The Garden.

So ever since I've started this blog, it drove me nuts that it messed with the colors of my photographs if I enlarged them. Well, ha! I figured it out. 

Turns out, internet explorer just sucks. I know that's not news to many of you, but I guess I having been living in the web browser stone age. Oops. 

But, now from my screen at the very least, my photos finally look correct. I'll just pretend they do for you too. 

Moving on....

I remember when I was just a little thing, and my parents decided it was time for a garden. Mom had dreams of it surrounded by white picket fences complete with a flower covered archway opening. Dad was determinded to make it happen.

And they did it.

Mom painted the fence every year before she lined it with sunflower bulbs, and dad (who built the archway himself) spent hours making sure everything in the garden was planted and ready.

They tried to get us girls to help, but well, that was a lost cause. 

Once the garden was past it's baby stages was when things really started to get interesting. 

I remember....

- running out to the garden on Sunday mornings before church, wanting to see if any new green peppers had grown for dad to put in his famous Sunday morning omellets. 

- searching through the thick leaves trying to find baby cucumbers, which i would pick and eat with a salt shaker in hand, making sure every bite had a little (er...alot) somethin' special.

- picking green beans as a family. this was the worst. but now, i miss it. 

-spending full summer days with my mom and sisters snipping the ends off hundreds of green beans.

we only agreed to do this because we'd get twenty bucks if we had the biggest green bean of the day. 

-squishing tomato worms under my flip flops. it was oddly satisfying. 

- biting into a fresh picked green bean. the pure taste of summer. 

-stealing the sprinkler that was watering the garden and putting it under the trampoline for some fun on hot summer days. 

- looking over the flowers that surrounded the white fence with mom, deciding which would be the best to make a "first day of school" bouquet for our new elementary school teachers. 

- the end of the season tomato fight. us girls and my dad would get as many unpicked tomatoes as we could, and have an all out war with them. we would all end up with stained outfits and hair full of tomato guts. dad would always chase us down and chuck us into the pool before we went inside the house.

..................

 life got hectic as my sisters and i grew older and the garden became just another thing on the to-do list.

the archway still stands, and when the time is right, mom makes sure to plant beautiful flowers along the fence. 

 but beyond the fence, there is no garden.

no more green beans. no more cucumbers. no corn or green pepper. no tomatoes, or tomato fights. 

and the flowers that get planted no longer are given in bouquets to teachers.

we're growing up.

 and although i have days where i'm feeling rather nostalgic, i can't be sad about it because i had the best childhood. 

i grew up surrounded by nature, and filled with love everyday. 

and that is only something to celebrate. 

 -Kelsey