Thursday, February 4, 2010
Feeding the Family: The Garden, Part 1
The sun was hot, the days were long, the dirt was dry, the row was endless and the weeds were numerous. My brother Tommy and I had the job of weeding the garden. Rows were assigned and a timeline given ("Before supper"). Tommy didn't seem to mind. He hurried through his rows, yanking up all the weeds, staying ahead of me. I tried to keep up for awhile, but daydreams and the hot sun soon slowed me down. It wasn't long before Tommy started using the hoe, working between the larger plants. I was still on my hands and knees, pulling every weed around the peas and the beans. "Isn't it lunch time yet?" I asked again and again. Kool-aid and cookies sounded really good. Yes, this is how many days of my summer vacation went. Planting the garden was fun - it was early in the year, it was cooler, the dirt was black and moist, and the planting seemed to go fast. But this weeding business was very tiresome and b-o-r-i-n-g. This was no back-yard garden, after all; this was a small field. Row after long row of vegetables: peas, carrots, beans, beets, corn, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, lettuce, radishes, watermelon, tomatoes, and more. Eventually, the plants were bigger than the weeds would ever get. I anticipated the reprieve. But the real work was soon to begin - time to harvest the bounty.
If you knew weeding was so miserable, why did you inflict it on us when we were kids?! Remember that huge garden out in the country? I still have nightmares about it! lol
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