Baby Potato Hunt (Oct 15,92)
by James O'Regan
Colleen: We're off now to a field near Kedgwick to find out about the annual NB baby potato hunt. We're talking With Bernard McLeish, baby potato hunter. Hello Bernard?
Bernard: G'dayyyyyy Colleen. How ya makin out?
Colleen: Now Bernard, this is something new to em. I've never heard of a potato hunt.
Bernard: That's baby potato hunt, Colleen.
Colleen: Oh, or a baby potato hunt. I mean what is there to hunt. Are they not simply harvested like, I don't know, carrots or something?
Bernard: Oh Jeeze no, Colleen. Not baby potatos. They're a wild bunch of vegetable, capable of tremendous damage in a field if left to mature.
Colleen: What do you mean, what do they do?
Bernard: Oh chew up the ground something awful, get right at the root systems, and kill worms too - nature's gardners you know.
Colleen: So how does this hunt work, Bernard?
Bernard: Well Colleen, it's some beautiful to watch. First you have to start right early while they're still dozy - so right at sun up. Anytime later, you have give chase - we'll do that in a minute. Wait a minute, Fred, there goes one - git it! [Twack] Good one, son. Anyways, right at dawn, you whip out the tracter 'n' plow and set off up the field. Now the blades're set at just the right angle to pop 'em up into the air. Here's where yer hunting comes in - it's the hunter's job to bat 'em into a large bin that comes up the side of ya. Now 99% of the time, they're killed outright. But, truth to tell, the odd one'll just be stunned.
Colleen: What do you do about those?
Bernard: Well now, Colleen, there's not much you can do. She's some hard tellin a live one from a dead one. Once you've stunned them, they don't move around much. In fact, now don't tell a soul, the odd one'll get skinned alive.
Colleen: Isn't that cruel?
Bernard: Oh no, baby potatoes're famous for not feeling a thing. But still and all, you like to do things right - it's a matter of hunting pride.
Colleen: Now Bernard, I understand there have been discussions in Brussels about a ban on NB potatoes because of this unusual method of harvesting. Environmentalists and, is it the Friends of the European Potato in particular, are upset at your killing methods.
Bernard: Oh jeeze, don't get me started. Them Europeens're great fer killin each other off - I mean these're the people who brought you two world wars, for god's sake... but bop one potato on the head and all hell breaks loose.
Colleen: How will the European problem be resolved?
Bernard: I don't know but if they're so uppity about the environment, let'em clean their own house first. Look, my wife picked up an overpacked chocolate mouse from Switzerland last year - cost an arm and a leg. So she uncrates her and a gust of wind catches the styrofoam packing and takes it away over the hedge. Well thank you very much, we've now got tons of wild eurpoean styrofoam breeding in the lakes and streams around here. It's everywhere. First it's the purple loosestrife, now this.
Colleen: Thanks Bernard, we're out of time. Good luck with this year's hunt. We'll keep an eye out on any European ban.
Bernard: Sure thing Colleen. Good weather!
Colleen: We've been talking with Bernard McLeish, baby potato hunter in Kedgwick.