What Would Great Grandma Have Eaten? Part II

As I promised I would I am going to introduce you to my Great Grandmothers. 

They were all born around 1880 give or take a few years. 

Dad's side of the family: 

1.     Grannie Laurie Rose Johnson - mother of my Grandpa William Johnson

Grannie Laurie Rose Johnson on the right with her sisters in the early 1900’s

2. Grandmother Margaret Murphy Pearson (Irish Much?!) - mother of my Grannie Katie Pearson Johnson Keen

Great Grandmother Margaret Murphy Pearson and Great Grandfather Green Pearson

Grannie Katie Pearson Johnson Keen on the left, with her sisters Ree and Winn possibly early 1930’s

Mom's side of the family:

1.Nannie Covington Parker (We called her Nannie and when I was young I just thought it was a form of Grandmother - but that was actually her name!)- mother to my Grandpa Almer James (A.J.) Parker{I also knew and loved my step-grand mother Grandma Norma Parker who I learned many things from.}

2.     Grandma Jessie Hinds White - mother of my Grandma Mary White Parker Landers

                                      

Grandma Mary White Parker Landers in the 1930’s or 1940’s

The only one of these Great Grandmas I got to meet was Nannie. She died when I was around 4 or 5 years old. But I remember her. I was a bit scared and in awe of this very tiny and very old lady that was bedridden and we would go visit often. I remember her as being powdery and always smelling nice and flowery too. I loved how she would hold me in a gentle hug or just touch my hand. It is a nice memory to have. My mother says that Nannie wanted to be the Grandmother that always had candy for the children. She used to bring a sack full every so often when my family lived just down the street from her before I was born. 

This tells me some very subtle things about Nannie. 

At least at the end of her life she valued her family.

She also placed a value of sharing candy with the children. Could this be because she did not have much when she was young, or that she enjoyed it so much as a child that she wanted to bring that joy to her grandchildren and great grandchildren? I do not know.

Even in her advanced age she seemed to have an air of refined grace - like the proverbial southern belle. Was she? I have no idea.

She left me with kind sweet memories that I will cherish. That was her intent I believe. 

Now that I have shared my memories, let me share some facts.

The first three Great Grandmas on the list were all from Kentucky. Only Nannie migrated to Indiana. 

Grannie Laurie and Grandmother Pearson lived in Jackson County Kentucky. It was known to have hard times and be a bit rougher then. Nannie was from Scott County Kentucky and their lives were easier, but still.....

Grandma White was born in Shelby County Indiana to a somewhat affluent founding Shelby County farming family. The Bassett/Hinds. 

http://www.bassettbranches.org/tng/getperson.php?personID=I05533&tree=1A

All of these women raised families roughly around the turn of the last century. 

They were born into what I like to view as the other side of the veil of Modern Times.

Their families all were first farmers, and then other things. 

Their parents knew what it was like to live before the Industrial Revolution and undoubtedly carried many habits, traditions, and beliefs from that time.

My Great Grandmothers would have been taught by their mothers how to raise a family and conduct life in their sphere. 

Technology was not so advanced, nor was it so fast and far reaching as it is today. 

Our communications technology has made every minute a news smashing experience! 

In great grandma's day news traveled in months, not seconds. 

"Going viral" meant a deadly influenza or scarlet fever outbreak, not a cutesy video everyone LIKED on social media. 

Speaking of influenza....

We still have that now, but we have Tylenol and electrolyte solutions and more sanitary living conditions provided by the modern bathroom to make this mostly just a major inconvenience/illness, not the almost always deadly disease that Great Grandma feared. 

How did we get these things? 

Technology and science!

They are great things. 

WHEN they improve our lives.....

In just the few ways mentioned above technology and science have GREATLY improved our lives!

But what has NOT improved?

What has been made WORSE?

Well, for one thing ACCESS to healthy food.

