Of Cabbages and Kale

It was a devastating loss. After hours of lip-biting, painstaking effort, she had been so certain she would win, and yet the blue ribbon for the County Fair Childrens Coloring Contest went to...someone else. (Are the judges blind?? Who ever heard of purple pigs??) More than a decade ago, my young daughter cried for an hour, then resolutely started planning for the next year. She abandoned her crayons and plotted instead to win her coveted prize in a different category - fresh vegetables. The following summer she helped her Daddy check the garden each day, weeding and watering what were sure to be first-place cherry tomatoes. In August she carefully selected her specimens (five red, five yellow) and proudly presented them at the judging table. On a whim, I also had her pick a few other vegetables to enter. (Why not? I have to drive over there anyway...)

Results were announced the next day. With her dad and sister, we rushed to the overflowing table of tomatoes, and there, by Emily's entry, was...nothing. (Not again! Not even fourth or fifth place? Just because one is a little misshapen - that's called individuality!) I gripped her hand as we moved on to the green beans (Who knew so many people would enter beans? How do they get them all exactly the same size?) and the bell peppers (well, even I didn't expect those to win) and just as I was debating whether a funnel cake might cheer her up after another no-ribbon year, I remembered the cabbage. It was a lopsided, scrawny globe with more than a few worm holes - maybe I should just turn the tag over so nobody would see her name - and that's when I heard her shriek.

"Mommy, I won!! My red cabbage won the blue ribbon! Look! Look! Look!"

That can't be - the blue ribbon must be for one of the other...oh. Then I understood. Nestled among several plump acorn squash and yellow zucchini, hers was the only red cabbage entered. I refrained from mentioning this, snapping half a dozen photos of my beaming daughter clutching her ribbon (I made sure to keep the pathetic cabbage out of the picture!) That was twelve years ago, and in memory of that wondrous moment we have grown red cabbage for the fair every year since then. This year my husband expanded the cabbage row to about thirty plants, just to make sure there was at least one flawless specimen. (You never know - someone else might enter!) Now the fair is done, another blue ribbon is in the drawer...and who on earth is going to eat all that cabbage?

Add to this abundance her sister Megan's new favorite vegetable - kale. Here's what I know about kale - chock full of nutritional value, tasty in soups...and a few seeds produce enough kale for the next ten years. Again, I've had it sauteed, fricasseed, pureed and in the freezer; I've given it away to all my friends - yet it still keeps growing! Help! The rest of the garden is by now just wilted plants and withered stalks, but my prizewinning produce just won't quit.

Enter - the goats. That's right. Here are two animals with absolutely no useful purpose, and two rows of vegetables I can't bear to pick anymore - it's a match made in heaven. Every evening I fling open their gate and yell, "Go to the garden!" and they're off like a flash. I always knew there was a reason we had goats!