My two-year old, August, weighs 42.5 pouches of cornmeal, which is 16 bags of medium to large beets. His older brother, Levon, is heftier: 60 portions of borlotti beans, or 9 bags of bosc pears. I did not know my sons' weights in UOFU (Unearthed Organics Foodstuff Units) until very recently, when I started to entertain the idea of offering home delivery by bicycle in Kelowna. Not having shipped my produce by bike in any serious way before, I was trying to get a sense of whether it was physically possible. Physically, in the sense of: can my bike and trailer handle the load? But also: can my soft dad body? So I started converting my kids, both of whom I pedal around Kelowna often, into veggie portions.
I haven't mentioned that I would only consider delivering produce in this very hilly city on an ebike. And I own an e-bike! Or at least, I own a bike built to hold a battery that converts stored chemical energy to kinetic mechanical energy in order to make pedaling easier. The problem is that it wasn't built well, so that for most of the three years I've owned it, I've chosen to leave the battery off the bike, rather than carry all ten pounds of it with me in order for it to briefly convert stored chemical energy to kinetic mechanical energy to make pedaling easier, then stop doing that, causing a sudden release of another type of kinetic mechanical energy. From my mouth, as expletives in disguise as less-offensive expletives in order to lead a better example for the cornmeal on the front seat and the borlotti beans in back.
Above: about .75 toddlers’ worth of Winter radish, one of the last veggies we harvested to store and sell over the next few months. You can check out the store by clicking the photo.
Two weeks ago, though: a breakthrough! I developed a hunch, and some Google-Sleuthing revealed my problem to be dirty battery terminals. I washed them, and all of my rides since then have been swear-free. And so, for the first time since I bought the bike, I can consider using it to deliver premium organic produce to your door at...prices. So that's what I'm going to try! On Wednesday I'm going to try that. Maybe I'll see you on my route! Or at my farm…home delivery is this Wednesday (order by Monday night) and farm pickup at 2424 Mayer Road is on Saturday (order by Thursday night)
Corn husks. You should try our cornmeal. It’s so tasty.