planting peas

On St. Patrick's Day, my father would plant peas. Together, in that brief period when I was interested before adolescence turned me decidedly in other directions, we would turn over the winter garden with a pitchfork. Startled worms would wriggle away, as robins watched with interest from the nearby hemlocks, biding their time. We broke up the clods of the rich Connecticut soil, and then raked an even surface. With a corner of the rake, he would carve a furrow along the side of the bed, and we would drop the pea seeds evenly down the row.
I don't remember harvesting or eating the peas; I don't recall if my father stopped planting once I drifted away. I do know that, by the time I married Bill, that vegetable garden had returned to grass. Since I've married, every year I begin to peer at our vegetable plot in February with rising eagerness. Bill and I turn it over with our pitchfork and shovel as soon as the earth thaws, enriching it with the winter's compost, waiting for the date. I push the calendar, adjusting for climate change and 300 more southerly miles, and get them in by the second week of March. We harvest and eat every single pea.