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