A little garden, long, long ago.

I did not grow a vegetable garden until the year or so I lived at Grandma Lavann's ranch.  

Let me back pedal a bit.  I had returned to work at Fairchild Semiconductor after Charlie was born.  He was being babysat by Judy's Mom, known by the nickname of Paddlefoot (honest to God).  

This worked well for awhile.  One day I went to go pick him up after work and Judy showed me some pictures of Charlie. They were the large fancy kind taken by a photography studio.  They were charming pictures and I thanked her effusivly.  This whole episode scared me, my best friend had taken my son to get pictures without telling me. 
  
I began thinking about becoming a stay at home mom.  I eventually asked one of the senior engineers, Don George.  He was absolutely charming, white hair, knew his business and he had the worst body odor of anyone.  Erk.  This lasted until he unexpectedly remarried and his wife cleaned him up considerably.  He no longer stank and his lab coat was clean. God Bless her.

Don's immediate opinion was that if I were his wife, I would not be working.  At that time I had no particularly feminist leanings.  All of my family or friends of family were wives who worked full time being either housewives or farmwives.  No one got divorced, except my aunt Vivian. Dad's sister. The scandal!!

I pondered things for a bit and decided to quit my job, just like that.  I did not discuss it with the then husband as was my custom. I sold my Barracuda back to Mom and Dad in exchange for a bicycle with a kiddy seat.   Charlie and I peddled to the Safeway across the freeway to go shopping.  

This situation went very well for a while. Then the landlord decided to raise the rent.  I completely panicked. I did not want to go back to work at Fairchild.  So, I asked first husband what he thought of living at the ranch.  He could come up on weekends. Charlie and I would live there. 

To this day I do not remember who brokered the permission between Margaret and us but we moved up one weekend.  We stayed in the spare bedroom.

Eventually, Magaret decided that living with a noisy almost two year old was a bit much so she cooked up a scheme to purchase a used trailerhouse.  One was being advertised in Booneville. 

We went to see the owner. Margaret had told me ahead of time that the cost of the trailer was fifteen hundred dollars.  We went to go visit and I was instructed to keep mum while negotiations ensure. Margeret told me that if things stalled at 1200 which was all she was going to offer, that I was to chime in eagerly to say, "Why I have 300 dollars!"  The deal was struck.

Margaret made arrangements with a friend to haul the trailer to the ranch where he parked it below the house in back of a couple of fig trees.  A few weeks later she had a hole dug for a septic tank and that was installed and the trailer was hooked up.

A family friend named, Sam, was a retired electrician. He ran a power line to the wash house and explained that he could not legally hook the wires up but he left very careful directions on how to do it.  He also wired the wash house for the washer and dryer. We were almost in business.

We lived happily for quite some time. I lived there long enough to appreciate the seasonal changes; Grandma standing in the barnyard and bellowing " Come sheep!" and by God they came trotting in from afar to nibble on a scant handful of hay.  Also got to help out with the shearing, helped deliver a dead lamb, help finish stuffing a 20 foot tall bag of wool which we then hauled to the auction barn next valley over. 

I went to the County Fair, they were having a sheep dog contest. The best one was a three legged dog who very speedily herded the six or so sheep about the course. Most impressive.  They were selling BBQ lamb that was delicious. 

At the same fair I saw the most odd looking very large woman.  She was quite tall and weighed 400 lbs or so. She was wearing a very large and long red skirt. That is not so remarkable but from the side, her backside jutted out a good foot straight back, flat as a table.  She could have carried a stack of dinner plates.  And the hem was perfectly even.

At this same County Fair, I had entered the largest pumpkin from my little veggie patch. Which brings us indirectly to my little garden.  Unbelievably I won First Prize and four dollars.  The pumpkin was not very big and it was very lopsided.  I think the fact the Uncle Tony was on the Fair Board may have had something to do with it.

Anyway that was a fun garden.  I learned to love rip figs.  They are a amost unusual fruit, the inside looks kind of creepy until you get used to it but the taste is pretty darn good.

Dennis came up for a visit one time and he said we should go visit the dude manning the fire lookout tower. So we fixed our lunch and took along a whole bunch of ripe figs.  We drove up a mountain side and parked and climbed way way up the fire tower.  It was a neat spot.  The view was truly spectacular.  We were warned to look out for rattlers.  Eek.  The young man who worked there had an old diary of his great or great grands traveling the Oregon trail. I borrowed the book.  It was a routine description of the trip.  The most interesting bit to me was a telling of the wife making chocolate chip cookies at the evening fire.  I found that fascinating and incongruous.

That summer I also learned that ripe figs drop off the trees.  Wasps and bees like the ripe figs and get very drunk.

By the next fall, it was apparent that my marriage was falling apart.  I decided that I would return to Idaho.  I took a lovely oil painting of the seaside to Tony and Letha and got a loan of two hundred dollars cash.  Charlie and I caught a bus to Novato. 

We overnighted there and caught the commuter flight into SFO and the jet to Boise.  I had taken the .222 rifle I received as a first wedding anniversary gift.  I eventually gave it to my brother Richard  who promptly hocked it.  I cared not a whit.

I paid back Tony within six months.  I was able to get work in a fruit packing shed. Mom very handily watched Charlie.  The folks were very supportive.  I got a full time job and full time college within a year and moved to Boise.  

I haven't had a garden since, unless the square yard of lawn counts.  I picked my largest Tupperware bowl and cut out a square of lawn to ship to Barrow, Alaska. It did well enough.  I would get out scissors and mow the lawn every Saturday.  I even planted Bachelor Buttons that  nestled in the grass too anemic to grow up straight and tall even in the 24 hour day.  Oh, well.