Wednesday Wisdom - The Difference Between Cherry Tomatoes and Snow Peas

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHERRY TOMATOES AND SNOW PEAS

"I have been finding treasures in places I did not want to search. I have been finding beauty where I did not want to look. And I have learned so much from journeys I did not want to take."  

Suzy Kassem    

  

 

Here it is the middle of February and I'm still harvesting from my fall garden and thinking about the upcoming spring planting season. Two of my most prolific crops this time around, cherry tomatoes and snow peas, present different harvesting challenges.

Picking cherry tomatoes is easy: when they turn red, you pluck them right off the vine. They're not at all hard to find. The only difficulty is resisting the urge to pop them into your mouth right there in the garden. If you succeed, you come home with a sweet little pile of treasure.

Picking the wily snow pea, on the other hand, is a different challenge. They are masters of disguise. They secrete themselves among the leaves in perfect camouflage. When you think you've picked them all, you can come back a minute later and pick just as many. Then you return a third, a fourth, even a fifth time and find still more. How do they hide so well?

Some of life's lessons and opportunities are like cherry tomatoes and some are like snow peas. Some are easy to spot when they're ripe for the picking; they're sweet and tasty. Others, however, are less obvious. You have to search for them, and sometimes they're hiding in plain sight. They conceal themselves among all the "stuff" of life. You think you've uncovered them all and then you come back and discover more.

I love both, but I must say that it's more gratifying to successfully harvest snow peas than cherry tomatoes. That which is too easily earned or learned is not as greatly appreciated.

Now I'm wondering - was that a snow-pea or cherry-tomato lesson I just shared?