Cabbage Harvest Time

We have measured the passing of our year in Strasbourg by the produce at the farmers markets. When you see asparagus and peas and spinach, it is the spring time. When you see the green beans and the cherries and gladiolus it is the early summer. When you see the tomatos and corn, it is late summer. Apples and plums foretell of fall. Squash and pumkins and potatos mean that winter is coming.

Our year is almost over. Time has flown.

They are even harvesting the cabbage in the big fields out by Molsheim and Krautergersheim. Krautergersheim, after all, is German for the village of the sauerkraut makers. (The opening picture is the sign on the autoroute, just to prove there is really such a village. The picture below, also taken from a moving car, is of the cabbage fields.)
When they drive the harvester through the cabbage fields, the heads fly through the air like popcorn popping. The harvesters leave the roots and the big, base leaves in the fields to rot. So, from Strasbourg to Molsheim the smell is of rotting cabbage. This is the smell of Alsace when November is approaching.