• • 
    
  • OVER THE MEADOW AND THROUGH THE WOODS.

                   A SHORT STORY ABOUT VISITING VICKI'S GARDEN

  • 

    Monica Lawson A zig-zaggedy, pine shrouded walk through the woods from my house to my daughter Vicki's garden showed me I was not alone amidst the trees. Down the path, past the garden swing, over the grassy knoll and a sharp right turn .... bear scat right in the middle of the sharp right turn. Are you sure it was bear scat? Not at first. The hand sized mound was hard - the bear had passed this way quite a while ago. If you're wondering how I surmised it was hard ... I poked it with a stick. How long since the bear made a potty stop here in my woods ... I wasn't certain. I followed my tracks at a quick pace back to my house and grabbed my camera. Snap .. snap at different angles. Raced back home to my computer to Google 'bear-scat-in-the-woods .' Sure enough, there it was ... all 25 different angled photos of bear poop matched my photo exactly - right down to the little round berries the furry woods dweller had for dinner in the not too distant past. I still walk the path to my daughter's garden to water the few flowers and cherry trees left in my care after her death last year. But now I bring my 80 pound black Lab Jack. As the saying goes .. I don't have to outrun the bear .. I just have to outrun Jack!

    • Like
    •  · Reply
    •  · 7m

    • 

      Monica Lawson P.S. I've written about my daughter's death in many different ways ... heartbroken, nostalgic, stoic, and humor. How could there be anything humorous to write about the death of a daughter? You would have to have known Vicki. She would have nudged me to humorously retell stories about her because she had the most vibrant sense of humor and laugh that you could feel from your toes up. Healing and peace come with acknowledging the life ... and passing of those we love. And I am healing in God's grace and knowledge of where she is.

      • Like
      •  · Reply
      •  · 6m
      •  · Edited
    • 

      Monica Lawson Vicki Rose Williams Garden Marker ..1957 - 2018 Over the meadow and through the woods to Vicki's garden I go.

      
    • 
      

                         THE COLOR OF SKIN

                         Red, white, brown and 

                                  PURPLE?

This is not a human interest story ... the color of people's skin; but the color of potato skin.

Early spring of 2019 I was on my hands and knees poking around in the bottom of a kitchen cabinet and felt a familiar object hiding almost out of reach. Once you've held a potato in your hand you recognize the shape and feel of it instantly. 

I pulled out eight potatoes that had green and dark shoots sprouting from shriveled skins. My first thought was to toss them to the chickens ... but on the other hand, why not plant them? So I did.

I found a likely spot at the far end of the Flower Garden to plant the potatoes. I raked the ground in a straight line for about 8 feet, cut each potato with a healthy looking sprout into three or four pieces, and set them on the cleared ground. I piled dirt over the row and watered it. And went off forgetting about the row of 'taters I had planted.

Until one day, while watering the Flower Garden, I noticed a row of green shoots poking through the dirt and remembered the forgotten potatoes I'd planted. 

"Well, well, well," I told the pokey little green plants, "You made it! Let's see what lovely little potatoes you will grow into." I usually talk to my flowers and plants - seems they perk up and grow more beautiful.
Talking to the sunflowers in my garden reaped rewards .... they grew and grew until they were 10 feet tall! 

Harvest time: Happy gardens produce tomatoes and carrots, string beans and squash ... a cornucopia of hearty vegetables nurtured by  sunshine and rain, hand watering, speaking lovingly to them, and weed patrol, slug control and yellow jacket extinction. No pesticides or weed poisoning allowed in this garden! 

Slug extinction:
 Low container filled with cheap beer enticed slugs to "belly up to the bar" and have their fill ... they die in  intoxicated bliss.

Yellow jacket traps stuffed with bologna (the brand you wouldn't serve to your family!) and they swarm in ... lulled by the alluring aroma of rot-gut bologna and are trapped! 

 HARVEST TIME .. FALL IS IN THE AIR

One potato, two potato, three potato, four ...... Just dug up a few potatoes from the Flower Garden patch and they were .... PURPLE! How did I grow purple potatoes? No really .. I don't have a clue how I dug up purple potatoes since I planted only white and red ones; come to think about it .. these were some of the potatoes I found sprouting inside a dark cabinet last spring, so I planted them. Had to have been a purple one in the bunch. I'm going to save them, let them sprout and plant next spring.

And God provides sunshine,  spring rains, blue skies ... and rainbows. A perfect blueprint ...  life sustaining cooperation between the Master Gardener and Gardener in Training.

            
                BOUNTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, BENEFICIAL
  Three out of many benefits to growing your own veggies and       tending flowers in your garden .... or someone else's garden.

First and foremost article of garden garb would be comfy, though worn and torn, garden shoes.

A cap to shield the rays, long sleeve shirt and comfy jeans ... camera at hand at all times to chronicle garden progress from dirt pile to a haven for butterflies,

bees, and birds.

There will be invaders in your garden ... stinging and slithery creatures bent on taking their share out of the garden's produce,  flowers, plants and shrubs .... AND A NIP OR TWO OUT OF YOU!

SET TRAPS!

Yellow jacket traps and 

Slug- baited beer traps ... eeeoooooo! Belly up to the bar boys and drink your fill. This trap also attracts yellow jackets. These hearty, slithery creatures were attacking a raised bed with a tomato plant and nasturtiums .... making their way toward two artichoke plants.  

Lawson Family Flower and Vegetable Gardens have never been poisoned by insecticides or pesticides. 

Drum rolllllllll !!!  The results are serenity

and beauty ...

and my first ever

delicious, delectable and 

darling little artichoke!

  

Clouds ... rain ... rainbows ... sunshine - 

 God's participation.  

SEPTEMBER 2019

I'm happy to say my old garden shoes served me well throughout 2019 garden season .. broken down, dirty and tattered as they are. I may begin garden season 2020 with a new old pair of garden shoes. But old 'friends' are hard to say goodbye to when they have been close (so to speak regarding garden shoes) Rain and muddy flower beds force me to wear boots during the remainder of this season ... trimming, collecting seeds, turning over the flower beds, ripping out 8 feet tall sunflowers ... mmmmm, 2019 Garden, I will miss you and the beauty you have given so freely, only asking I deadhead blossoms once spent, water lavishly, remove weeds and harmful bugs and creeping destructive creatures. And off to the compost pile to begin the cycle of life all over again. Sleep well, 2019 Lawson Family Flower Garden. See you next Spring.  

"Being Barefoot Benefits Brain Development"

Walking barefoot stimulates infants brains ... and the world is so new to them, each step is taken carefully - eyes downward to negotiate new territory ... often in bare feet.

I wonder how important going barefoot is at the other end of 

the life cycle... old age. As well as facing the ground as we walk instead of head up straight looking ahead.

 Most old people - and I am an old people - walk with face down watching for the objects that could cause us to stumble and fall. Logical. But perhaps it would be beneficial for seniors to go barefoot for the very reasons this article points out..... I won't go barefoot in my gardening rounds - too many rocks, and garden debris to stub my toes on .. But I do the next best thing: My garden shoes are worn and torn, thin soles, holes and gaps where stitching has come loose ...and dirty .. 

Oh my are they dirty. Small pebbles and garden dirt easily find the soles of my garden shoes a good place to settle down into ... if left out in the sun and watered daily they would sprout daisies and sunflowers! I can feel the paths and and pebbles in my garden through my Garden Shoes. I will mourn their demise when it's time to bid them goodbye. Such a nuisance - it's so uncomfortable breaking in a new pair of Garden Shoes!