Do you have a green thumb? Do you desire to grow a garden? Have you ever picked your own vegetables straight out of a garden bed, brushed them off and bitten into a freshly picked one? I have, many, many grateful times.
Growing up we had a garden. We had 6 giant raised beds in our yard, 4 huge patches of raspberries, one strawberry pot and bed, and 6 flower beds in all. Our yard was AMAZing thanks to my mom’s keen eye for horticulture and my dad’s brawn. We grew every thing imaginable, but the most successful of all were: carrots, peas, zucchini, cabbage, raspberries, cauliflower, chives, marigolds, forget-me-nots, Sitka roses, current berries, irises, ferns, and Mountain Ash trees.
In Anchorage, Alaska the soil is fertile and your crops will inevitably, well how do I put this mildly, grow to become ginormous.
We once had a cabbage that grew to be larger than the size of me grown, a grown seven year old. To this day I have never seen produce larger than that found in Anchorage. At the Alaska state fair you can feast your eyes on just about every type of vegetable imaginable and see it magnified. It’s a sight to see and enjoy if there ever was one.
Debbie and I both especially loved our sugar snap peas and raspberries. If I’m correct in my recollections….raspberries are your favorite of the berries right Debbie?! 🙂
One particular late summer afternoon we had a few colander’s full of raspberries in the kitchen. Mom taught us to rinse them out, lay out cookie sheets with paper towels and dump the berries onto the towel to dry.
Debbie and I would probably each about a quarter of the berries by the time we traipsed in the door, to the kitchen, rinsed and washed the berries and laid them out to dry. Debbie was working away, I was stuffing my cheeks with berries. Mom walked in and at that exact moment Debbie gagged. She’d been eating berries too, but she didn’t look at the last one she’d popped into her mouth. “Gahhhhhhh, cough, gulp, I think I just swallowed a bug she gasped,” between breaths. Mom looked at her dead pan and said, “Protein,” and walked away. I looked at Debbie, she looked at me, and we both looked at mom. Who proceeded to state, “Grandma Lilli always said, “A little dirt won’t hurt you, and a bug is just extra protein.”
“If you say so,” I thought to myself, but gosh I was sure glad it wasn’t me on the receiving end of: the bug in mouth line.
Who knew that we were having a life lesson in that moment in time?!
Sparkle on, and watch out for bugs. Hahaha, I know….not really funny….but it kind of is… love you! xoxo
Dear Mom, Your words have rung true when I’ve been on many a run and swallowed something as it flew into my mouth… ewww, I cringe even writing it, but ti’s true, you’re right…it’s merely….protein.
Love you Debbie! Watch out for extra protein opportunities today. Haha, I love you! 🙂
startwithsparkles 