Gardens of delight

We have been without internet for the past week. I am amazed how much I rely on it for a plethora of things. Sadly, the internet will be the demise of the profession I love -- journalism. It was Woodward and Bernstein and their Watergate investigation that sent me to college in 1974 to become a reporter -- much to my father's chagrin. The media was much too liberal for him. But times they are a changing. Advertising dollars are disappearing  -- why buy a print ad when you can generally find what you need on the internet? Revenue is gone and newsroom are shrinking. Reporters are expected to do more with less at a pay that is less than that of a first year teacher's salary. (The pay has always been lousy). As a fellow reporter said years ago, "It's got to be a vanity thing -- to see your name in a byline -- it certainly can't be the money."

However, I digress. On with today's post.

I stood in the rain this morning and picked snap peas. King absolutely hates peas. If I buy any type of pre-packaged dinner and there are peas in it, he will eat around them and I will find a small pile of peas left on his plate.

But my son mentioned he liked snap peas and I was thinking of him when I picked them. I will drop them off as his apartment later today -- after my hair dries.

Mom never grew peas in her garden. I'm never quite certain why. In fact, I can think of a handful of vegetables that she grew -- tomatoes, cucumbers, butter beans, corn and maybe a few peppers. I'm not certain why that was the extent of her garden, but it was.  She told me once about how her mother used to grow eggplant in their market garden. She said grandma wasn't certain what to do with the eggplant, but every night before they took their vegetables to the market,  Grandma would polish them with a rag until they were quite shinny.

I have been told that when my parents first moved to Hamilton they had a garden in the corner of the muck where our neighbor grew celery. I think I may remember bits of it, but I can never be certain if my memories from that young an age are real, or just things I think I remember because I've heard the stories. At any rate, when our neighbor stopped farming Mom didn't move her vegetable garden to our backyard right away.

She told me Grandpa told her she should have a garden but she insisted the ground was not conducive for growing anything. I remember her telling me Grandpa said with all the horse manure we accumulated anything she planted would grow. Grandpa was right. Mom eventually did plant a garden in a corner of one of our pastures and her garden flourished. Years later she told me she regretted not planting a garden while Grandpa was alive. I think we all have those kind of regrets.

In all their homes since moving from Hamilton, Mom never again grew vegetables, but she would spend hours and hours in her yard, planting flowers, making shade gardens, moving bird baths, and trying different varieties of flowers. I would always supply her with the horse manure to make things grow. It became a standing joke ... she could count on me to bring her a large load of horse sh-- for Mother's Day. And she would oohhh and ahhh over it much the same as she did with the macaroni necklaces we made for her as kids.

In the few years before Mom went to live in a nursing home, she spent many hours with me in our gardens. And we have huge gardens. After  King retired as a school administrator I answered an ad in an alternative newspaper to be caretakers on a hobby farm. The gentleman who owns the farm lives in the city and comes to Michigan on weekends. We take care of his yard and gardens during the week in exchange for a free caretaker's home and free utilities. It's a lot of work -- especially since I still work full-time -- but it is something we can check off our bucket list. We've never been exactly mainstream.

With as many gardens as we tend, the weeding is endless. When Mom was with us I would bring lemonade and a big beach umbrella to the gardens and try to get her to sit in the shade and watch me work. Within minutes she would be along side me pulling weeds. At the time Mom was pushing 90. I did not want to have to write an obituary saying she died weeding her daughter's garden. . . although in hindsight it might have been better than her wasting away in a nursing home.

In the backyard of the tiny caretakers cottage where we live I've created a memory garden for our parents. I am definitely my mother's daughter. I've made a shade garden, I've moved bird baths, I try different varieties of flowers. I think Mom would be pleased.