Great Grandma grew all her own veggies. Most of the time the meat provided by the livestock on the farm or by hunting/trapping/fishing on the farm was all the family needed. Maybe, they purchased a holiday goose or turkey from a neighbor down the road that raised them on THEIR farm. All very close and very simple. She KNEW where everything came from. She most likely saw those food items living and growing surrounding her cabin/farmhouse. Because of the location my Great Grandmothers could not grow citrus fruits, bananas, or sultanas (grapes dried into - raisins). But there was a wealth of berries, bush fruits, tree fruits, nut trees, and the foraging was plentiful. (My Grannie Katie was known for her chicory coffee recipe.) So often the more tropical fruits were just being introduced to the more northern American climates what with the advances in ice packed shipments and ongoing strides toward refrigeration. 

Great grandma did not worry about whether there would be pesticides she needed to wash off, she did not need to worry if the chicken she was butchering on the scrub top wooden kitchen table was going to contaminate the rest of the house and family. 

The chicken was raised like all chickens were - roaming around getting into everything it could in the farm yard or chicken run. It was not packed so tightly together with other chickens that had laid in filth and had to be pumped full of chemicals and drugs to survive growing at an abnormally fast rate that its legs would not hold its own weight. It was a natural, clean chicken. 

Drain the blood, rinse it off, cut it up and throw it into the pot to stew, roast, or fry, and then eat. It did not travel great distances (unless it was wrapped up in a dinner pail for a train trip or wagon ride across the country after being fried up.) to get to the family to eat. It did not pass through hundreds of hands and machines in processing, and truck after truck to get to the farm. 

Great Grandma just walked out the door, picked up the chicken, rung its neck after snugging it up close like a hug (and probably said "It's alright ole girl you have served your purpose, thank you.") and then gutted it, drained it, and scalded it and plucked it before taking it even into the house. Those were the things you did outside, not in the house. 

Great Grandma did not have to worry that some strange germ, or bacteria was in her food that her family was not already immune to naturally by living in the same location of the food that was consumed. 

Oh, there were food poisoning cases of course! 

There always have been and there always will be. 

BUT, those old cases were much smaller and much more isolated. 

NOW, you can be thousands of miles apart from another person that ALSO gets infected with e-coli from spinach that you bought at that national chain super-duper market. 

NOW, you can be in a different country form the original outbreak of salmonella in melons and share in the brotherhood of pain and suffering globally. 

Don't get me wrong, this is NOT a trip down the "Back in the Good ole Days" routine.

This is me just pointing out the good and bad in a few important ways, to me, that make Great Grandma's time and our time different. 

As I go through these reflections I wonder what they would think of our times.

What would they have thought of me?!

Would they admire what I am doing, or would they scoff at all the things I just do not know how to do – due to our labor saving and progressive technologies; and due in part to my own ignorance of my laziness?

What did Great Grandma just take as a matter of a fact of life that now we scoff at as just too much work to be worth the effort?

What are things and actions and principals WORTH today?

What were they worth in Great Grandma’s time?

How have we changed?

Has it all been good?

Has it all been bad?

Has it been a big mixed complicated bag of both?

As I have said, think on these things as it applies to you and YOUR Great Grandmas.

For now, I must go stir up some trouble in the home nest.

Stay Squirrely till the next post in Part III.

-Suzanna

What My Great Grandmother Would Have Eaten

This post comes after many drafts.

There is a certain beauty in the creative processes of writing.

Sometimes, when I want to post a very important and illuminating (to me) piece my internet service provides an AMPLE opportunity to look it over before hastily pressing that PUBLISH toggle button......

http://www.allthingsconcerned.com/internet-connection-problems/

I am finding there must be a publishing god out there or....

Maybe God just has my back a lot more than I THINK he does.

Maybe He is preventing me from being that clanging cymbal.

I don't know, but at least I got the chance to look over my last post before I got to actually post it, and I am glad.

I am approaching it differently now....

WHAT WOULD GREAT GRANDMA HAVE EATEN?

This has been on my mind a great deal throughout my life for various reasons.

If you follow me you kind of know why, if you don't....

I'm weird THAT'S why!

Not weird as in weirdo weird, but weird as in DIFFERENT.

