Writers' Corner ~ Down At The Country Store

Down at the country store everyone was assembled around the old stove, now absent of heat, talking about their proposed gardens for the spring and summer. Aunt Bessie was asking Caleb if he would make her one of those wooden whirl-a-gigs that he was famous for. She swore that they kept off the pesky crows.

Uncle Elmer was talking about how down at the co-op that had this stuff you put around the parameter of your garden to keep Flopsey and Mopsey out. The store owner, Pap, said “With a little encouragement, I’d go for it.” He always was for new and innovative things. He wasn’t particularly fond of “Flopsey and Mopsey getting into his radish patch and cutting down on his produce money, even if his grandchildren still believed in the Easter bunny and he hid a basket full of Easter eggs in his yard every year for them to find.

Ted, the local postmaster, was sure he would get an e-mail any day now about the wild flowers he had ordered on line for his wife because she liked to carry a pocket full of posies from the edge of the garden once a week to arrange on her kitchen table.

Bob, the local sheriff, was reading from a week old newspaper laying on the counter that had been left by Pastor Michael who had been in on Saturday past to buy a bag of compost for the flower beds around the front of the little church down the lane. Bob, was reading out loud the latest weather predictions for gardening when out of the blue, sister Bethel exclaimed that she would just wait for her neighbors to offer her their excess from their gardens because gardens were too much work. “I can’t believe I said that”, she exclaimed in an embarrassed tone. I will help out at the community garden like I should and take something home from there. Everyone smiled and nodded as they knew sister Bethel was 300 pounds if an ounce and couldn’t bend or stoop very good. They would give her tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers as always, left on her door step on Sunday morning without a word. After all, she did help out at the Sunday school picnic every year with home made biscuits and apple butter.

Soon the morning chatter gave way to everyone going their own way to get chores done and to make more garden plans.

The time of planting has finally come.
The winter’s over and spring has begun.

The birds are twittering in the trees,
And I’m hungry for Grandpa’s “Big Boys”, My oh Me!

Red juicy “Big Boys” ripe on the vine,
Makes me for the old days pine.

Lettuce, cucumbers, dill and more,
Not like anything that came from a store.

Grandma’s pickles in the Mason jars,
Rhubarb, lettuce, cabbage, potatoes not brought home in the car.

Hot summer days, hoeing and weeding,
No one found wanting and no one needing.

Aprons and hats go “cross” the yard,
Full of goodies to can until they’re “tard”.

Everyone shares down at Grandma and Grandpa’s house,
No one leaves hungry, not even a mouse.

In honor of those who have lost their lives in the current war in Iraq.

~Writers' Corner: INDEX~