindergarten at the elementary school behind the woods behind the Landfill backyard. I probably walked her to school most days but maybe she walked with her 3rd grade sister. I can’t really remember. It is safe for young children to walk to the school from my house. There are no streets to cross AT ALL and she certainly knew how to get there, having been there a gazillion times with me or the GG to “help” in her sister’s classrooms or play on the playground equipment.

She *usually* walked home alone for lunch unless I had a reason to be over there and was waiting outside her classroom. But one day she was pretty far overdue. I finally schlepped over to the school and found her sitting at a desk in the hall outside the classroom, busily writing a story about a pekak. I could tell that her young teacher was torn between sending a quiet little student off (teachers need LUNCH!) and not wanting to interrupt a burst of creativity. I knew how intelligent this child was but was not always sure the school got it so I think the teacher and I were both interested. I took my child home saying she could finish the story there. Many years later, she found Pekak down at Downtown Home and Garden. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t remember the pekak story.

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