Most of the time, folks come to Howmars Farm in the spring to get their compost. But this past May, we made a special delivery. My cousin, Deb Cook, had wanted some compost for her raised-beds, but she couldn't drive her husband's truck to pick it up and he was too busy to make the almost 20 mile trek to the farm to get it. That day I happened to have lots of extra hands around in the form of sons and nieces, and a good motivator, Aunt Patty (my sister), so I called cousin Deb to see if she would like some compost delivered. She said come on over.

I loaded the Chevy truck with a yard and a half of compost, threw in some shovels, a fork, and a broom, and we were ready to roll. There were five of us in the truck and there were three in Patty's Jeep. In about half an hour we were at Deb's house in Enosburg. She welcomed the crew, and she showed me where to back the truck up to the raised beds. We went right to work. Luckily, Deb had a wheelbarrow and we made good use of it. The kids loaded the wheelbarrow, Aunt Patty wheeled loads of compost to each of the raised beds, and the younger kids raked the compost out of the wheelbarrow and spread it in each raised bed. By the time we had all the beds done, we had maybe two wheelbarrow loads left over, which we piled on the ground near the garden gate.

Deb was very happy to have a job so well done, and to have seen so many cousins on a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon. As she tucked payment for the compost into my hand, she whispered that there was a little extra so that we could stop and treat the hard working crew to a cremee. We said our good-byes and headed the vehicles home. Much to the delight of the hot, sweaty crew, we did stop at the ice cream shop in Enosburg, The Udder Delight, and got everyone their first cremee of the season. A just reward for a thoughtful deed well done.

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