I am grateful for gardening. I have this sweet setup with an older couple who also attend my religious congregation. He was born and raised in a farming community, but chose a career in international law and still has a bit of a farm boy in him. Back in the 70s when they bought a house, it came with a full 1.5 acres of land around it. They've since built another 3000 square foot house on that land and use all the rest of it that isn't required for a driveway as a farm-esque garden/orchard. This thing is seriously larger than my 2 bedroom apartment. It has plum, apple, and peach trees, along with raspberry and strawberry vines, corn, tomatoes (hothouse, roma, and cherry), cucumber, broccoli, french style beans, snap peas, basil, cilantro, rosemary, parsley, squash, pumpkin, and zucchini. All in prolithic amounts.
It. is. Awesome.
I got to know them last year when they had a fairly huge crop of plums and brought them to church to share. I asked if I might have some extras and they invited me to come pick for myself. The lady of the house was so open about wishing that her daughters would come and help her pick and distribute the food that I started to come quite often.
This year, they brought me a bag full of zucchini at church to let me know the planting season has begun. As I'm in the job search market, I have some free time to develop other interests, so when I heard the lady say that she had had quite a time weeding earlier in the week, I offered to come and help. It's been two weeks now, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity. Once a week, I get to go to their place and weed for an hour and then pick for an hour. Raspberries, beans, and lettuce are in season, and the herbs are always growing. I'm excited for the tomatoes to come around. I'm going to make salsa and cowboy caviar and eat those for dinner for a week straight! I am SO excited!
I'm grateful to know this couple, and grateful that they are so open about including me in their circle. I love the excuse to be outside one morning a week, and for the crisp, alive feeling of plants in my hands. I am grateful for the skills I have to manage a garden, to pick weeds and pull fruit off the vine, and grateful for a mother who taught them to me. I'm grateful for a mother who loved growing things. And I am grateful for the healthy food that it provides me at home, much that wouldn't make it into my regular grocery purchases.
I am grateful for my mother who loved her amarillus garden, her rhubarb patch, her peach and plum trees, her roses; who dug in the dirt for therapy and passed it on to me. I'm grateful for her mother who gardened and raised chickens to feed her 11 children, and who gathered watercress from the irrigation ditch. I'm grateful for nature/gardens and all they teach while they give us their fruits and vegetables.
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