“Dad, who are all these green beans really for?” I asked him curious.

He was down on his knees in the dark dirt, retying a heavy tomato vine that had fallen over during a thunderstorm.

He did not look up from his careful work.

“People,” he said simply.

That was the entirety of his answer.

I waited patiently for him to elaborate, but he said nothing more.

He just kept tying the vine with a strip of torn bedsheet, his big weathered fingers moving with steady precision.

I reasoned back then that he was probably giving them away to friendly neighbors, taking them to Sunday church services, or perhaps letting the excess rot in the field.