IN MOM'S GARDEN

MOM'S GARDEN

Yesterday was my Mom's birthday.  She would have been 105 years old this year.  Mom was 43 years old when I was born.  She died in 1985.  Of course, I always think of my mom on her birthday, but this year I am feeling particularly wistful as I think of her.

The picture above is one that Mom took of our kitty, Frosty, in her garden. He's walking on top of the vine covered garden fence.  I think I remember her saying that the pretty flowering bush was an aster.  It was huge.  If it isn't an aster, then my memory is faulty.  Mom really knew her plants, trees, and flowers.  The picture was taken in the late 1960's.

Mom always had a great garden.  She grew all kinds of flowers, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, and squash. I wince when I remember being a smart mouth pre-teen and asking her if she had "played" in her garden all day. When her big garden became too much for her, she grew beautiful hanging baskets of flowers.  She enjoyed taking pictures, and considering that she was using what I believe was called a Brownie box camera, and then a Kodak Instamatic for the last several years of her life, I think she got some very good images.



MOM'S BIG CATFISH

And then there was fishing.  Mom loved to fish.  I like this picture of her with the huge catfish that she caught.  You can tell by the look on her face that she is having a hard time holding it up long enough to have her picture taken with it.  The picture was dated 1957.  I would have been three years old.  She caught her big catfish where the Mississippi River and Missouri River converge. 

I WISH I COULD REMEMBER WHAT THEY WERE BOTH  LAUGHING ABOUT WHEN I TOOK THIS PICTURE.

Mom only got to know her sweet little grand daughter for a couple of years.  She never met our son.

So these are some of the people, places, and things that I have been feeling nostalgic for on this soft spring evening. 

Oh Mom, it's springtime!  It's time to "play" in the garden again.