THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 8, 1995 TAG: 9505080043
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Strawberries are in!
Much of the strawberry crop hereabouts survived a recent downpour that broke a dry spell, although in some areas of Virginia Beach hailstones inflicted damage.
Into each life some rain must fall, yes; but hailstones? Consider the farmer in Southwest Virginia who was found by a friend as he stared glumly at a field of corn that had been battered by hailstones.
The friend joined him and, after a spell, said: ``Look at it this way. It's the Lord's handiwork.''
``Yes,'' said the farmer, ``and take him up one side and down the other. He can do you about as much harm as he can good.''
That is almost a definition of farming. I can't think of any other occupation, offhand, that is subject to as many damnable variables.
A day on the farm is like a day at the tables in Las Vegas, throwing the dice against heavy odds.
In Virginia Beach, the City Council is expected to improve soon the odds for the farmer by approving funding for the $90 million Agricultural Reserve Program.
The plan aims to preserve thousands of acres of farmland in the city's southern half by paying landowners not to develop.
As outlined Sunday by reporter Karen Weintraub, the voluntary plan would pay farmers for some of the difference between their land's value for farming and its value for development.
Its intent is similar to a plan in Long Island that preserves farms that feed teeming New York City. Had one been in effect in the mid-1960s in Virginia Beach, Mennonite farmers would not have had to flee to Georgia to escape soaring taxes.
I still resent the loss of those sturdy citizens.
Hailstones are just one more hazard. Even those no larger than mothballs can make life miserable to a farmer. Usually, over the years the stones grow in the telling to rival golf balls.
Farmer John Williams was telling me Sunday about a storm of yore that brought hailstones as big as golf balls bounding 10 feet in the air as they hit the ground. He pulled under a tree to protect his car from the pelting.
His son Johnny clamored to get out and catch some. ``He opened the car door and jumped out, but he was even quicker getting back in,'' said Big John.
Storms in Texas last week brought some hailstones big as softballs, it was reported.
Had one of our photographers been there, he or she would have posed a softball-sized hailstone by a golf ball.
In a quart of strawberries picked off Newtown Road, two-thirds were big as golf balls and quite sweet.
I ate one or two, just to sample them so as to advise you and then three or four more and before long, such is my dedication to accurate consumer surveys, most of the berries were gone.
All for you, dear reader. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by TAMARA VONINSKI/
If these Williams farm samples in Virginia Beach could only fall
from the sky, a berry lover would pray for a flood.
by CNB