The LuLac Edition #4,580, September 8th, 2021

 WRITE ON WEDNESDAY 

Our "Write On Wednesday" logo. 

This week’s Write On Wednesday is a shout out from The Times Leader regarding our local farmers. The paper interviewed the farm owners and wortkers who are the mainstays of the Wilkes-Barre Farmer’s Market. The piece gives us all insight into the hard work done by these fine people.

OUR VIEW: REMEMBER THE HARD WORK THAT GOES INTO YOUR FOOD

The vast majority of us take it for granted. Walk in the grocery store and the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables greets you every time, not to mention all the frozen and canned items. Options seem almost unlimited, so clearly the system creating all of it works. Let’s eat!

But of course it doesn’t just appear on the shelves overnight, the miracle of magical elves. It grows on farms, tended by farmers, who for all the technology at our disposal still face fickle weather and real disaster at a moment’s notice.

Larry O’Malia, a consistent fixture at the Wilkes-Barre Farmer’s Market each Thursday, reminded us of that in a story Friday by staff writer Mary Therese Biebel. Regular readers know Biebel attends the market religiously, supporting our hardworking local produce providers. You may not know it, but she also spreads her purchases around, trying to support all who haul their healthy goods to the Diamond City’s center.

Like all the farmers and their help at the market, O’Malia usually sports a smile and a warm welcome, ready to offer recommendations if you pause too long to ponder options. These are people who clearly take pride in what they do, and in what they offer, even after (or maybe because of) a hard week and long hours harvesting what you can buy, sometimes so fresh it was plucked that morning.

Yet Biebel described O’Malia this time as “tired and almost teary eyed,” and his reasons were a stark reminder of how much of the job remains out of a farmer’s ultimate control.

“We dodged a bullet,” O’Malia said. “We could have lost the farm.”

Most people use that phrase as cliche for something ominous but abstract. This was very literal, though at least this time he meant the produce of the farm, rather than the farm itself, but since the sale of the produce is integral to keeping the land, losing crops enough times can lead to losing the literal farm.

O’Malia was referring to predictions that the Susquehanna River would crest, amid all the recent rain, above the 22-foot flood stage, a catastrophe that would have flooded his river-side fields and ruined, if not outright robbed, his crops.

He and his helpers scrambled to harvest as much as they could. As the story recounted, “Loriann (his sister) put it out on Facebook. We asked for prayers,” he said, adding the family is grateful to the many friends who heeded that call.

“The prayers helped,” he said, believing he saw the result of “all that positive energy” when the projected forecast changed to a river crest of 14.1 feet.Disaster averted.

Biebel quoted another riverside farmer, Harold Golomb, who said the forecast about a flood was so sudden “Our jaws dropped.” When the forecast changed so did the mood. “We’re just so relieved,” Golomb said. “We want to be here (at the farmers market) up to Thanksgiving.”

We leave you with the crux, both of that story and this editorial, quoting Biebel one more time to remind us all of how priceless farmers are.

People who work inside offices might not pay attention to sun and wind and storms, or they might think for a moment about how the forces of nature will affect their weekend plans. But farmers’ work demands they constantly be aware of the weather, and the way it affects their livelihood and the food supply.

When O’Malia says “We have to save for a rainy day,” it’s not a figure of speech.