Corn. That’s what happening around here. The Boss has been waiting for this all year. He’s been carefully planning since browsing the seed catalog in February. Three hundred seeds. Three hundred opportunities for bi-colored deliciousness. You know corn season is getting close when the Boss busts out the electric fencer. It is now plugged in each evening to protect the the Crown Jewels (unless the electricity goes off god forbid). And here we go!

Here’s the corn math: 300

The Boss is always aiming for the illustrious 300-ear-year — a hefty goal. That would require every seed to produce at least one ear of corn. First planting: 100 seeds. Second planting: 200 seeds. Staggered plantings with the hope that as soon as the first planting is finished, he’ll seamlessly move on to the second planting without missing a day of corn.

After about 10 days of corn consumption, the first planting is pretty near done at 60ish ears. So the opportunity of a 300 ear year is not looking promising. He’s not losing hope yet. Not every stalk produces an ear. Some stalks do yield two ears. But those are usually wonky second string ears. We are just starting on the second planting. So, we shall see . . . will we have the legend of the 300 ear year? And, how will two people consume all that corn? We can’t. Some gets frozen and some gets handed out to a few lucky friends.

Corn math: 2

Much like his gardening, the Boss is very particular about his corn consumption process. Most particularly, the corn cannot be picked until the water is put on to boil. The corn is then picked (by the Boss and only by the boss), cleaned, and put directly into a pot of boiling water where is sits for exactly 2 minutes before it is plucked from the pot and set on the plate. A few passes with the butterboy, a sprinkle of salt, and the sweet and salty kernels are bursting in my teeth. The challenge is waiting long enough to not burn the shit out of my mouth.

The butterboy has been happily taking it up the butt for us every corn season for many years (we take off his head and it comes out his neck). He’s a handy little guy to have around when it’s time to consume copious amounts of corn.

Corn math: 10

Corn season is IT for the Boss. Corn is the whole reason he gardens. Well, corn and tomatoes. And right now he’s too busy consuming corn to keep up with those beautiful brandywine tomatoes sitting on the counter. His consumption is down a bit from a decade ago when a dozen a day was the average. Now it’s more like eight. That’s still a lot of corn. I chip in at about two ears per day. More than that and I start to question my digestion.

The bonus for me in corn season is that I don’t have to cook. At least not for him. He does all the cooking. Which means I don’t have to plan dinner. The plan is always corn. Because, as almost every adult knows, the hardest part of cooking dinner is coming up with a plan.

The Boss counts every ear he harvests. He marks it on the calendar. That’s how I know the numbers.