Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Farm Hand

My daughter, Kitten, tenderly checks on the first tray of seedlings she has ever planted.



Her little hands are a perfect size for handling the teeny tiny seeds.

I don’t think she realizes there will be countless more seed trays in her future, now that we know she can do it!

 I hope Kitten will later appreciate that she grew up on a farm and learned how to do things like growing vegetables.

 When I was a child, my mother was often upset by the laziness um, inefficiencies of me and my sister.

 Mom was a farm girl herself, and seems to rarely sit down in the course of a day.

 Her frustration would be especially keen after her visits to a local farm to buy fresh eggs. It was a large farm with a larger family, all working hard together.

 My sister and I would spot her returning from such a visit, and only then would any action take place.

Popsicle sticks were thrown down, the TV switched off, feet lifted off the coffee table, and magazines stuffed under the nearest pillow.

We would often grab a dish, a spoon, or a broom - anything we could find to make it look like we were in the midst of doing something productive.

My mother was never fooled.

She always had a litany of how busy the farm children had been during her visit. It always seemed to end with “..and the three year old was standing on a stool mixing up a cake!”.

 To think that I’ve come from that slothfulness to living and working on a farm myself, is a cosmic joke on my teenage self.

 But not a bad one.

2 comments:

  1. Your post today made me chuckle. I remember being rather lazy myself, when I was a kid. My own children are more helpful around the house than I was. But then, I've encouraged them in this since they were very young, even when they didn't do things perfectly.

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  2. I think you've got the right idea that perfection is not as important as just trying to do something helpful.

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