DocAndersen
Dad loved growing things. From fruit trees to asparagus. Tomatoes and various types of onions. He used to grow plants with the biological defense. That system is where you plant vulnerable plants in the interior, with resistant plants on the outside. This can be as simple as tomatoes in the middle, and opinions on the outside. Or as complex as potatoes in the middle and marigolds on the outside (it was a flower, I don’t remember which one actually). If I am honest the four, five and six years old me loved being in the garden. Then around my 10th birthday, I got to mow half the yard. But got to, it means I was told I was now mowing the front yard. I stopped liking gardening after that.
Not that mowing took away my love of gardening. Just that it a job. I know my love of snow went away when it became shoveling the driveway. I still love walking in snow, but I am not a fan of it, snow, sticking on the ground. The one thing that never translated for me was helping my grandfather with the boats on the lake. I worked harder then, but it never became a job. I suspect there is a reality of your grandparent. During the family history project, I found out that my father’s father was around a lot more than I remembered. As children, our memories aren’t as static as they become later on as adults. As an Adult, I have to remember certain things all the time.
As a child, you are filled with wonder and sometimes wonder things away. It doesn’t explain my painting rowboats, or cleaning off the speed boat didn’t feel like work. Mowing always felt like work to me. Although I remember many summers sweating more doing the rowboats than I ever did doing the mowing. Gardening perhaps was more than it took my father away. Dad was always in the garden. I wonder now, looking back and missing him if I was jealous of the garden. That gardening represented what took my father away from playing catch. My grandfather and I cleaned the rowboats together. I mowed by myself. By 11 I had to mow the whole yard. I wonder, if I was jealous of his garden.
