As we enter the spring season, and we are blessed with warmer temperatures, my mind turns towards making things grow. Life is a bit different this year, and the growing season could not come soon enough.
This year we decided to replace our light-weight tiller with something a little sturdier. I am frugal, (my children call it something else) and the thought of spending $700 plus on something that you use a couple times a year was just not sitting right with me. So I called my father.
My father quit gardening a couple years ago after heavy rains washed his garden away, but I knew he had an old tiller that had been my grandfather’s. He said we were welcome to use i,t but that it was going to need a tune up. So we went out on a Saturday morning, and while social distancing we prepped “the old girl” for use.
When I say old, I mean old. She starts by wrapping a rope around the starter and pulling. The best we could figure my grandfather had bought it in the 40’s. She has prepped many gardens and is still running like a champ. I am happy to report his year is no exception.
While digging in the dirt, you have time to think about life and memories pop up just like the seeds that you sow. Working in the garden felt like punishment as a child. This thought turns to memories of the kids complaining about picking green beans. As adults, they happily take from my garden but do not aspire to anything more than a few tomato plants in their own.
Every gardener plants their garden with hope. There is the chance that you spend all that time and energy only to have a drought, rabbits, deer, or too much rain. Some years are better than others, but with the same perseverance as a Cleveland Indians fan, we plant in the spring with the hope that “This is our year!”
This year as I dig in the dirt, and my mind wanders, I hope for bright futures for my children, and I pray that the lessons we have learned while the world has slowed down stay with us longer than the virus.
-Sally Espenschied, Library Assistant