My desire to grow a garden began as a little girl in my great grandmother’s garden. Grandma Hannah, as I called her, grew a garden out of necessity to begin with but by the time I came around it was grown out of a love for the garden. Every summer, she let me explore and pick purple and yellow coneflowers out of her garden. I would wander through the green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and flowers to climb the cherry tree or swing on the old wooden rope swing. She let me pick flowers and helped me make beautiful arrangements out of them. At Grandma Hannah’s house we used wooden rolling pins and cooked meals from scratch. She put flowers in the kitchen window and washed dishes by hand. We painted or played dominoes around the kitchen table. She taught me you can sew your own clothes and hang them on the line to dry using wooden clothes pins. She taught me so much. Those memories seem like a beautiful dream now. As a child, I didn’t realize everything Grandma Hannah was teaching me, but she taught me how to homestead. I just didn’t know it yet. She is long gone and my desire to garden did not come until years after she had passed away, but her garden and what she taught me all those years ago has inspired me to homestead. I wish she could have taught me more but I hope to learn and share what I do know with others who are looking for the same.
