Mixed clouds and sun this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High 83F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Showers and thunderstorms likely. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 66F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.

It’s a time that can create a certain amount of panic and angst.

And yet, with all the work it commands, it still doesn’t create as much silent panic as the phrase, “Can you help load hogs in the morning?”

That one still gives me the willies.

It’s when my husband walks into the house and announces, “The sweetcorn’s ready.”

While I know all summer long that day is coming, it still seems to come as quite a shock, given the list of things I have planned for my time. I admonish myself for not working it into my schedule — as if I didn’t know all year long that sweetcorn season would come, as would the day we have to spend it putting it all in the freezer.

Sweetcorn is the crowned jewel of the freezer; the kingpin of all the vegetables; one that literally everyone in our family will eat.

It’s the only vegetable to which I would devote so much of my sweat and freezer space. After all, not every garden vegetable becomes part of the conversation between the woman of the house and the people at the locker, talking about how much meat she can bring home and still save enough freezer room for anticipated sweetcorn needs for an entire year.

No one gets out of the job. Family members can run, but they cannot hide. It’s like chicken cleaning day; if someone skips out, they get tarred and feathered with quills from those naked birds. Sweetcorn day dodgers are apt to be pelted with nude cobs as well — a shame which can only be matched by marksman comedian hecklers hiding in the wings with rotten tomatoes.

Rare is it that a person gets a beautiful day to do sweetcorn. Humidity and morning dew can make it a challenge to twist the ears off of the stalk, and can leave t-shirts and blue jeans to look like they’ve just come out of the muddy creek.

There are many sounds on sweetcorn day: squeaks of corn being picked and husked; water boiling in the canner and running in the sink; timers sounding at regular intervals like Mission Control; light-hearted discussion happening between those charged with husking a loader bucket full of corn; and maybe a few swear words due to overly-zealous boiling water.

But once it’s all in the freezer and ‘Mission Control’ has done its duty, corn residue is scrubbed out of pans before it sets in like cement, the first aid strips have been secured, knives are put away, and we silently wait for the freezers to do the rest.

Midwestern sweetcorn tastes especially perfect on sweetcorn day.

My mother was a very busy farmer’s wife, raising seven children and sometimes her eyebrows as she (a city girl) learned how marriage and farm life sometimes collided. She said to me once of her dread of sweetcorn freezing day for such a large family, “I know I shouldn’t have, but some years I prayed for a crop failure.”

When our sons were very young, one of them was missing his front teeth for several years. He learned to gnaw corn off the cob like a champion sidewinder, and did it with rodeo-like precision. Dining on sweetcorn is an experience not to be missed — even for a little kid with no front teeth.

For the short season it is every summer, sweetcorn becomes part of the daily dinner menu. Toothpicks and dental floss are in plentiful supply, since a furry-looking sweetcorn smile can appear to take at least 10 points right off of a person’s IQ upon first glance.

Our foreign exchange daughter from Europe got in on sweetcorn freezing her first day in the United States. I’m not sure what she told her parents on her first phone call home, but I’m pretty sure I could have learned what swear words sounded like in German if my eavesdropping skills had been a little better honed.

A former neighbor of ours told me once (as I was dutifully canning green beans) that the local grocery store had all their canned vegetables on sale. She said (of her unwillingness to do all of that work that summer), “I just stopped by there and got all my canning done.”

Pity for her, really; she probably had more time to help her husband load hogs because of it.

Karen Schwaller brings “Table Talk” to The Land from her home near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net.

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