The Garden

The cows were in the garden again! One of the farmhands must have left the gate open and of course they headed strait for my mom’s garden. Mom would go chasing the cows out of her garden back through the gate. I would help her by yelling at the cows and waving my hands like Ade had taught me. When they were all back, we shut the large swinging gate and secure it with the chain.

I thought it was kind of funny when the cows got out. My mom didn’t think so. It happened so often, my mom decided to try and protect her garden by putting an electric fence around it. While mom weeded the garden, sometimes we would put long grasses on the electric fence and moving it up as far as we could until we got shocked.

Mom had a huge garden. It was right next to the pear tree that grew behind the garage. In the spring dad would till the garden and we helped mom plant the seeds and seedlings. Mom grew strawberries, peas, sweet corn, rhubarb, cucumbers, beets, pumpkins, and winter squash. Mom taught us how to weed the garden. She taught us which were plants and which were weeds.

I remember the first time I ever dressed myself. My mom was already outside working in the garden in the cool morning, so I put on my clothes and headed out. Apparently, I didn’t do so well, because she laughed hysterically as she saw I had put everything on backwards and my shoes were even on the wrong feet.

I loved eating the things we grew in the garden. Especially the peas. The best peas in the world are garden fresh peas that you shuck from the pods yourself.