When I was a teenager, farm chores were nothing but a terror. The one I hated worse than any other was picking butterbeans. At that time, my father was planting the field he had on top of the hill. It was a very large field, numerous acres, where he had planted young pecan trees. After the planting of the trees, he plowed and tilled all around them in hopes of keeping the fields clean so we could see to pick up the nuts when they fell. Dad experimented with numerous different crops on the hill – corn for many years and then watermelons and peas. But for 2 or 3 years it was butterbeans. For clarification, in the south we call them butterbeans, but many other places call them baby lima beans. Butterbeans grow like many other legumes on a small, low bush which produces lots of pods holding the beans. They are not remarkable in any way to see. Just a little bush with green heart shaped leaves and tiny little white blooms. Very inconspicuous for something I thought of as a dastardly curse. In my opinion, butterbeans are extremely difficult to pick. The little plants get covered with pods, but you aren’t supposed to pick them until they get fat. This requires that you feel every pod on the bush – a bush that is only about a foot tall. So you have to squat down, feel every little pod on the plant then waddle to the next. The picking is back breaking as you are hunched over the whole time and tedious because you have to feel every pod. This was bad enough on normal rows – daddy never planted normal rows. The rows on top of the hill were miles long. By the time you got done picking a row, the beans had grown so much you had to start over at the beginning again. I hated, absolutely hated to pick butterbeans. My sister, Susan, never seemed to mind picking them as much as I did. It took me a while but I finally caught on to why this was so.
With teenagers, everything at our house was all about negotiations. The deal we had with dad on picking butterbeans was we had to pick until our basket, that would be a half bushel basket, was full and then we could stop for the day. We would mark our spot on the row and pick-up where we left off the next evening. Butterbean picking was something we did every night for two or three weeks each summer. I found it odd that my sister never seemed to cover as much distance on the row as I did, but would finish filling her basket first. Finally came the day when I figured out why that was the case. Susan was a butterbean thief. She would work so she was picking right behind me and when I wasn’t looking, snatch a handful of beans from my basket. Not a lot, but a few here and there so as not to be too conspicuous. The truth was out – my sister was a butterbean thief!!! Although at the time we came near to blows, I learned my lesson. From then on, I made sure I picked several rows away from my sister. At least from then on, we picked together and finished about the same time. Another lesson learned on the farm…..