Not criminally different.

Not emotionally crippling different.

Not immorally different.

I just think in meanderingly crazy paths to get to the same ideas others get to.

My paths are just more entertaining at times.

At other times I drive folks NUTS!

Hence the name "Squirrely Acres."

So this LITTLE article is going to be in 3 parts:

1.This silly introductory piece
2.A brief introduction in to WHO my great grandmothers WERE and why that pertains to YOU.
And then of course -
3.My Main Point of asking this question to begin with!

So to prepare for Part II I want you to take a few minutes and ask these questions of yourself:

1. Who were my great grandmothers? 
2. At what time period did they live?
3. What was MODERN culture like in THEIR day?
4. How did they take care of their families? (Indeed they had families, or where do you THINK you came from - the cabbage patch?! Even adopted children have a heritage that is important to them.)
     a. What were their options for food, clothing, shelter, education, occupations, religious experiences - ALL of these factor into the answer to this point!
5.What influences did they have on your GRAND MOTHERS' choices in life?(This one can be tricky indeed, for most of us never met our Great Grandmothers.)

Try to answer these questions for yourself before reading Part II.

Don't let MY answers influence YOUR answers.

This is an exercise in helping your reflect on what your life IS, and what you WANT it to be.

You have a different map of nature vs. nurture going on in your life than I do.

I offer my reflection as an example HOW to reflect, not what answers to GET from the reflection.

So, here I go keeping to the Squirrely Path.....

-Suzanna

THE FLU

This last week has been our foray into the world of Flu Season 2012-2013. 

Lil Squirrel’s symptoms were not severe enough to begin with to merit alarm, just maybe a bit of a bug. A few low grade fevers, coughing and upset tummy. 

Then, Saturday morning she had a fever of 105 degrees. With the help of acetaminophen and a cooling bath I got the fever down to 101. 

After getting a ride and a few attempts at getting into an area clinic we have used many times before, we were helped at the Fayette Regional Health System Hospital Emergency Room. 

Dr. Nixon, all the nursing, personal care, and registration staff were wonderful dealing with my little 6 year old sicko, and my shower and sleep deprived self.

After a despised wait at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy for her prescribed meds, and waited on by a helpful and NICE technician, we decided since Lil Squirrel was sick and we needed a few things to get her through the next few days we had to shop the dreaded Evil Empire.

Now, I do not have a problem with the folks that work there, everyone has to find a place to work and in small towns they are few and far between any more.  Wal-Mart has long been a place that has not REALLY supported local economies anymore and I try to do whatever I can to support keeping my retail dollars here in the area to directly help this area. BUT, when you have a sick kid and bumming a ride – you have to take what is generously offered.

With that in mind, I refused to go to the self-service check out. It would have been faster, but I just did not want to take even one more bit of work from someone locally. (AND I had my daughter sit at the bench at the end of the check out with a friend so that she could be watched and not coughing all over everyone) As it turned out it was better for my daughter to be able to get the rest on the bench than stand there with me while I tried to figure out the broken scanner in the self-check-out lane….

I guess my whole point in this post is to point out that just being understanding and kind while performing your job IS a big thing.

If you are an employer I suggest that you really reconsider some of those employees that come to work every day and give it their best.

Reconsider the ones that the customers like. They are doing their job in a way that will keep customers coming, and even maybe bring some new ones in.

 

These days customer service and a caring attitude are a special additive that we consumers just do not get everywhere anymore.

And asking for that in a retail establishment is not us consumers being demanding and selfish, it’s us expecting to be treated like humans.

One thing I learned in the midst of all this was: how to make compost tea on my stove top. No, I am not Martha Stewart and have a staff of 30 whipping up contrived recipes….although that sounds interesting.

I am just a harried mom, running a household and being very flawed while at it all.

I was in the process of making some VERY hardy veggie stock to help fill up a corner of the freezer and have on the ready for this bug or whatever it was (this was before the trip to the ER and blood work confirmed the flu…)

 In the middle of all the running around, after I had turned the burner off and allowed the stock to cool before ladling it into freezer containers, I just FORGOT it.

