Grandparent's Day

I had a very busy day, but not much of it was in my garden. I did water everything first thing this morning at 7:00. I did a few other chores including laundry. Then I took Papaw Melvin and Rubel to Hardees. This is a great social joint for my grandparents. I love how everyone has to come over to our booth to talk with Papaw, he is so popular! Then back at their house I helped stake some tomato plants, and then we rode his golf cart down to his son, Butch's pond. (My grandparents gave both of their children pieces of land on their property. All the houses are close together, Butch's is behind my parents, but they have a path from my Papaw's house to Butches through the woods, very cool!!) My Papaw has Macular Degeneration so he see nothing but shadows, but he loves to tell me where t he path is and to make sure I don't fall into the big ditches along the way! At the pond we fed bread to the stocked rainbow trout pond. Actually it is not just one pond. There is a very small goldfish pond, a medium size trout pond, and then the big pond that you can use a paddle boat in. During our trip we were joined by Butch, Monica, and three of the grandchildren, and Cindy the dog, all arriving on another golf cart! Butch has a severe case of muscular dystorphy, but never complains a bit and completes an amazing amount of work even though some days he can barely get moving out of bed. (He spends a good bit of the winter in Florida, because the sunny weather helps with his pain.) I paddled around wtih the kids in the pond and then went back up the hill to Papaws.

From there I was off to my grandma Margaret's house. He had a big day planned to make strawberry jam. I do the berry picking and she gets the materials together and then we cook together. I got to pour the jam into the jars and discovered how sloppy I was with dripping jam down the sides of the jar. I was forgiven since we had enough jam for a whole extra jar. Then I asked grandma about her cherry tree outback that was loaded with berries. She said she had already collected all the ones that she could reach. Neither one of us like to see anything that delicious go to waste so I asked about ladders and off we went to pick some more. Grandma didn't use the latter. We quickly had enough to make seven jars of jam. Grandma started talking about cherry pies so I went and picked some more to have some to take home and freeze for a pie attempt later. I had never picked cherries and I learned a few new things. Her cherries were not very sweet and not the best for snacking on uncooked. When we started to deseed them she went over how to spot the possible worms. If the seed is a little discolored, kinda black then you probably have a worm. We found about five altogether and sure enough the seeds were blackish. I also saw a picture of the first year the cherry tree was blooming. Her son Larry was in the picture, the tree was his height and he could have reached all the berries. Sure enough that night the weather dropped and a freeze killed all the blooms. This happened again last year but I'm sure that first year was the worst. So I went home with five strawberry jars, seven cherry, and a bag of raw cherries, not bad! Of course I'll be giving several away. Grandma kept some of the strawberry.

One funny story from the day. I packed some squash and kale to take to both grandparents. When at Papaw's house I took in my bag containing some jars and the veggies. I put some in the fridge for him and Rubel and left the squash for grandma in the bag at their house. We went to Hardees and when we got back Rubel's granddaughter was there (she is a registered nurse that helps out there on a regular basis) and she was frying up a huge load of squash. She had just recently told me how much she liked squash and would eat it as quick as I could bring it and I guess she wasn't kidding. So no squash for grandma Margaret. Erica truly couldn't have had any idea that I was saving that bag for later. There is always more squash though!!

I have to leave this post saying that I am soooooo thankful and blessed to still have my grandparents to spend time with. It is one of my favorite things actually about being back close to home and having my summers off. I have more time for visiting!