Stroke Survivor Travel: An agricultural adventure

Husband Walter, left, my personal pea picker

Mid-June I was able to check off an item on my local travel wish list—going to a you-pick-it farm.

Welcome to Charlie’s. (Photo: Walter Skupien)

I really hadn’t given the excursion much thought about what planning and adapting might be necessary for a stroke survivor to participate. That is not unusual for me. Until I actually experience something post-stroke that I used to do without a problem, I tend to forget that my capabilities are a whole lot different now.

At this stage in my recovery, I am always at risk for falls, but I soon realized that the challenges of keeping my balance in the you-pick environment left me feeling more at risk than usual.

This trip to Charlie’s U-Pik turned out to be “Y’all pick while I sit on a cooler.”

I accomplished some shots from a standing or stooping-over position, but most were from my perch on our trusty Coleman cooler.

I spent my time taking photos (Photo: Walter Skupien) of . . .

Field pea blossom . . .

Okra bloom . . .

The center of an okra blossom close up . . .

Tomatoes and friends.

Randy and Lila were our partners in grime. Randy had done the footwork about the Charlie’s U-Pik opportunity.

All four of us have ventured into backyard vegetable gardening the last few years, and we were in awe of the acres of lush plants and all the veggies. There were even rows of sunflowers.

You could fill as many 5-gallon buckets as you had brought with you at a cost of $10 per filled bucket. And you could fill them with whatever you chose to pick.

As we headed home our amazement at the 100-acres of summer vegetables turned to speculation about whether commercial fertilizers and pesticides figured prominently in the farm’s operations. 

My goal for our own backyard garden plot is not to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Husband Walter has cooperated by composting plant material from kitchen and yard. But he is also applying Miracle-Gro. No complaints here, though. He is doing most of the work since my stroke.

Pea-picking results

My dear husband had filled one bucket nearly to the top with purple hull peas then threw in some okra and zucchini. He also shelled the peas, cut up the okra and put it in the freezer.

Two days after our excursion we feasted on some of those purple hull peas accompanied by fresh cherry tomatoes from our tiny garden. That was the first time I have enjoyed those fresh-from-the-garden country peas in several years.

Thank you, Hubby! 

He posted his Charlie’s U-Pik account and photos here.