Stephanie Kauffman
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10/4/2021 1 Comment

Ode to a Potato

As a farm girl, I dug potatoes at home by hand. It's a hard job doing 10 acres that way. However, I learned a whole new style after helping my students one afternoon at their colony potato harvest. So I wrote this poem. The potato is important around Portage as we have 2 factories that use the Portage farmers' spuds. So these farmers will understand this, while other people may realize how much more goes on behind the scenes with the groceries they pick up every week!  Happy reading. Here's a few poor photos to go along with it! :0)


Ode to a Potato
Dedicated to the Airport Colony Girls
 
“Pass me the ‘taters,” you pleasantly say
As you sit down for supper at the end of the day.
A fluffy big heap now lands on your plate
You dig in your fork and say, “Oh my, that’s great!
“I love mashed potatoes, I’ll eat them a lot.”
But have ever you thought how it got to your spot?
 
Before you could mash it and eat it with glee
Farmers and helpers worked so hard, you see
It wasn’t just planted, then soared through the air
Thousands of hands were involved in its care.
 
The guys drove the tractors and brought in the spuds
The girls at the shed did climb in their duds
With vests on and gloves they leaped up on top
Looked down the conveyor which never did stop.
 
With three on each side and sometimes with four
(And if they were skinny, you’d get a few more!)
Those girls carefully balanced on a small, narrow ledge
They couldn’t move much or they’d go off the edge.
 
Backwards, they’d land on the ground with a splat
But forwards they might find themselves very flat!
The rollers would squash them and send down the track
Eventually they’d look like a six-foot coat rack.
 
So if they got dizzy and crashed with a thud
They’d be in the midst of the potates and mud.
They ate lots of Gravol to keep themselves straight
So no one would end up with that dreadful fate.
 
Never a moment could they pause for a rest
As they grabbed all the bad ones and left just the best
Eyes like a hawk roving over the spuds
They sorted potatoes and picked out the mud.
 
Their hands quickly flashed and their backs they did bend
Hour upon hour to the shed they did send
Millions of ‘taters to pile every fall
And when it was finished you saw a great wall.
Potatoes were stacked like the pyramids of old
Waiting to ship to a store to be sold.
 
So next time you grab a potato to peel
And use it to make a most wonderful meal
Take time to remember the work that it took
And slowly enjoy that potato you cooked!
 
- Stephanie Kauffman
          Sept 2021
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1 Comment
Margaret Schnurr
10/5/2021 11:55:59 am

I picked the mud out of potatoes when working with Vust Farms but that was many years ago. It was interesting fun. One day a muskrat came along the line with the potatoes! But Harry removed it for me! Bless him.

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    February 26, 2021
    ​

    For a time in life when we supposedly have nothing to do because of Covid restrictions, it's amazing that I have trouble finding time to write here!
    Life in the classroom is exceedingly busy as the students are pushing to make up the beginning days we couldn't be in school. So there are no extra moments there. I still work/volunteer at the local thrift shop regularly and deliver the newspapers. Then any spare time I have, I have been working on book #2. The Girl with Nine Lives has sold well; I still need to get some more sold, but do hope to see book #2 hit the printers sometime this year, if possible. To that extent I have a poll to take. Titles are hard for me. This book starts where the first one left off. Tales of my adventures in teaching in at least six places. So with that in the back of your mind, what would be your favorite title out of the following:
    1. The Teacher with Nine Lives
    2. Lessons Learned Along the Road
    3. What is Going on Here?
    4. Around the World in Many Schools 
    Send me your vote on the best title in your opinion!

    February 12, 2021
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    Where does the time go? It feels like I should be frozen in time. After an extra mild winter, we were nailed with minus 47 wind-chill and -33+ temperatures for a week now! Makes it hard to do anything except get to work, and come home and wrap in a cozy blanket. 
    The blog definitely took 2nd place.
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    January 24, 2021
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    Well, I have managed to get my books! It is an exciting moment when you have a physical visual of fifteen boxes waiting to be loaded into your vehicle full of your books with your name on them! It is also a huge blessing to immediately need to divest yourself of half of them because they have sold to various people and two bookstores. Thanks, Lord! Another blessing is that I'm receiving comments from various buyers that they had trouble putting the book down until they had it finished! I pray the lessons I learned the hard way will be of help and comfort to others who read this.

    January 16, 2021
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    For those of you who have read my book "The Girl with Nine Lives", or are reading it, or are waiting to read it and have wondered what that crazy little kid looked like, I have put two photos here for you. The little girl in the red dress on the horse is 'Stacy', shortly after she was adopted. That is the horse they gave her to help work her leg muscles. The black and white photo is almost two years later. It was taken for the immigration application to get Stacy into Canada. You notice she is smiling here. The doctors hadn't started sticking her with all those horrid needles yet! 
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    January 12, 2021
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    What a week! As a teacher on a Hutterite colony for grade 5-12, life is non-stop from 9:00-3:30. This coming Friday is the end of quarter, so report cards will be due. So that always makes one extra busy.
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    January 5, 2021

    How many of you make New Year's Resolutions? How many of you don't because you know you won't keep them?
    As I look at 2021 and wonder what this year will bring, I've decided to try a couple resolutions. 

    A poet once said, "It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." I feel that can be applied to resolutions too. As I start this year as a new author, I'm scrambling to figure out what I'm doing! This has definitely pulled me out of my comfort zone. I've asked the Lord, "What have I done? Am I stepping off this cliff to float or fly?"

    So my New Year's Resolution is to have a website and put a blog on it. Will this last? It will be interesting to look back in December 2021 to see what has happened here! Tech stuff is NOT my thing. But as a teacher, I always tell my students, "Just try. You never know what might happen." So how can I do less than I preach? I will try this. No guarantees, but I've made a start!  Happy New Year to you all!
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