Asparagus Festival
Shelby, MI June 13, 2009
We traveled up a couple of hours to an asparagus festival. There's some festival to choose from every weekend up here in Michigan! Well, Mark has been on an asparagus kick, so he really wanted to go to this one. (Hard to believed that he HATED asparagus before this year!) I'm glad that we went, it was really fascinating seeing how asparagus is farmed.
The kids all tried it right out of the field. Malachi tolerated it, but the other 3 loved it! It is so yummy when fresh!
This is a field of asparagus! Looks pretty dead from the road! We were amazed! Now we know....
The workers missed this fat guy! Did you know that an asparagus can grow 7 inches in one day?! They need lots of water and lots of sunshine.
We got to see one of the picker vehicles up close, the girls are sitting on it.
Here are some of the migrant workers pausing for the owner to talk about. He didn't delay them too long though since their time is literally their money!
There are bars for them to put their feet up in and they just snap as the driver slowly goes through the field. If they miss one, they don't stop for it. Hence the big fat ones every once in a while.
In town, there was an asparagus recipe cooking contest in which we got to try samples and vote. That was cool. One of the outside vendors sold deep fried asparagus too! But really, we like it best just sauteed in a little butter and salt. So, Mark will continue to bring me home bouquets of asparagus instead of flowers, and that's okay.