Yep, that was all.

I forgot it.

The next morning at breakfast time and while filling the coffee pot for my life giving brew….I smelled something.

A cabbage-y something.

A slightly rotting something.

I smelled all the seedlings growing all over the house.

I checked all the fresh veggies in the fridge ….

As the fridge door was swinging shut it dawned on me!

THE STOCK!

Eeeeewwwww, I knew better than lifting the pot lid.

So I didn’t.

It sat there all during the hospital and Wal-Mart trips, it sat there quietly last night on the stove top.

It sat there this morning staring me down when I walked in to make today’s pot of black loving liquid, I mean coffee.

It sat there while I made breakfast, lunch, and did all the chores I had to catch up on from yesterday.

This afternoon I realized it had to be tended to.

When I lifted the lid, the stink was…..

GONE.

Well, that was a pleasant consequence of procrastination this time.

It still has a sauerkraut aroma, but it is slight and not offensive like my earlier outside versions of compost tea.

I mixed it 1:1 with water and proceeded to add it by the eyedropper full onto the tender little plants that had been neglected in yesterday’s activities.

Still no smell in the house, the plants have not keeled over and bit the dirt yet, and….

The pot full of yuk is STILL on the stove top.

I have to get it in a bucket and place it in the garage for a more appropriate storage solution.

Another point I am finding in all this is: 

NOTHING goes according to plan all of the time.

I will be happy with being able to keep up with what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

I will be happy with whatever results the plants come out with.

I AM happy knowing that I - I mean I, with the help of friends and strangers- was able to take care of my daughter when she needed it most.

One of the most important lessons in life is this: 

No matter how much you want to just do it yourself, you will not be able to do it ALL yourself.

Sometimes we need help; sometimes we need A LOT of help.

And sometimes we get to be of help; sometimes A LOT of help.

Do not miss your chance to help, and do not miss the chance to let others help you when you need it most.

-Suzanna

Prepping? NOT so much....

Yesterday  I heard reports on the radio of "a bad storm" coming up and "it looks like it could be a rough one guys" type of warnings going out over the air waves and cables and satellite feeds and whatever the heck else.

REALLY?!

SERIOUSLY?!

Here is where I say this in my best "Crotchety Old Aunt Sue" voice:

When I was a kid....
yep, I'm goin' there!

When I was a kid, it was NORMAL to get 7-8 inches of snow every so often here in Indiana.

And later when I moved to Denver as a very tender 20 something?

FORGET IT!

They kept the metro busses running during the blizzards I witnessed while there!

People strapped on their cross country skis and just trudged onto work.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,237977,00.html

As a Hoosier transplant that was surreal for me - what looked like Alpine mountain men and women loaded for a treacherous mountain passage was just my neighbors getting to work!

In Missouri? Hmmm...

When we first got there winter storms were the norm and did not bother folks that much.

Then little bit by little bit, there were more and more accidents on the roads and more stern warnings at the threat of a few inches of snow.

THEN if it even was going to RAIN there were mad dashes to the stores!

(OK, OK, so the massive flood that wiped out town after town after town along the Mississippi had just occurred not long before, but STILL people! )

That was the 1990's.

I think that was when it all started really changing. I blame it on all the urban sprawl that occurred.

Gotta blame it on SOMETHING- why not urban sprawl?!

That's a term we have not heard in such a long time now isn't it?

URBAN SPRAWL

Sounds like a yuppie yoga class gone bad doesn't it?!

http://yogadork.com/

Real quick- urban sprawl was the unbelievable growth of suburbs and urban areas into the country side.

Black top, concrete, and contrived green spaces were all the signs of PROGRESS.

Along with it was the loss of the adjacent  areas to the urban areas.

Traffic jams all over, not just in the inner city any more!

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/01/worst_traffic_jams_in_united_states_st_louis_interstate_270.php

You had bears and deer coming to town for lunch all of a sudden.

