For A Girl Who Didn't Pull Weeds. . . Gardening Is A Strange Bedfellow

For as long as I can recall the division has been clear. Geoffrey is the gardener and I am the quilter, weaver,spinner,knitter and most important animal person. So how the heck did I go from that to this?

It is a mystery to me. Our first garden in 1972 or so was my idea. After harvesting a copious amount of cantaloupe, it makes everyone look like a hero, Geoffrey shook his head and took over. I was happy to pull out the counted cross stitch and scratch the dogs head.

Then we entered the barren years for me. Well garden wise we added two Irish Setters to the mix, I was in love. I went back to school eyeballing a zoology major and got pregnant. Um school had nothing to do with that part. Except that part now known as our son was my focus and the dogs.

A few years passed and a second addition came along our daughter. I decided that I had found my calling with critters and children. Heck I even killed off multiple African Violets just to prove plants and I did not hit it off. 

 The two footed and four got older. A Border Collie x Aussie joined the mix and we moved to the county. Then there were goats. And chickens , drop calves , 4-H , bigger gardens not mine. I stayed in livestock and companion/ working dog land. Canning 150 quarts of our garden bounty was as close as I got to the garden each year.

Well time passed again, has an interesting way of doing that. I met medicinal herbs. I made soap, I made honey and infused it with herbs. And I started to grow herbs. But I was still firmly entrenched in the animal kingdom.

Then we moved to the Log House on Ash Creek. A really weird thing happened there. I found myself really involved in the gardening gig. I kept the garden alive and growing when Geoffrey was hospitalized for close to a month. It was as if that was the point of being bitten by a serious interest in plants.

Then I read an article in Mother Earth News on how to build a greenhouse with a dog kennel. That was another push forward . Grow food in the winter ? How cool would that be?

When one really thinks of it gardening, livestock and children all have something in common for  me.

They all require nurturing. And I have found in the later years of life that nurturing is something I am pretty good at. I think this dirt gig is not such a bad spot to land.