When the Carrots Are Ready?

It was #summer, and Chelsea was helping her #grandfather in the garden. “Grandpa, I picked all the tomatoes,” she sang.

“Great!” Grandpa said.

“Grandpa, I picked all the #cucumbers!”

“Wonderful.” Grandpa smiled.

Chelsea went up and down rows, picking the vegetables they had planted that spring. “Grandpa, I can’t find the carrots.”

Grandpa chuckled and pointed to some green stems nearby. “Remember, carrots grow underground.”

“Then how do you know when they’re ready?”

“Can you keep a secret?” Grandpa asked.

Chelsea nodded.

“Then follow me.”

They walked through the garden, ambled down a hill, tiptoed into the woods, and hid behind a tree.

Grandpa pointed toward the clearing. “What do you see?”

“I see grass, a big rock, sticks. . . .”

“Anything else?”

“No,” Chelsea answered.

“Then the carrots aren’t ready.”

“How can you tell, Grandpa? We’re not even in your garden anymore.”

“You’ll know my secret soon enough.”

A week later, Chelsea decided to peek at what was growing beneath the carrot greens. She wiggled the plants to see.

“The carrots are ready!” she shouted.

Grandpa came running. “Cover those orange tops!” He laughed. “You don’t want them to get green shoulders, do you?”

“Green shoulders?”

“If you show the tops of our carrots to the sun, they’ll turn green. #Green shoulders.”

“But Grandpa, I want to see if the carrots are ready.”

“Then follow me,” he said.

Again, they walked through the garden, ambled down a hill, tiptoed into the woods, and hid behind a tree.

“Grandpa?”

“Ssshhh,” he said gently. “What do you hear?”

“Birds . . . crickets . . . squirrels . . .”

“Anything else?”

Chelsea listened as hard as she could. “No,” she said.

“Then the carrots aren’t ready.”

“How can you tell?”

Grandpa just smiled, and they strolled back to the house.

Another week went by. Chelsea wanted to know when those carrots would be ready. So she grasped the leafy carrot greens and pulled.

“They’re not ready,” Chelsea sighed.

“How can you tell?” Grandpa asked.

Chelsea pointed to the greens in her hand. Hanging from them were tiny orange stubs. “No carrots.”

Grandpa stared at them. “There is only one good way to tell if they’re ready!”

This time they sprinted through the garden, flew down the hill, dodged into the woods, and ran behind the tree.

“What do you see?” #Grandpa said.

“I see rabbits!”

“And what do you hear?”

“I hear crunching!” Chelsea exclaimed.

“Yes! The rabbits are crunching on the carrots!” Grandpa cried. “That’s how we know the carrots are ready!”

They raced back to the garden and pulled the rest of the carrots from the ground. “They didn’t get ’em all this year!” Grandpa cheered.

“They didn’t get ’em all this year!” Chelsea echoed, raising a carrot overhead like a trophy. Then she said, “Grandpa, how do you know when the onions are ready?”

Grandpa just laughed
.