People were horrified when they encountered REAL rural life living like a messy collage right next and in the midst of their residential neighborhoods and strip malls.

Heat inversions, flooding, and CRIPPLING snow storms of 4 inch accumulations began occurring.

Yuppies and their puppies went crashing in their soccer mom SUVs and mini vans into the medians and  into each other as they acted like they were in Pamplona and in the running of the bulls!

http://www.bookespana.com/running-of-the-bulls/

So, just calm down.

Hurrying and rushing won't do anything more than upset you, your family, and other drivers on the road.

Why not just next week, when everything is all melted, go get an extra pack of TP, get some bread and put it in the freezer, stock up on some canned soups, mac and cheese, just anything that will not perish real soon.

You know PREPARE.

You know, it's winter.

Wear a coat, take hat, gloves and scarf - you might need them.

Put a blanket in the back seat of the car.

Wear clean under wear like Mom told you to.

We pretty much have the food stuffs covered here, but we did lack one thing and procured it yesterday night -

LIBRARY BOOKS!

I think I would just keel over if I did not have SOMETHING to read.

Being a bit more prepared just takes a few more minutes of calm thought and calm action.

Don't be THAT guy(or gal)!

You know the one- careening into the grocery parking lot way too fast to get your Doritos and Pepsi, almost flattening the Grannie trying to get her 6 pack of eggs to her car that will hold her for a week - because SHE remembers how to prepare and stretch and make do, even if you don't.

Any way, Crotchety Old Aunt Sue is tired and needs to sit down now.

Here are some pics of the hopeful sprouts from our flower beds this morning that I hope will not get freezer burned in Mother Nature's early March freezer.

This little guy in the blurry photo above is just about a fourth of an inch tall.

He is one of the seven Thomas Jefferson Irises that a good friend of mine was so generous as to share with me last summer.

As she was told, these are from the original stock that Thomas Jefferson brought back from France(?) on a trip and then cultivated at his beloved estate at Monticello. She and her husband were visiting Monticello for their anniversary a few years back and the nursery men were "thinning out" the stock that day and my friend snatched up all she was allowed!

I had babied these 7 bulbs all through last year's drought and planted them here in this location about October.

I am covering them up a bit just to help them get established this spring.

I LOVE it when my two favorite hobbies come together like this - GARDENING and HISTORY!

I think I would have really liked Old Tom.

I like the purely American term that emerged describing him and others like him - The Jeffersonian Farmer.

I think in a way it is somewhat comparable to the English country gentleman, but with the sense of conquest and adventure that the American Spirit gives all of us, even over 200 years later.

Old Tom would NEVER have raced to the store losing his mind over toilet paper.

http://www.history.com/photos/thomas-jefferson/photo3

No, no HE wouldn't have.

But he would have sent one of his SLAVES.

Maybe he and I would NOT have seen eye to eye after all.

Be prepared, do your best, be considerate.

Put your self sufficiency in perspective.

How are you effecting others around you?

Have good day all!

-Suzanna

Joel Salatin - The Lunatic Farmer

So, OK.

I promised many folks that I would just gush and gush all about what Joel Salatin had to say in his speaking engagement on February 2, 2013 at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/joel%20salatin

But I have been uncharacteristically quiet.

There is a reason.

I had to soak up what I was becoming aware of.

Reality.

Mr. Salatin has a much better grasp on IT than I did.

Here is the gist of IT all. IT being Mr. Salatin's point he wants to get across to folks. IT being the hurdles and obstacles that we all face. IT being why things happen as they do.

This IT is quite simple.

And simple things become abundantly profound when viewed in their entirety.

Here IT is:

We all do NOT think about and view situations the same.  

That's IT.

That's all.

What you do with that information should be up to you.

As citizens of a society where we claim to be free, one of the last remaining freedoms is the freedom to think and feel as we do.

There are a great many people who, after listening to a lifetime of my screaming my brand of reality, will continue to scream their brand of reality.

They, or I, can scream that the other's reality is not real. But for each individual IT is real.

