I’ve had a garden for 46 years. It’s always out there waiting for me. It’s like having children. They bring work, care, feeding, tending, weeding, watching, picking, planting, moving to a better position and joy.
In order to be faithful to your garden, you have to love it more than yourself. That means going out to care for it despite 100i weather, when all plants except heat-loving Zinnias, are bowing their heads in despair, yearning for a little shade. It means offering them water every day when a drought keeps on. It means on days when a freeze is predicted to go out and cover up or move to the garage. It means when bugs or fungus creep in, spraying with pesticide and fungicide. It means cutting off all dead heads (or seed pods) after blooming. It means either planting the hordes of seedlings from one package of seeds or giving them to the garden club. It means sharing when blooms burst forth in abundance. It means forethought regarding planting for the next season.
Perpendicular to the east window is the south window. These 2 windows give me a panorama of my whole back yard. I’ve sat at a desk by the windows for 45 years watching the flowers grow and fold up, pecan trees leaf out in May and become bare and brown in October. Right now I am watching my red hummingbird bush sway from the hummer’s constant flitting about in a spot light of blazing afternoon sunshine. The back door used to be glass and these afternoon rays came slanting in to make the kitchen even more warm and sociable.
Next to the back door are the washing machine and the dryer, one white and one almond color. Colors don’t matter after so many years. They all blend together. Above the washing machine on a shelf used to sit the shoe box with the envelopes of money–one for the egg man, one for the laundry man, one for the day maid, and one for the vegetable man who came by in his truck every day. The stores were too far away in those days to go to often.
The reason we had the envelopes was so we would have the correct change on hand so that as each person came he could take what he needed for his bill. No one took the other’s money. We were all young and innocent. We even left the back door unlocked.
Years passed. Burglars came. Goodness went away. For more security, the glass back door gave way to a solid wood door and closed out the lovely slanting sun rays, and locked out the merchants who came no more as stores moved closer.
Building our home in the middle of a prairie had an effect on the wild critters running about, especially the field mice. One day when standing and looking out, imagine my horror when I saw perched on a vine tressel I had put up 5 large field rats, looking at me curiously.
Now the early days, the shoe box, the teenagers dancing a broom dance on a Saturday night, or making brownies and cream puffs for a party, have drifted down the ages. The grandchildren seldom come.
I am happy in my old kitchen, just like it is. I wouldn’t want any of it changed. I would really hate to have to leave it or have it torn down.