Marshmallow Harvest Is A Family Tradition

Marshmallow harvest is a family tradition AG WORLD Ag World 15-3-17 A mysterious crop shows up every October on the Frisch farm near Altura, Wis., when Richard and Phyllis Frisch load their kids onto a hay wagon and head out into the woods to harvest the "marshmallow crop". Frisch children have been harvesting the mysterious crop for about a decade. Three generations of the family gathered again last fall for the "harvest". As they drove out to find the crop, Phyllis assured the children sitting on bales on the wagon that it had been a good year for marshmallows. As the tractor and wagon rumbled into a field along-side a field of standing corn, they discovered, to their delight, marshmallows hanging high and low on several trees. Chidren scramble off wagon with a bag in hand to collect as many marshmallows as they can. The unusual family tradition got started during a wood-cutting outing 10 years ago. The youngest children were getting restless so marshmallows were scattered in the weeds as a distraction. The next year they wanted to go out and gather marshamallows again. While children gather the crop, adults do their part to reinforce the legend by bantering back and forth about price supports, deficiency payments for the crop, special cultivation practices, and so on. Not all harvests are as bountiful as last fall's. One year it got sloppy because they had to pick them in the snow. And during a "drought" year, theFrisches used miniature marshallows.

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