What Mr. Salatin, and I, believe is this:

Each person should be allowed to live their reality and accept the consequences of such.

That is IT.

If you want to hear more about that go find Mr. Salatin at Polyface Farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and ask and see and experience. Go find him on YouTube, watch videos of him. Go find his books, read what he says so that you can study on IT and decide what you want to agree with and what you don't.

He says IT all so much better than I.

-Suzanna 

WINTER BOOK REVIEW II

A while back I had promised a some what regular book review.....

Well, here is the second in the The Squirrely Acres Winter Book Review:

One of the books on my short list that I was looking forward to reading was The Woodlot Management Handbook by Stewart Hilts and Peter Mitchell.

http://www.amazon.com/Woodlot-Management-Handbook-Property-Conservation/dp/155407553X

Honestly, I would recommend reading this in installments - UNLESS your bookshelf is totally bare and you do not have an e-reader of some sort!

There is an enormous amount of information here and so many subjects are abstracted out here that one could spend the entire winter reading and rereading this to learn all they could on trees, woodlot management, and their various uses and purposes.

This extensive handbook will be a future purchase for my personal bookshelf. Even though I would not sit down and read it cover to cover, I would reference it in many situations. 

Almost every situation and use of a wood lot is covered here. Over all the authors long to educate and awaken a sense of value in the reader that can be created in any woodlot. 

Also, there is a section on how to begin your woodlot. Not all acreage has a woodlot, but all can benefit from the formation of a management system fostering a new one.

The three basic concepts in this book cover:
1. Knowing what a wood lot is and is not
2. How to steward the woodlot
3. What value can be added and enjoyed from a woodlot. 

Even if you do not entertain any ideas of managing a woodlot, this book is very helpful in spelling out just how EVERYONE can benefit from a local woodlot. 

This book is well worth at least a quick skimming to add it to possible reference sources for the future.  

An activity I would suggest to accompany reading this book is to visit (here locally) the Shrader Weaver Nature Preserve  and The Mary Gray Bird Sanctuary. At either site you can see examples of stewardship and preservation that can help you understand in a more personal way what efforts produce the best results. 

-Suzanna

For the Love of a Good Garden of Friends

Today I just heard of a great friend's passing.

He did not start out as a friend.

I will call him B. Just that. B.

We began as next door neighbors that could barely stand the sight of each other, until we learned the other's name and then we could barely stand the mention of the name...You get the point. I have always regretted that time and so did  he. It is in the past and we mended things up really well.

So well we - his family and mine- became really close friends.

And the REAL mending came  from a small scared boy and a scraggly garden.

The boy was B's soon to be step son that had seen some really rough things in his very young life.

And my scraggly garden was an attempt at sanity in a way too crazy world that my life had become.

I will call the boy E. Just that. E.

B took E's mom and her two small children in and loved them with all he had. He changed their world. He made horrible things not so horrible, and then not so bad, and then just down right great. I did not know this then.

E. apparently got a new bike for his birthday and thought he could ride it better than he actually could. Of course while I was out front tending to my hostas at dusk he wiped out on the rock strewn sidewalk just a foot from where I stood. Blood covered his shirt and legs. His hands looked like ground hamburger. He was in shock and then when I gently touched his shoulder and made to help him up it took him a minute to register who was touching him. He looked up and a mask of horror and abject fear came over him.

I instantly knew what was happening.

He had been told that I was a bad lady and he needed to stay far far away from our house.

I knew that he needed me to NOT touch him. I knew he needed to hear a soft loving voice as though I were his mom, not the hateful lady next door that just may eat him.

He caught his breath and stood up backing away from me. I looked him in the eye, smiled, and sat down in the dirt and gravel in the alley. I asked him if he was OK.

I let him tower over me and have the upper hand.

I told him he had a neat bike and he rode it really brave like a dare devil.

He smiled in spite of himself for a second, just a second, and then tore down the sidewalk back to his front porch.

I did not even get mad at his parents. All I knew was that together his family and mine had created an atmosphere where he did not feel safe as long as he saw ANYONE outside our house. I cried for him. Not me, him. I did not ever want a child to live in fear because of me.

