Making precious childhood memories in the garden

Malia planting pea's.... her favorite veggie and the first thing she's planted by herself.

By the standards most of the people of the world live by today we live a pretty slow and simple life here on this tiny homestead. Malia and I are 50 yrs apart in age. I'll be 60 this year and she just turned 10. It's just her and I here. We have no family locally and I homeschool her. She''s been with me since Thanksgiving day 8 yrs ago. We don't have tv most of the year because we're too rural for the local channels and if we have satellite we watch too much so I have it turned off a lot. At 10 she's read a lot of the classics...Black Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, The Yearling and a number of others. We talk of her going back to school so she has more contact with other children and more than likely she'll be in 4H this year, homeschooled or not.

Some people would think it's a great way to raise a kid in today's world and others might consider it child abuse....no tv or video and only books, the woods and life for fun. Either way, it's our life. We have the animals...the pigs, goats, chickens, dogs and cats. And that's great and can, at times be very exciting, like at baby time. But I know in my heart some of her very best memories will be of our garden time.

Every day we start out the same. She gets the chickens out while I head out to the garden with a cup of coffee. She joins me and we walk and look. We talk about what's bigger or what's not bigger; what bugs there are, what flowers are blooming and in plants like the squash or pumpkins, if it's the male or female flowers doing the blooming. Sometimes we stop and pick something. We talk of the great meals we will have this winter with what we are growing. We watch the bee's do their busy work and walk somemore holding hands taking it all in. It's a routine that is quietly solid. She never fails to tell me " We sure have a great garden Grandma". And I know these moments more than any others we share daily will stay in her heart and memory all her life as a time every day of love.

A treasure found

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