Higher Elevations Mini Mall
Springdale, Washington

Moose Hollow Musings

A Senior Perspective by safin

Hello, I was visiting with your web master DH and she asked me to share this story with you. Last year I bought a beautiful 5 acres that has only one level spot and that is where my trailer sits. I still do not have a garden as there was so much to do to get ready for last winter. I am very fortunate to have friends that share their garden produce with me that I still don’t have mine started. When I do start on it I will have it all in raised beds made out of whatever is cheap and available, and I do understand about composted manure now. It has been 38 years since this story but I still love tomato plants the best. If I share more articles I may want to talk about the wonderful wildlife in my area. I really enjoy wild game to eat as long as it is not “my wild game” so I am not using my name. If you can guess I would ask that you not share it so my moose, bear, deer, turkeys, and coyotes stay alive. Mandy and Napoleon are real names, I couldn’t have made those up. This story came up when my neighbors, a really nice young city couple, asked me how to get started gardening.

MANDY, NAPOLEON AND THE SINGLE TOMATOE PLANT

In the late seventies we lived in Ballard (a suburb of Seattle) in a small early 1900’s 2 bed, 1 bath house on a postage stamp lot. Next door to us lived Mandy and Napoleon with three lots, all in vegetable gardens and flowers. As we were in our late twenties they were ancient in their seventies. Mandy and Napoleon spent every waking hour working in their yard. Their only child was a “Dear Henry” which I had never met. We consisted of my husband, me, a three year old and a new born.

I had great appreciation for people who liked to garden but had not the smallest desire to learn how to do it. I was from the cultural generation where the husband was suppose to work outside the home, come home and does nothing and the wife took care of the kids and everything else by herself without his help. I wanted to be the best wife and mother I could be so tried to fulfill my role as society had taught me it should be – why in heavens name would I want to add gardening to my 4am-12pm schedule. Unfortunately or fortunately with hind site I had a mother-in-law that was an obsessive gardener and thought I should learn how to garden. I still wanted to please her and kept saying someday. The someday came when she bought me a very healthy small tomato plant. I thanked her, took it home and sat it in the back yard and promptly forgot it.

A week later I went to the backyard for something and lo and behold the plant was still alive (it had rained). My thought was – if it is still alive in a week I would try and dig a hole to bury-oops plant it in. The week went by and it was still alive – so good to my thoughts during naptime I decided I would grab a shovel and dig that hole. Unknown to me Mandy and Napoleon had been watching that poor plant and wondering when I was going to do something about it.

Naptime came and the boys for once were both asleep at the same time. I grabbed the shovel and headed to the back yard – feeling good that I could at least tell my mother-in–law I had tried but it died anyway. Guessing which end of the shovel to use I started to dig my hole (the soil was solid clay and dry like cement). In the middle of this torturous process who but Mandy and then Napoleon should come to the fence to supervise my efforts. The 5-minute project was now onto a half an hour as I grabbed the pot with the plant, pulled the plant out and to the screams of the onlookers plopped it roughly into my hole. I looked up astonished at the noises that were coming out of the ancient couple’s mouths. My ears perceived that questions were being asked, something about fertilizer, peat moss, lime and other things that did not connect with any matching thought in my brain. Finally I did understand STOP, FREEZE, I WILL BE RIGHT BACK!!!!!! I took the break to go check on the boys and yes they were both still asleep- why couldn’t they wake up when I needed them.

Returning to the scene of my transgression (which was still not understood by me) I found Napoleon with a wheelbarrow full of strange looking and smelling items. Under careful supervision of Mandy and Napoleon I was given my first gardening lesson. Painful as it was it finally ended 2 hours later with just the correct amount of water being put on the plant and the noise of my boys waking up – no quiet time for mom today.

As the weeks went by I would go out in the back yard (first making sure Mandy and Napoleon were not out) and look at that Tomato Plant. Strange thing it was still alive so I would throw some water on it and it grew into a huge plant. With hindsight I am sure the neighbors must have helped with the watering as no plant could do that good with the lack of care I gave it.

Occasionally I would get caught by the neighbors and get another gardening lesson, something about weeding and staking. With their careful instruction and my resentful attitude the plant thrived and eventually produced 150 tomatoes. One plant – 150 tomatoes. I got hooked by the gardening bug, because of that plant.

Mandy and Napoleon as well as my mother-in-law were thrilled that I now wanted to learn everything they could teach me. My other neighbors were not so thrilled about my new interest. Something about having a truckload of manure dumped in my back yard – they (my teachers) forgot to explain the difference to me of green manure and seasoned manure. The whole neighborhood smelled like a cow pasture for two years.

However, after 8 years of gardening in a 6ft by 30 ft space I had, next to Mandy and Napoleon of course, the best garden soil in the neighborhood and raised enough food to can (that’s another story about beets on the ceiling at midnight) and give away food. I have had years of pleasure and good eating because of my neighbors. I did finally meet their Dear Henry – ancient fellow with gray balding hair and at least in his 50’s.

How our perspective on age changes as we age.

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