My Garden on the PicnicTable

The Bishop ask that all of us plant a garden of some kind, so I did. all on an old picnic table, right out on my patio! Now it began with 4 tomatoes and 4 pepper plants. Well, it kind of grew as the days went on. I now have 7 tomatoes and 4 peppers and 3 little pots of cucumbers and one squash, and 3 pans of beans and a container of garlic and one of green onions! Now whether or not they will produce is left to be seen, but I have 4 small tomatoes and 2 tiny peppers already!

My Mississippi roots are deep in the soil! I loved growing up in the country and watching my granddaddy grow his garden and work on his farm. I loved being able to see calves born, and chickens hatched and oh what fun it was to find a fresh bunch of little biddies and to watch as the mother hen gathered them under her wings just as I read in the scriptures about the Savior gathering Isreal under his wings! I saw first hand what it was to work" by the sweat of your brow". and in doing so I learned the importance and the joy that comes from a job well done!

I followed Daddy Kees all over his farm. I watched him sharpen plows in his blacksmith shop and helped him haul hay and even picked a little cotton(remember the story of the shoes and how I had to pick cotton to buy them) I went with him when he took his cotton to the gin, I was there at the grist mill when they ground his corn into cornmeal! I can remember going to the cane mill and watching them make syrup out of sugar cane! What fun i had.

When the vegetables were ready to can, Daddy and Mama Kees worked together, and we had "canning days" and as they worked they told wonderful stories of their childhood and of their children's! I loved to count the jars of beans or tomatoes, or corn! They kept a log of how many they had, and i finally figured out that they would can all they needed and then share with the neighbors! We picked blackberries and made jam and plums and made jelly! Always using the wonderful gifts that Heavenly Father had placed on the farm(blackberry bushes, figs, plums, and pear trees) to make food and store it for the winter! Each week in the summer brought a different fruit or vegetable and they were ready and prepared to work until all was harvested.
What a wonderful education I received on that farm and how simple it was but yet all that was needed was there!

I could never understand why my cousins were so excited to come and visit and see the animals and the garden and drink all the milk they wanted! They would um and aw as Mama Kees fried chicken and had homeade bisquits and cornbread and corn on the cob and butterbeans and I thought, what is wrong with them? You know it was not until years later that I knew what a wonderful life I had as a child! And I am so grateful to be able to share it, for as I look at my little picnic table full of plants my mind wanders back to Fair Oak springs and Daddy and Mama Kees and the "salt of the earth' people that they were!