My daughter was not even a year old and I did not want these children living in fear and our neighbors having to walk on egg shells around BOTH families.

But, I hadn't a clue what to do.

As these things always are it was very complicated. So many folks were mad at so many others. We had even had to go to court and town counsel meetings to oppose each other with complaints.

It was messy.

And as I found out it had been messy for his family and my husband's family many years ago when they had lived next door to each other back in the 1960's.

sigh.... I had a lot of cards stacked against me.

It was early spring when E. wrecked his bike. Along about the second week of summer vacation from school I found E. in my back yard one afternoon as my daughter napped.

He was standing there looking at my daughter's out side toys and my gardening tools.

I had made a maze-like pathway through my garden that year, trying new techniques and old time ways. At the end closest to his back yard my garden had two pole bean tee pees. I had built them from fallen branches and jute twine. Right then the last of the early peas had still clung to the poles and made a slight screen.

I knew that when the beans would grow my daughter and I would have a secret garden in which to read books and play in the shade.

E. grabbed something off the vine, shoved it in his mouth and ran behind their garage. I moved closer and could hear him gagging on what he had picked. He did not see me, but stayed behind the garage. He did not like the dried up pea pod he had stuffed into his mouth.

Without thinking I went to his front porch and knocked on the front door. No one answered. I thought as much. I just wanted to let his mother know he had tried one of the dried peas and he should be OK. I did not use any pesticides because my daughter tried to eat everything she could too.

I also wanted her to know if he wanted to use the football and toss it around or the frisbee or the basketball hoop that was fine. I just did not want kids in the yard when I wasn't home because I wanted to make sure they were safe.

Later that week E. was back. This time he wanted to play with my daughter. She was learning to walk and he wanted to hold her hands and walk the path through my garden. I sat in the weeds I was pulling and said Sure.

For the first time I had seen this little guy he had a real smile on his face. He enjoyed and loved something. I thanked God. Somehow, I knew E. needed this time and so did I.

Every day afterward E. came over when we were outside.

After about two weeks of this his mother came looking for him one evening after dinner.

I will call her T. Just that. T.

She was yelling his name and looking frantic. I came over running to her and told her he was in the bean tee pee reading to my daughter.

I told her I hoped he was not in trouble, but I had asked him if he had permission to be over here. He had said yes.

T said yes, it was fine. She was afraid he had gone down to the river to fish with his little pole after she had told him not to. She was just happy to see him safe.

I invited her to come see.

My garden was NOT a great landscaping feat of French designers. It was just what I thought Peter Rabbit would have grazed in, driving Mr. McGregor mad.

T. sat down hard in the grass and spread her hands throughout. She started crying. Small tears that just slid down her face.

"It is so beautiful," she said.

"My Mom has a garden that is even better than THIS! She can grow ANYTHING!" E. bragged on his mom.

She smiled and wiped her eyes and said "HAD. I HAD a garden like this once."

From there we started sharing our stories of our gardens, our lives, our struggles.

After that E. brought his sister too.

I will call her D. Just that. D.

She was older and wanted to appear above all this mundane stuff.

But soon she was reading books in the bean tee pee too.

Other kids came into the yard one by one more and more every day.

My garden was somewhat a joke to the old Rush County farmers.

Until the drought and my garden did just fine although I rarely watered it.

THEN they started asking me questions. How? Why? When? All the important things.

Then all the kids wanted to have a contest. Who could grow the most? Then the dads wanted to have a contest. Who could grow the hottest peppers? Then the moms wanted to have a contest. Who could preserve the most?

We realized we had become a nice little community out at the cross roads in the middle of a bunch of corn fields.

Then we all became friends.

Then we wanted to help others.

And then we did.

That was how B. had put it one day when I asked him how he could stand this one guy that just used him and used him over and over. "Well, we just shared things til we were friends and we just ARE."

A great many people have lost a good friend today.

God bless B. and T. and D. and E.

-Suzanna