~and I thank God for good memories~

I was looking through some old photos last night and came across several of them that were taken back home in Reno County, Kansas.  They were pictures of my house back there, the one that is very soon to be up for sale.  They all brought back a flood of memories and every single one of them were good.  As a matter of fact they were better than good.

They were great ones!

One picture in particular caught my eye.  It was the one that showed the garden that I made in the spring of 2010.  Hard to believe that 5 years ago have now passed since then but indeed they have.  The produce grown is now long forgotten but looking at the picture helped me to remember what it took to put everything into place.

From the looks of the rows of potatoes, you would have thought I was preparing to feed an army of folks.  In reality it was just me but why plant one row when you could easily plant 8 rows?  I can remember waiting anxiously for the first signs to go into the window down at the local market on South Main advertising the various kinds of potatoes that I loved to plant.  Just as soon as they were on the shelves, I would hurry down and pick up about twenty pounds of them.  It does seem like quite a bunch, now that I have said it. 

My mom taught me how to prepare seed potatoes for planting when I was just a little kid.  She told me about making sure each piece that you cut had a little "eye" on it.  I watched her a gazillion times laying them out into the rows in fairly even spaces, covering them up with soil and then proceeding to walk over the rows to set them firmly into place.  By the time I was married and making gardens of my own, planting potatoes was easy!  It was the waiting for them to sprout that was hard.  

I put lots of things into that garden back in 2010.  There were a dozen tomato plants, pepper plants, onions, and gourds.  Russian Mammoth sunflowers stood like sentinels around the garden's edges.  It did so well that year I was able to give away lots of the bounty from it to family and friends.  It took a lot of watering, plenty of weeding, and layers of mulching material but when it was finished, I was glad that I had done it.  The next year was the year of "old lefty" and after that, well after that I began to slow down a bit as far as gardening was concerned.

But at least for 2010, that old backyard soil worked its special "magic" for this Kansas farm girl.  

The backyard provided a sanctuary for me, especially during some challenging and lonely moments in time.  It was a place that I could dig in the dirt and experiment a bit in the growing of different flowers and vegetables.  I loved that soil and believe me when I tell you that I could go out there and literally "play" in it all day long.  There was something about the feel of that fine south-central Kansas soil as it ran through my fingers.  Unless you are there to experience it for yourself, you probably can't even imagine it.  Trust me when I say it though.  

It felt good.

I will be happy when the house goes on the market tomorrow evening and I will be even happier when the right person comes along to purchase it.  I've already packed up the memories and taken them with me when I left in 2013.  It seems a strange thing about memories though.  As each passing day goes by, I find myself remembering more and more of them and you know what?

I kind of like that.
See you today dear Kansas.

It's a great old backyard.